Productive fishing on piers is akin to flicking a switch. Following three hours of fruitless fishing on a flooding neap tide in late July, my fresh ragworm bait mounted on a single hook at the end of a flowing 20-inch snood remained untouched.
I had ensured that the bait was laid alongside one of the mussel-clustered pier stanchions in the hope of enticing my quarry for the day – the obscure, mystical, grey triggerfish. Just as frustration started to set in, something suddenly hammered my bait; whatever it was went off like a rocket, rapidly zigzagging all over the place causing the ratchet on my multiplier to scream as it stripped off yards of line. Although many fish species such as bass, smoothhound, wrasse and mullet can induce highly characteristic, aggressive, rod-tip responses, this was something altogether different – a real force of nature. I managed to grasp the butt of the rod as it was about to disappear over the pier-rail. As I peered over into the clear water and saw the strange looking oval-shaped fish with a laterally compressed body; I knew in that instant that I had hooked my target –
