Double Figure Bass from Dover Admiralty Pier

Late autumn 1993, I'd read about several good sized bass that had been landed from the Admiralty Pier at Dover.

The article had indicated that pieces of mackerel had been the bait of preference and aside from some nice photo's, there was not much about 'How' they were caught...

A few years before, when I had been running a hotel in Deal (just up the road from Dover), I had fished on the Admiralty and the Breakwater at least once a week. The water was deep with a strong tidal current and the fishing was usually productive. So, even though the article was without details of tactics, my wife & I set off for a days fishing in Dover.

We set from Basingstoke good and early to arrive at the pier for about 10am. Without a tide chart, we'd decided on fishing the whole day. To be honest, at the Admiralty, there was always something on the go.

There were already about 40 anglers on the first half of the pier, so we walked on past them and went as far as we could which was about fifty yards from the very end. The fenced off light house prevents you from fishing any further along.

As I set up, another angler laden with gear, trudged towards us. He set up right next to us and asked what we were after. Once he'd learnt that we were here for the Bass, he said to use a 6oz fixed wire lead with a Pennell Rig (6/0 & 4/0) on a TEN foot flowing trace. Bait up with a whole freshly caught and bloody mackerel fillet. He said that not much would happen until the tide turned for the ebb.

This all sounded as though the man had plenty of local experience. He said he'd been every day for the last week. "How may have you caught" I asked... "No Bass yet, but plenty of Mackerel"... His reply did not fill me with enthusiasm, but were were here so we'd give it our best shot.

The Mackerel were big and plentiful and as the tide turned, I readied a rig for casting. The man said to 'uptide' the rig close to the pier wall and DON'T go far from the rod.

Bait out, I continued with another rod to bag up with Mackerel.

Less than 10 minutes later my rod bounced up and the line went slack... That's a bite the man said. Wind till you feel it and set the hooks.

I wound down with my Diawa 7HT mounted on a Diawa TDPK13m beach casting rod. The line tightened quickly and as soon as I set the hook, I know that this was a good one. It took off in the direction of the end of the pier wall and most likely to try and go around the end in towards the harbour which would almost certainly have spelled disaster.

I jumped up onto the wall edge and held hard to turn the fish. Now, Admiralty Pier is about 40 foot to the water and it was a tad windy on the day. Undeterred, I wanted my Bass.

The man with the advice had already grabbed my drop net and proceeded to lower it down. A short fight of about 8 to 10 minutes ended with the Bass sliding into the drop net. However, as the drop net was drawn up the pier wall, it started to tip more and more. I could see the bass was near to dropping out and so set the spool to free with my thumb ready as a break.

The Bass DID tip out, but onto the wall top where it was quickly grabbed before it could fall back into the sea. It weighed in at an impressive 10lb 4oz... My first double figure bass...

Although I've caught plenty of Bass before and since, there have been none as big.