A Little About Me.

Forever Angling

My first catch from the sea (Deal Pier)

Age: 30
Preferred type of angling: Shore & Pier
Currently targeted species: Anything that swims.
Fishing since: Mid 2024

How it all started

So it all began in early 2024. Many of my friends were getting into fishing or were already fishing for carp and were trying to get me to come along. I was reluctant at first but kept thinking about it over the next few weeks. I had always wanted to sea fish rather than carp or lake fish.

My opportunity first arose when I was out walking and came across a local “undesirable” holding a mackerel rod, willing to sell it for £5, which I thought was an absolute steal. It turned out I was an eager fool because the rod was a 3-piece, and the middle and top sections were fused together, with the eyes slightly offset on the sections. I was pretty annoyed, but more fool me for buying it on the street for five quid.

The next day, I headed to the local tackle shop determined to buy a rod and go fishing that day. I arrived at Rapid Tackle in Dover and asked about sea fishing rods. It turned out they only had carp rods and spinning rods as it was a freshwater tackle shop, so I left with a cheap spinning rod costing around £20-£25, a cheap Jarvis Walker spinning reel for £20, and a few lures.

I then went down to Dover beach to the steps next to Rebels Cafe & Sauna (What3Words) with my new setup and absolutely no idea what I was doing. I didn’t even know how to tie a blood knot, so I sat on the steps and watched YouTube tutorials on knot tying and lure fishing. Eventually, I tied my knot, flicked the bail arm over, and tried to cast against the wind. Little did I know, this would backfire and give me my first “bird’s nest.” Oh, what a disaster! I must have spent the next half hour trying to undo the tangled line. I gave up and went home to try and fix it.

I made a post on Facebook in the local residents group asking if someone could teach me how to sea fish. Surprisingly, I got a lot of responses and ended up messaging a guy called Jason. He offered to pick me up and take me to his place to chat and look at some gear he had for sale. I bought an older Shakespeare rod for £10, a bunch of grip weights he had made himself, and a whole lot of 2-hook flappers and pulley pennel rigs in various hook sizes, also homemade. He was kind enough to kit me out with other essentials like a bait knife, disgorger, leader, line, and so on.

After that, he drove me down to Deal Pier (What3Words) to get a reel from the tackle shop on the left side of the pier (Channel Angling, owned by Fred). I bought a cheap Jarvis Walker 8000 reel for about £25 and a batch of lugworm. Once I had some line on the reel and a leader attached, we went to the ticket office where he kindly paid for my pier fishing ticket so he could teach me how to cast and bait up.

We then moved to the third shelter on the left and began setting up my rod. After he showed me how to tie the rig (2-hook flapper) to the leader, attach the grip weight, and thread the lugworm onto the hook, it was time to cast out. He did the first few casts to demonstrate, then it was my turn. Of course, it went terribly wrong again—I got another bird’s nest. Luckily, he sorted it out in seconds and showed me where I went wrong (I let go of the line too quickly). My next cast went much better; I didn’t cast very far, but the line went straight into the sea.

Then all that was left was to wait for a bite. Ten minutes later, my rod tip bent slightly, so I picked up the rod and struck. It didn’t seem like a big fish, and it wasn’t—it was my first dogfish (shown in the picture above). I was ecstatic, over the moon in fact. Over the next 2-3 hours, I managed to catch another two dogfish on lugworm.

After packing up and heading home, I sat down to relax & take in everything I had been shown. There was a major adrenaline dump, and I was more than eager to get back out and catch some more fish. Until next time.

What happened next

Where I am now