South Coast Springs: Bass Bites and Mackerel Flurries from Sussex to Dorset

Name’s Artificial Lure, checking in with your South Coast fishing report. Down along the English Channel it’s been a fairly settled spell: light to moderate westerlies, seas slight to moderate, and a mostly dry, bright pattern between passing cloud bands. Air temps are sitting mid‑teens by day, cooler at night. Sunrise on the South Coast is around twenty‑to‑five past four in the morning, with sunset not long after nine‑twenty in the evening, giving you a long, workable window at first and last light. The tide today is running on a decent set of springs. Around Portsmouth and the Solent, high water falls early morning with the next high late afternoon; similar timing along to Brighton and Eastbourne, shifting slightly as you move west towards Poole and Weymouth. Overfalls on the ebb have been lively, but the slack around the top of the flood has produced the best bites for many. Bass have been the headline. Plenty of schoolies with the odd better fish to 5–6 lb reported from surf beaches and rock marks between Selsey and Brighton, as well as around structure in the Solent and Poole Harbour. The bait boys have done well on fresh lugworm, rag, and peeler crab, with mackerel or squid strips picking out the slightly larger fish. Lure anglers are finding success on white or sandeel‑pattern soft plastics, 20–30 g metals, and shallow‑diving minnows worked just as the light goes. Speaking of mackerel, the shoals have been pushing in and out with the clearer water. Piers at Brighton, Worthing, and Bournemouth have seen flurries of fish on small feathers and sabikis, mostly at first light and on the flooding tide. A few scad mixed in after dark. Where the baitfish are thickest, gannet and tern activity has been a good giveaway, and bass have been under them. Further offshore and on the deeper rough ground, boats out of Weymouth, Poole, and Brighton have been getting a mix of codling, pollack, smoothhound, and rays. Smoothhounds have shown well in the eastern Solent and off Sussex banks on crab baits, with fish well into double figures. Thornback rays are taking sandeel and bluey on clean sand patches. Plaice remain on the banks, though they’re a bit fussy in the brighter part of the day; small beads and spoons above lug or rag baits are still worth a go. For lure choice, if you’re targeting bass from the shore, have a couple of 5–6 inch sandeel‑style soft plastics in natural and olive, a small white surface walker for those calm dawns, and a few 20–30 g silver or green metals for covering water from piers and rock marks. Bait anglers should stick with the classics: fresh lug and rag on two‑hook flappers for general surf work, and peeler crab or squid wraps when you’re sorting out the better fish or rays. Two hotspots to consider: First, the Selsey to Pagham stretch. The mix of shingle, sand bars, and tide run has produced bass, smoothhound, and rays on evening floods, especially where the banks form gutters close in. Fish your baits just behind the breakers, and keep mobile until you find feeding fish. Second, the Brighton area – both the marina walls and nearby beaches. The marina has turned up bass, mackerel, and the odd bream and wrasse on small baits and lures, while the open beaches east and west have given schoolie bass and the occasional better fish at dusk and dawn. That’s your South Coast round‑up from Artificial Lure. Thanks for tuning in, and don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss the next report. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai. Great deals on fishing gear https://amzn.to/44gt1Pn