Druid, this is posted with humour, but it shows that anglers on the other side of the world experience problems such as you have mentioned. We all have bad days, those times when we miss fish we should have caught, we can generally think of many reasons for our empty bag. I respectfully suggest you don't worry about it, the next time you fish, things may well alter for the better.

Now take a read this and look at the bait and rig changes this guy made, then realise just how lucky we are.

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A challenging weekend indeed to grab some shingle time and , indeed, weaker men would have failed ! Out with customers Friday night..........skittles.............soup in a basket and an ocean of red matter. Saturday....the sister in laws kitchen to tile..........shall we have square ones..........hell no, brick size and in bond, alcoves, piers and recesses and it has to be done by Sunday ! Planned to leave at 5pm and fish the tide down and 1 up........cleaned the tile cutter at 7pm and consumed a 2000 calorie take away china, flask of black coffee and on the shingle for 10pm. Got to finish by 1am.........tiling again in the morning

Cracking Prime black n rag, squid,sand eel,mackie heads, squid and some Cinderellas for tipping.

Went with the standard size 4 3 hook 'blankbuster' rig and size 2's on a 2 hooker for starters. Mackie head planned out over low and see what happened.

A wee blustery Sou Wester had spiced up some crunch and the lone lunatic on the beach was I.

Both rods moving from the off but the small hooks on the plop were busiest with some serious clouts but no hook ups...........first chuck long with 2's returned a scratty ting.

I suspected that Mr Dawg was about and set up a 3/0 2 hook flapper when a right pull round on the 4's returned same Mr Dawg with a tiny colin hanging on the top hook so 3 species in 30 minutes.

Dropped the 2's shorter and plopped the 3/0s with sand eel on top and squid n black on the bottom.

Missed hits on 3/0s which were clearly canine in origin and a big pull round had a feisty doggie weighing in at 1lb 9 on the beach.

Low at 11pm and out with a mackie head short and persisted with the 2's looking for something flat, tipping with Cinderellas saw a succession of hand sized pout but no dabs.Mackie head vanished after 40 minutes of taps and tiffles so back out with the 3/0s.

Midnight raced up on me with a couple more ting on the long chuck and a couple more pout and colins closer in. 2 more doggies found the 3/0 squid and lug too much too resist and a doggie pup fell to the top hook on the 2's. Tried sand eel on the 3/0s fox close but they went untouched.

Back out with black n squid head on the big hooks for a last chuck at 1 am...........2 big hits and a slackliner I never caught up with and the lead ended up almost under my feet...........had to have one more, same again..........another decent knock on the 2's rod saw a clean bite off on the bottom hook.......wtf was that ?

A tiny pout hanged itself on the bottom big hook and I made the car at 1.40 am with 5 dogs, 8 pout 4 ting and 3 colins to my name. The dogs must have been legion out there, so many knocks and no hook ups.......doggie kisses I think describes them well ! Love to know what took my 6 oz breakaway for a walk but no complaints for a just over 3 hour session ( apart from a wee rash on the left hand from one of my pets !)

Don't know if the guy that pitched up to my right is on here but, sorry bud,your shelter looked like a Chines Lantern when you tried to get that light going ! A guy well to my left had at least 1 dog that I saw.

Maybe a different venue next week with a very average angler..........till then.........tight lines guys

*** Translation in to Kiwi ***.

Mr Dawg ... dogfish.

Ting ... Whiting.

Pout ... Pout whiting.

Collins ... rockling - probably the most dislike fish in the northern seas.

Mackie ... mackerel.

Lug ... lug worm.

Rag ... King rag worm.

Squid ... as here.

Sand eel ... a natural bait, we have nothing like it here.

Cinderellas for tipping ... can't help with this one, I can't work this one out.