So it was off to Shoreham lighthouse in East Sussex to meet up with a few of the regulars to go fishing from the wrecks and reefs of Brighton. With my companion Luke we had an early start from Eastbourne and arrived at the meeting point in good time after grabbing bait and refreshments on the way.
It was all a new thing for Luke who has his own fishing boat moored in the Harbour at Eastbourne.
He came along for the crack.
Arriving at the lighthouse we were met by lots of eager rowers with their extremely long rowing boats. Apparently there was a funday event set up by the rowing club and RNLI with bouncy castles and the like going on throughout the day.
After a quick set up with others from the group checking out the new goods and smiles all round we all got going without any delays with some of us starting our engines for the first time after the winter break.
I was still molding myself in to this new boat, getting to grips with the new seating compared to the Takacat. It was only my second time after the short run out from Lymington a few weeks earlier for the magazine photo shoot so I was still a bit nervous. It wasn't long before we arrived at Brighton with the Lowrance fish finder quickly pin pointing our target mark using Navionics app to get to the coords. Luke was happy as Larry with a big grin on his face that matched mine. The rods were quickly set up and bait was down within minutes. No need to anchor as we were at slack water.
Sticking close by to the others it wasn't long before fish were being caught. Some small Plaice, bream and whiting to begin with. Luke was having success straight away while I was struggling to get off the mark. I was more concerned with making sure the boat was playing ball, that's my excuse.
We went to various marks in the end and got to give the engine a good run to see how Hydrus handled the water. We seemed to have it balanced well and were hitting some good speeds while staying more comfortable than normal so I was very happy with that. Sometimes at speed you do get thrown around a bit as a passenger up front.
A few marks later, a few Mackerel surprisingly caught and with time getting on we decided to drift back to Shoreham while we still had good light.
Arriving back at the lighthouse we were greeted by a Seal show from a team of SUB users.
One seal actually jumping on top of a board with the girl paddling away with the crowd from the Funday event cheering on.
So most if not all of us that were out managed to catch apart from me, I think there was about 12 of us in total from 5 boats that went out.
Was nice to catch up with the regulars as well as a couple of newcomers and I'm sure it wont be long before we're out again.
All in all the boat handled really well.
Where to next?