Chesil Beach.

Nearly forgot probably the most remarkable of my one off incidents which took place many years ago when we used a friends caravan at Bowleaze Cove, near Weymouth for a weeks holiday    Used to take my pike tackle with me to do a little sea fishing and one day visited the famous steep pebble bank called Chesil beach where I was going to spin or feather for mackerel.

Well I arrived and set up and there were quite a few anglers already there.  After an hour or so I noticed that they had gathered in a group a couple of hundred yards up the the  beach where it looked like they huddled around someone playing a fish.  I was curious as to what was going on so walked up towards them.   When I was perhaps 40 yards away from them the sea along the beach edge suddenly boiled as dozens, possibly hundred of mackerel were jumping out onto the gravel all around my feet.   I had no idea whatsoever what was going on. The mackerel did not stay stranded but thrashed around until the slope took them back down into the water.

The other guys witnessed this and it transpired that the angler they were gathered around was into a big fish.  They reckoned it was a shark but hard to tell as they never saw it. It could have been a Tope  It appeared that during the fight the fish had swung back towards the beach and swam alongside it close in right where I had been walking.  The mackerel shoal obviously thought they were under attack and took whatever evasive action they could.  The guy with the rod played the fish for another few minutes at which point it simply headed out to sea never to be see again, to much anguish.

I was reminded of this incident many years later at the Nyth where on hot summer evenings trout herded minnows into the very fast water at the head of a pool called Jack Dunn and went on the attack.  Minnows acted like the mackerel and jumped out onto rock ledges just above the waterline to escape the trout.  They however had another problem.  Not only myself but a couple of crows witnessed this regular event too and were often to be seen scurrying around on the rocks trying to catch the minnows before they managed to get back in.

The trout were of course suckers for a natural minnow as bait. Easy pickings for everyone!!