For up to the minute inshore weather reports and tide times in other areas please visit: http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/

18/11/08 This week has seen mixed weather and this has resulted in a mix of catches. Also, in addition to the usual Sussex reports i have some reports from Kent which is a nice Bonus as I know many of us head down that way in the persuit of Cod. Brighton Marina has fished well when its been open. There have been Mackerel, Garfish and Pollack on float fished mackerel strip and prawn respectively. There have been some good Whiting and Pout after dark as well as the odd Codling. A few Bass up to 5lb have been landed and there are also rumours of a big conger being caught. Sole have been caught after dark. There have been Whiting, Pout, Eels and Sole from Brighton beaches mainly on Lugworm baits. Shoreham beaches have fished similar with the addition of a few Schooly Bass. Hove has also fished the same as the above marks with some Flounders also being caught in daytime hours. Seaford has been fishing well with Plenty of Whiting being caught after dark as well as the usual Pout and the odd Doggy. Pevensey bay has fished well with Whiting, Sole and the odd Codling with best results being after dark. Onto Kent: I fished the Dover 3 day festival this weekend. As usual 9 of us Brighton lads make the trip and whilst numbers were down there was still a very competitive field of 37 Anglers. We arrived on the Friday evening and eagerly anticipated getting our draw for the Pegs over the 3 days along with wondering if we would fish the breakwater or not. Saturday arrived and we were on the breakwater so we were all pleased. We ended up on there for two of the three days as the last day was on the Prince of Wales Pier which doesnt compare in quality of fish. Typically this was the day that i had what would have been my best peg of the festival and the same happened for Glenn so we were both a little dissapointed. The standard of Anglers was very high and there was some good banter flowing, mainly surrounding the muppet cup! For those of you that dont know of this cup, it is an prestigious award set up by us Brighton lads for the person of our group that catches the least weight over the 3 days. Nobody wants to receive this because it is handed out at the presentation in front of all the anglers with some humiliating prizes and a trophy to identify you as the muppet! As im sure you can appreciate it adds a bit of spice and pressure for the match. I must admit i was nervous of getting this as i had only fished the Breakwater in one previous match, as we have usually ended up on the POW pier due to bad weather, and therefore i wasnt too sure what to expect. For those that have fished the breakwater you will know that the tide can run exceptionally hard and with the big tides it was difficult to hold bottom with large 8oz grip leads. Anyway, onto the fishing... Day 1. We were on the Breakwater and it was an intense fishing match as there was a lot of fish about. There a few Codling caught and a couple around 5lb. Despite my best efforts i couldnt get one but i still had a lot of Pout, Whiting, a couple of Doggies and a Dab. I was using a mix of 3 hook flappers and 2 up 1 down rigs with size 1 and 2 hooks. The Dogfish were caught on Sandeel and the other fish were caught on a mix of fresh lug, black lug usually tipped with Mackerel or squid. Glenn had similar catches to me along with a Codling of 2lb. We were casting between 30-60 yards for the majority of the day and couldnt do much wrong as the fish kept coming. I think there were only 2 casts where i didnt have a fish and this was when the tide stopped running so i had a couple of casts on the inside and managed to pull out another whiting. The only thing i couldnt do was catch a Codling, which was frudtrating as it felt like everyone on the pegs around me had managed to catch one. Nevertheless, i continued fishing hard and had plenty of pre baited rigs on the go. At times the fishing was so good that you would cast out, bait your rig and then reel in straight away with a fish on and continue that process all day. At the end of the day i had caught 11.5 kilo and had done ok in the section although not recorded any result of significance but i was still pleased with how i had fished and i think the same can be said for Glenn. Day 2. We were on the breakwater again and knew it wouldnt reach its heights of yesterdays exceptional catches. True to form the lower numbered pegs fished best, which meant that for us in the high pegs it was a struggle and there was a obvious difference in the winning weights of each section. I had Whiting, Pout and a Codling around 2lb, which was very similar to what Glenn had. We noticed that some of the local lads had been getting the odd codling on black lug and a long strip of squid so we addopted this tactic which paid off and i caught my Codling. Leggo had a sizeable smoothhound! Dave Pinchbeck bettered his previous days Cod by getting one of 9lb! After the close of play i had come 4th in my section with just under 7 kilo and was clear of the muppet cup which was very important. Dave Rose was in major contention for the muppet cup as he was 4 kilo behind his nearest rival. Now this wouldnt have been an issue if we were on the breakwater the next day as we were due to be in our best pegs but the weather reports were not promising and if we were