THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

seemingly certain defeat, which for me has always meant a run up to Arnside on the River Kent estuary
in Cumbria, which I'm going to use here as my representative model on estuary flounder fishing from
the shore.
At some venues around the country it possibly might matter whether you fish the ebb or the flood tide.
At Arnside that doesn't seem to be the case. So long as the tide isn't too big or the flow from the river
feeding the estuary too great, the prospects are usually good.
Personally, I prefer the low water period when the mud banks dry out forcing the water into its most
confined state. This also concentrates whatever fish there are available into the smallest possible area,
which in theory at least should help make them more catchable.
What I don't like about low water there is the threat of quick sands, which are a very real danger at
Arnside, particularly when the tide starts to make, which at the bigger end of the cycle comes in as a
tidal bore.
You wouldn't want to get stuck thigh deep in the mud under those circumstances. I've seen it happen,
for which reason I always stick to those parts of the estuary with patches of stones protruding from the
mud to be assured of some firm ground.
To make the point about reliability here, I'd like to quote a couple of stand-out visits, which in their
different ways, on paper at least, were doomed to disaster, yet still came up trumps.
The first was a session which really was a bit too late in the year to be fishing for flounders, but which
due to circumstances, Charlie Pitchers and I decided to do anyway, mainly because there was absolutely
nothing else on offer other than staying at home.
It was January, by which time mature flounders often have things on their mind other than food as they
start to make their way out of the estuaries to their offshore spring spawning areas. So if only for that
reason we weren't expecting much, in addition to which, in the build up to the trip, there had been a lot
of snow followed by an even bigger dose of rain.
Again, not exactly the best estuary flounder
ingredients on either count. A sudden slug of cold
snow melt is never good for anything. Having that
happen in near flood conditions will usually only
exacerbate a potentially already poor situation.
I remember us reaching Milnthorpe where we turn to
follow the river to Arnside village and seeing the
water bank high flooding over into the surrounding
fields. So not only was it extra cold, but salinity levels
in the estuary would also be well down.
Freshwater anglers fishing worm baits for chub or
whatever many miles inland often catch small
flounders, so obviously, they can tolerate not only low
salinity, but no salinity.
What they can't do is adjust their physiology quickly
to adapt and be in a position to cope with sudden
change, and as such, when you get a bank high slug
of freshwater coming down, estuarine fish have to fall
back downstream to a salinity concentration they can
deal with, which if it happens in January, could just
Phill Williams, Arnside
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