Get out safely
Safe kayaking in the Brest Narrows requires a number of conditions. No wind, tidal coefficients below 60, and a tidal schedule with a rising tide in the morning. When, in addition, all these conditions are met and the sky is blue and settled for the day, it would be wrong to deprive oneself of it. On this Saturday, the tide is set to change at 09:00, which is ideal with the sun rising around 08:00. So this will be a tenya-oriented outing.
Tenya and prawns
It's a good time to be hoping to catch some multi-species. For this, I'm using the famous Astunya, from the small Breton company Astufish, which makes them near Port-Louis, in Morbihan. For this release, I'm only going to use 30-gram heads, combined with frozen gambas from Pexéo. The advantage of these gambas is that if you have any left over at the end of the session, you can refreeze them and they'll still work just as well. I've got into the habit of tying them with dedicated wire. They last longer and are more resistant to repeated attacks by small gray fish.
The session begins with a crossing of the Brest Narrows (about half an hour), followed by a trip up the bank opposite the boat launch to the girls' plateau. This is possible when conditions are as described above. During transits or drifting upstream, as usual, I drag along a Deep Diver. Pollack and mackerel can't resist it...
Once I'd arrived at my sparid spots, and as soon as I put the tenya in the water for the first time, the bites followed, with pretty grey bream finding the gambas to their liking. Each run is punctuated by bites, and I miss very few because they're so crazy. After an hour, it's the little pagers that get into the game, always fun to hang on a light rig, and that adds color to the report.
At one point, a beautiful detection appears a good ten meters above the bottom. I slowly pull up the tenya, intending to switch to the soft one to work on the detection. I don't have the time, my astunya/gambas has been gobbled up violently. It's a nice 50 cm bass that's let itself be lured. It must have been a school that came in with the tide - sometimes you need a bit of luck when fishing... The catches of sea bream and pikeperch continue, with a Breton grouper joining in the fun...
It's almost 11:00, and time to cross again to find a shingle beach for a snack. The Deep Diver does the job again during the crossing... After a bite to eat, I take the tenya back out to test the area, where again, dorado and paddlefish are present.
Lots of squid
I put the tenya away and spend the last hour on the cephalopods. Cuttlefish are present, but much less so than squid, much to my delight. I'll make a nice squid catch and these will be kept for the pleasure of the table... It's still the Tataki method that will decide them, EBI Q jig below and Calmero ultra floating a metre higher, animated in slow trolling above the bottom thanks to the propelled kayak.
This is often the best time of year for multi-species research in the harbor. All these lovely people are looking for a chance to fatten up before winter sets in. For the moment, slots are rare in this series of lows, and today it's still blowing at over 100 km/h on the point. So when there's a good window of opportunity, don't miss it!
