With all of the most popular marks near on impossible to fish in this ridiculous rough weather.  The question begs, where can you fish safely and comfortably and stand a good chance of catching something. Poole Harbour is one such place you can do this.

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After digging some worms on Friday, I had great plans to fish Southbourne or even Chesil, but the weather killed all those plans. Standing on an open beach like Southbourne or Chesil in this weather is not my idea of fun. Forget the beach buddy! Even if you could get it up, you would probably at some point be chasing it down the beach.

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On Sunday I had had enough! After two days of looking out of the window I needed a fishing fix.

I chose lake pier beach as I knew with the wind direction it wouldn’t be blowing directly in my face, more from my immediate right to left and down the harbour. This hampered my casting distance slightly, but as with most Poole flounder marks I know distance casting is not necessary.

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The other reason I chose lake beach,is that it has lots of trees with gorse bushes at the back of the beach offering good cover, to sit out of the wind and rain squalls that were blowing through.

The only trouble with flounder fishing, is that on certain tides you get small school bass or chequers as we call them taking the bait meant for flatfish. Almost as unwelcome as whiting when cod fishing. This was going to be one of those times! The bait wasn’t left alone long enough to entice a nice flounder before being snapped up by a greedy little chequered bass.

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after catching loads of pesky little ones, I was just about to give up when my rod tip bounced hard. This was a much better fish, and as I landed it I had a great big smile.

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It is great to get out fishing even in the worst of this horrible winter weather!

Next time you need a fishing fix when the wind is howling and most marks are completely unfishable. Pick up a map check Google earth, check the wind direction and get yourself to the Poole Harbour.  At least you stand a chance of catching something when everywhere else can’t even get near the beach. The harbour will always have a spot that the wind is in your favour!!

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