Had a look at the forecast all week and there was only a short window this morning but Guildford was going to be still all morning so decided it was time to keep the cover on the boat and take the dinghy out for spin. Got down the Fishmarket Reserve at 6:30am and was the only one there and the water was magic with the tide still up.

I've been really struggling on the bream as of late and have been down the last 3x in a row for 3 donuts whereas two summers ago I was killing it every session and I've even considered selling the dinghy after yet another depressing failure.

Decided not to mess around and headed straight for my honey hole which is a large flat sandy area with structure and reeds either side but even this area has been very unkind to me lately. First cast with my hardbody at my favourite bit of structure and I was half heartedly retrieving it and my 1-3kg rod and 1000 reel went nuts but I just wasn't ready for him and committed a rookie offence and gave him just enough slack to throw the treble. What followed was pretty much a hit a cast and pulling in so many bream I lost count ranging from rats to around the 25cm mark. I pulled out the popper for a crack but no tackers so it was back to the hardbody for more medium sized bream and a Billy Bunter.

As fun as it was I decided I need to add a 30+ to the morning's effort so started working the deeper snags I've pulled big models out of but didn't get so much as a tickle so I headed down to a shallowish rockwall where I know the big boys also hang out and slowly trolled along it with the electric motor and I was on bigtime. He was taking as much line and I was getting back and it was an effort to keep him out of the rocks and away from the snag he kept heading for but once I got him into deeper water I knew I had him and played him back to the dinghy. He went 36 and was a big fat fooker and I took a quick couple of snaps and sent him back along with the others to duel another day.