As it was a bright, sunny dawn I thought I'd tempt fate on Friday 13th by going out to Osmington before the showers hit, fishing a bit to the right of the pub carpark in an area known as Black Head. I'd intended walking with the dog all way up to Redcliff but a combination of age and laziness got the better of me 
It wasn't a total calm but not that bad, and I got there about an hour into the flood so conditions were as good as they get at Osmington for wading 
As I had brought both a spinning rod and a fly rod with me I decided to have a flick out with a dexter to see if any Mackerel were about whilst the kettle boiled for coffee. I'm going to have to design a floating tray that I can tow as I wade to put my coffee mug on as it was quite a juggling act to hold the mug and rod in one hand whilst reeling in with the other 
Anyone that saw me standing waist deep in water, drinking coffee whilst casting would have got a fairly accurate picture of my mental condition 
Needless to say - I blanked with the Mackerel 
A bit of bird activity suggested that something was around and moving near enough to the shore for me to risk a cast or two so I switched to a string of sabikis. After a couple of casts I pulled in a few small Herring (?) which encouraged me enough to go back to shore and rig up the fly rod with a silver/white Sparse Clouser. Although I get a lot of practice at fly casting I'm still not the world's best at gaining distance on a light fly so had to content myself with dropping the fly into the middle of the activity instead of beyond it and retrieving through the shoal. The first few casts were useless as the fly wouldn't sink fast enough before wave activity carried it away from the hot spot but I eventually worked out where to cast and was rewarded with a good tug which didn't develop into a bite.
Two or three more casts got me another 'tail' bite rather than a full bite but I was getting excited so snipped off the clouser dressing to make it shorter and cast out again, this time to a good 'thump' as I struck into a firm bite of a kicking, struggling monster of a fish ....!!!
This turned out to be a smallish Mackerel of about 1lb but in my defense it fought well above it's weight I waded back to shore, switched to feathers on the spinning rod again and caught a couple more Mackerel for lunch.
Not a blank, but not a Bass either... I wish I'd decided to walk up to Redcliff.... Perhaps tomorrow
