Finally the first weekend of four arrived, and myself, and boat partner Chris Hammond, were ready and wearing to go! Both of us were excited by the fact that deadbaits were now allowed, we thought this may give us, and everyone else the edge. On arrival, i was pretty much laughed off the jetty with my poor excuse of an anchor, and what with a poor start out of the jetty which saw me fighting with the engine, our Blithfield campaign hadn't got off to a great start.

We soon found ourselves heading out into the Ressie, looking for any likely areas, with al the ones we had previously wanted being taken already. We anchored up (with a borrowed anchor....) and cast out our deadbait, totally full of confidence with our method and began to cast lures. Hour after hour, and move after move later, and we were getting nowhere. It appeared as though a few fish had been landed, but we had yet to anything. A move later in the day paid off and saved the first day from a blank. After casting a Firetiger Replicant to the shoreline, it was taken on the drop by a smallish jack, of which released itself next to the boat. Pleased that I had at least raised a response I cast back to the very same spot and hooked and landed a fish slightly larger, probably just making double figures. That was the end of the first days action for us.

The second day started as badly as the first, and intense fog embarrassingly left myself and Chris in a state of disorientation, not knowing where on earth we had ended up! To cut a long story short, Chris was the only one landing a fish that day in the shape of a jack to a depth raider during the afternoon. The day had been hard going, but we were determined to get back and get into one of the more decent fish.