The advantages of fishing close

Decided to venture out on a blustery rainy night to try out a new spot in the harbour. The location was an old pontoon I used to use for crabbing when I was younger, and where I introduced my own kids to the noble art of crabbing as well.

The tide was roughly an hour up from low so I started at the very end of the pontoon and soon had a large mackerel bait fishing. The rain and the wind where awful, and it wasn't long before I started to wonder just what the hell I was doing sat there exposed on the end of a pontoon. As the tide progressed I moved up with the tide until eventually I was fishing the very start of the pontoon, and close to the harbour shoreline as usual.

The weather had now calmed, and after a couple of hours of nothing I decided as the water was so still to explore with my head torch, and see if there were any bass working along the shoreline. I reeled in and rested my rod against my chair and wandered off.

I had worked my way along to a point where there is a sharp bend, and just as I turned the corner, huge raindrops smashed down on the once flat sea accompanied by a strong blustery wind. I turned around to make my way back, but within seconds it all stopped and was calm once again, so I slowly made my way back still searching along the shoreline.

When I arrived back - my tackle my rod and chair had disappeared, 'You bastards' I think I shouted out loud - someone had nicked my chair and rod! But looking around it didn't make sense as they had left my rucksack and bait bucket. I put my headtorch back on and started looking up and down the pontoon, until I noticed in the corner of my eye the top of my chair roughly two feet under water. On closer inspection I could see it was resting on top of my rod. 

It now dawned on me that the earlier squall must have picked up my chair, along with my rod, and dumped it all into the water. Laying on the pontoon and reaching down, I couldn't quite reach the top of my chair, but luckily I had brought along with me a small landing net. So I was able to scoop up the chair arm and pull the chair up. The only piece of good fortune was the line had wrapped itself along the other arm which meant the rod followed the chair.

Wet and a little bit annoyed with myself I resumed fishing again before deciding that perhaps I should go home and try my best to salvage the reel. So that is what I did.