Yesterday I started with low tide around 14:00 at Praia da Alagoa, in front of the Restaurant. Intention was to enjoy the afternoon with three rods. BUT, the weaves and the current were soooo strong that I barely managed 2 rods. As soon as I cast, the rig would drift to the right, in direction of Manta Rota, and be eventually cast out onto the beach... So frequent recasts, and lots of work. Standard 2 hook rigs – one with squid, the other one with sardine. Soon, I had had to switch to 180gr pyramid weight, and even that drifted fair bit.

While the tide was low, I had no action at all – save for the hard physical labour of recasting every 5min.

When the tide started to rise – almost at the very point of it turning – so still very low – I got my first bite on sardine and landed a fair size spotted bass.

But the rig was so heavy that I had no idea if it was on until it started splashing in the shallows. Immediately on the next cast, the rod just bent town and stayed like that for a while – I was 100% sure it was weaves or grass on the line. Then it came back to its regular position and I left it for a while. After a few minutes I wanted to recast and as soon as I lifted the rod from the its stand, I felt that there was something on the other end. With such a big weight, and such strong current, a swimming fish had to be big! And sure enough, after a few minutes of back-and-forth dance, and me walking down the beach a 100m or so as the fish followed the rightward current, I managed to get it to ride the weave onto the shallow bit. As soon as the weave retreated, the fish was beached! And what a fish it was!!!!

 

 

As the water kept rising, I had quite a few bites. As it got dark, hooks were empty all the time. But it was all small fish, and I was using 3/0 hooks with whole sardine on it. so no way I could catch a sargo or a mucharra. As the small fish started pestering me, I packed up and left around 18:00 -I had had my fun for the day.

There were also other people fishing by the other walkway, a few hundred meters in the direction of Manta Rota. A guy was walking pass me on the beach, and he told me they also caught a few spotted bass, and seabass, but in 30cm mark... also a few sargo... so there is fish in the surf.