CHICHESTER HARBOUR

Chichester is home to a brilliant harbour, packed full of life.

It reaches inland around 8 miles, with various branches leading down to marina’s, quays and nature reserves. The harbour used to be known for its incredible flounder fishing, sadly though due to an accumulation of factors their population has dwindled to almost none. However, the bass and mullet population has flourished in recent years with many anglers trying their hand at catching these addictive creatures.

Ragworm is the bait if you want an almost guaranteed fish in the summer with many school bass only too eager to pay you a visit, with the more elusive larger bass showing up on occasions to make the day. The Mullet, however, are not guaranteed, these wiley creatures are not so easily tamed. Feeding mainly on algae and small invertebrates, presenting an enticing bait to them proves very hard. The most successful methods are fishing with the fly or the floating bread approach. If you can get them competing for the bread they are catchable. When hooked these things are like rockets so hold on!!!

You can fish from the boat, which you can launch at several different spots, (Dell Quay, Bosham, Prinsted) but Itchenor is the preferred location for the slightly bigger boats needing vehicle and trailer access, with a pay and display car park within 200 yards.

Lure fishing for the bass has become hugely popular in the harbour, in particular with surface lures. Weedy or grassy areas are prime locations to ‘walk the dog’ with your surface gear in search of a specimen sized fish. Whether wading or in the boat, stalking these beasts has become a rather addictive art that takes some work to master, but the rewards make the effort well and truly worth it, there’s nothing quite like a big surface strike from big angry Bass.

Other species you can expect to encounter, are Smoothhounds, Black Bream, Gilthead Bream, Eels, Wrasse, Mackerel and the odd Tope in the entrance.