Jeff McAllister and myself decided to have our last fishing session of 2023 along the promenade at Silloth.

Fishing between the groynes off the concrete steps is a very comfortable venue and generally provides good sport this time of year with numbers of dabs, whiting and the occasional codling.

The venue is extremely popular with match anglers all year round as it can provide excellent catches. In the early summer catches include thornback ray and smoothounds that come looking for the moulting crab. There is also the chance of a good bass amongst the usual dabs, flounder, plaice and whiting. In the winter catches mainly comprise of whiting and dabs with the odd flounder and codling caught.

As it proved during this session it was dabs and whiting that proved to be the main target of the day.

The wire disgorged in the above photo is invaluable when unhooking deep hooked flatfish ensuring they go back unharmed.

The first hour as the water covered the mud to our front was very quiet with no fish caught. That was until the limestone cobbles at the base of the steps began to get covered and a depth of water began to build up.

Jeff and myself then started catching mainly whiting with a smaller number of dabs taking our frozen lug and fishbaits.

Regularly catching double and triple shots of fish every cast we both lost count of the numbers landed. This kept up for the next four hours even catching over high water when it can go quiet as the water stands still.

The whiting are not massive fish but when fishing a catch measure and release match working on a total length basis, you can soon build up a good scoring length of fish.

Our best whiting of the day was 31cm and best dab 28cm..

It turned out to be a very enjoyable day including talking to a number of the many walkers stopping to see how we were doing as they enjoyed the winter sunshine.