THE temperatures reached dizzy heights at the weekend and Saturday and Sunday saw the first Clacton Sea and Beach Festival.

Thousands of people turned out and I headed to the West beach slipway, to meet up with some Clacton Boat Club members.

While I was there, I saw a lot of people showing interest in joining this up-and-coming club.

It was also great to see the old Walton lifeboat James Stevens taking trips from the breakwater.

Also great is the fact we now have more of the new sea defence beaches open on the Holland side of Clacton Pier.

They also look like they will be great fishing beaches.

Walton Sea Angling Club headed for their local pier for an evening match.

A cool north-easterly wind was blowing and the sea was clear, so most anglers opted to fish down the side of the pier around the pier piles, where more fish would be caught.

So it proved.

In first place was Rob Tuck, with 16 fish for 4lbs.

Second spot went to Chris Mills, with 12 fish for 2lb 14.5oz, and in a close third was James Everett, with 11 fish for 2lb 14oz.

The heaviest fish was a bass of 13oz for Berni Putko.

My trip this week was also to Walton Pier.

It was a very hot day and, to be honest, I didn’t rate my chances of catching a fish too high.

For the first couple of hours of the ebb tide, I struggled to get a bite but, as the tide eased, I began to get a few bites with bass and whiting and then managed to catch two tope.

One was only very small, but the second was around the 3lb mark.

It’s been a good few years since I’ve caught a tope off the pier and both fish were caught on whole squid baits.

The thornback ray fishing really has slowed down this week.

There will always be one or two on certain tides, but nothing like we’ve been seeing.

The beaches either side of the pier are fishing well for small bass and soles and even the odd ray has also been caught.

Small rag worm baits are fishing well.

The boats this week are still seeing a few rays being caught, along with smoothhounds and a few bass, but it’s been a slower week.

Neil Marples and Ross Deadman fished from their own boat, Milore, out of Titchmarshes Marina, in Walton.

Neil reported that the codling were still feeding, plus some small bass and smoothhounds.

The baits were peeler crab and squid. Boats off Frinton have reported small tope being caught, with the biggest reported at 13lbs.

Most of these fish were only half a mile out.

Clacton boats are still seeing the odd ray, smoothhounds and bass, but once again it’s been a slower week.

If you have any fishing reports you can contact me at popplewell1@btinternet.com The tides for the weekend are 8.04am on Saturday and 9.14am on Sunday.