On the beach for 0545 and pumped one worm to get me in the water and amateur hour happened. First had a crack off on the cast, so goodbye to worm and rig. Decided that being early on the beach, I would tie on a new leader. Kept missing the eye on my knot, but 20 minutes later the leader and a new rig was raring to go, just needed a worm and the casts were few and far between. Worm pumped and nicely dangling from the snood, I decided to drop the rig next to my tripod and walk back 20 or so yards to clear a loop in the line I could see - sorted. Started to reel the line back onto the spool and somehow it had got wrapped around a sharp bit of my tripod and it severed! Nothing lost this time, but another new leader required. Another 20 minutes, a cast and finally all the bits were in the water united this time.
Decided that as the business end was in the water, I would let the drag off a bit and go in search of more worm.
Bucket full of worm and so back to the fishing. As I was approaching my tripod the rod tip gave a pull, then nothing, so as It was time to change bait, I reeled in and the worm had not been touched, must have been a line bite. Next cast produced a slack line bite and the worm had almost been tore off, still no fish.
A few cast later and another slack line resulted in 51cm of loveliness at my feet - result. Carried on fishing up to the wall, but no more bites
Sounds very familiar that Mike .