on the POW pier it would be nearly impossible to catch up...the heat was on and banter flew around the pub all evening. Unfortunately i didnt get any pictures as was so focussed on fishing, plus i didnt want to get my new phone covered in lug juice! Day 3. On the final day we ended up on the Prince of Wales pier which was not great because had we been on the breakwater it was our chance to push on and try and make up some weight as we due to fish our best pegs but as we were on the POW it meant that even if you had the winning days weight you wouldnt have much impact on the standings. With this in mind me and Glenn decided to get Pollack fishing as this would possibly get us the species and pollack cups as no sizeable pollack had been landed yet. However, despite our best efforts we could only manage to catch lots of undersize Pollack. I had one which was 29cm at the end which was frustrating as they needed to be 30cm to be sizeable. There wasnt one sizeable Pollack caught during the whole 3 days. I did manage to catch a Whiting to avoid the blank though as i never like to blank.  Overall. Sam Sampson came 3rd and Vernon came 8th overall which were both very good results. Me, Sam and Leggo won the 3 man teams between the Brighton bunch, oh and i beat Glenn (not that we are competitive)! Oh and how can i forget, Rosie won the Muppet cup 2008 (pics below) which was presented in front of all the anglers at the presentation. Thanks to Howie for this great report from Deal: Me and keith went down to deal to fish for a couple of days a couple of weeks ago.we realy only fished in the dark with high water about 1 ish,at low water we had the usual whiting a cast and some dog fish to the rods baited with fish baits,some to 2lb plus.after about 2hrs into the flood i had a sharp pull/knock on the 1 up 1 down trace loaded with lug and tipped with squid cast at approx 100 yards,reeled in and lifted into a heavy weight (well heavier than the wheight of the whiting we had been catching) which preceeded to start nodding and when in shalower water started to splash around on the top of the waterand it was then i saw my first codling of this year which came in at 44cm,a good start.the fishing then reverted back to whiting and pout with the odd dog fish thrown in now and again for the next few hours and high water came and went.keith had had one rod out for 15-20 min or so with no noticable action so decided to reel in and re bait only to find a heavy weight on the end.he was expecting to be cleaning a load of weed off his trace or old carrier bag when he had finaly got it on the beach only to find it wasnt weed or a bag but a nice plump codling of 50cm his largest one to date.nice fish but no real excitement as it had played dead when reeling in,something neither of us has ever had before.after that and as the water was dropping away and the whiting were getting smaller and smaller we decided to call it a night,well a morning i suppose as it was 4am.we returned to the same spot the next night but no codling this time and not realy much else either.what a differance a day makes. last week me and zak went back down to deal again and decided to fish sandwich bay just accross the golf course by the chequers pub a mark i havent fished before but have heard realy good reports about and its only about a 5 min drive from the angling club area we normaly fish.high water was about 11pm and when we finaly found the foot path that takes you accross the golf course we arrived on the beach at about 6:30pm to find a number of head lamps along the beach right and left.this was a totaly different story to the main streach of beach along from the peir to the castle as there was no one fishing this bit of beach at all.this mark is a very steep shingle bank leading to a very flat sandy sea bed which is very shallow at low water for some distance so is really only fishable 3 hours before high water on a spring tide (should be a little more water around on a shorter tide) when we arrived the water was just starting to lap against the shingle and you could walk out (with wellies) for about 20 yards before it started to get deep.this is a place where the locals pump their own bait and causes scent which attracts the fish (according to the guy from a local tackle shop).we cast out and zak was first in with a double shot of yes you guessed it whiting and this was again to be the main source of entertainment for the first few hours as the tide built but these whiting were quite big and for some reason put up a good fight everytime which is some thing i havent found before along our streach of coast,zak was having treable shots and really enjoying himself.as the tide got to its peak the tide rip became very strong and a lot of the bites stopped we had to use uptide techniques with 60z breakaway leads modified to hold bottom better and people all along the beach were getting tangled with each other.as the tide started to ebb this rip eased off almost completely and the fish came back on the feed but this time even bigger,zak had a whiting of 38cm and i had a codling of 48cm close in on prawn which was fighting hard and made me think it was a bass at first.just more whiting and pouting after that so packed up but meeting people in the car park after we found that some big fish had been caught that night band on previous nights so if you dont mind travelling i would recomend sandwich bay and or deal.