Mannacles with live sand eel

I am having a dry patch at the moment with very few good catches. I went to the Manacles on my fishing kayak with a live bait holder containing 12 of the strongest sand eels I have seen in a long time. I rigged up my bait caster with a running ledger using a ball bullet of about ¼ to ½ an once and a 10 ft 14lb breaking strength fluro carbon leader and a new sharp hook.

I carried out about 20 drifts on a small tide. There was a lot of water moving across this top Cornish mark and the drift speed was fast, but I was able to feel the reef below me, dropping the live bait to the bottom and holding it just off the rocks following the contours beneath me. I do this by lowering the rod tip to feel the hard rock on the sinker then raising it again by 6 inches. If you cannot feel the bottom, release some line until you get contact.

The depth was shallow so that allowed me to use such a light weight. But despite all this effort and the quality live sand eels I caught nothing. There was another boat fishing at the same time and they too blanked.

I did see the largest Bull seal I have seen in months. It was lovely to see and he found my fishing Kayak very interesting indeed.