THE SOLENT AREA BAIT DIGGERS ASSOCIATION
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MEMBERS: Peter Crease,Andrew Bird, Robert Brown, Stuart Masterman, Kevin Franks, Justin Roulland, Ian Gay, Andrew Newman, David Ellis, Brian Meades, Peter Mcavery, Paul Bossuot Snr, Julian Kempsy, Anthony Kempsy,  Gary Hales, Sydney Banks, Ian Janes, Mathew Janes, Barry Baily, Kieth Watts,Gurmit Sing,David Masterman , John North, Robert Clarke, Mike Smith
S.A.B.D.A COMMITTEE :-   Ian Harner Chairman;  Gerald Gibbs Secretary;  David Meades Treasurer; 
Peter Mgrady Vice chairman;   Paul Bossuot  Jnr Publicity Officer.Peter Wheeler Poole representative.

Gerry  Gibbs at work at Budds


Brian  Meades pictured at Budds


The best way to view Tony Kempsy


A happy Julian Kempsy, Julian and Tony
make up a father and son team with a 
combined experience of seventysix years 
of digging for bait.
What is a bait digger? In the case of our association it is usually some one "armed" with a garden type fork and a stout bucket digging on various foreshores for ragworms, although occasionally they may be digging for lugworms especially on sandy beaches. Ragworms tending to favour more muddier climes. A  good strong bucket is handy for forcing ones self out of some of the more softer mud. We also tend to use potato forks as the tool of choice. Bait digging is carried out at low water with the spring tides being better than the neaps in that the tide travels further out. As a rule the harder it is to access a bait bed the better it will dig as the more accessible  beds are often quite heavily dug by anglers, the quality of a bait bed also varies greatly at differing times of year with some places digging well in the spring others in the summer and autumn. This variation being due in the main to availability of food for the worms,  their main diet appearing to be weed and algae. We carry out our job in all conditions at all times of day and night (time and tides having no respect for ones social life). We have been known to dig in storms, heatwaves, torrential rain, up to our waists in water and in temperatures down to minus fifteen. We dig at night using pot-holers and coal-miners headlamps, at one time before the advent of rechargeable batteries we used paraffin storm lamps to see by. We wear thigh or chest waders to protect us from getting completely filthy and household gloves to prevent minor cuts from shells and sharp stones, although some of our members have had very bad cuts from discarded bottles especially in the Hamble river which seems to be paved with whiskey and gin bottles as well as numerous beer cans. Obviously something to do with it being the yachting mecca of the south. Our members come from all walks of life, we have civil servants, civil engineers, electricians, plasterers, car plant workers(baldy-you know who you are!) etc. Some of our members have been bait diggers since they left school. We enjoy our chosen profession despite some of the abuse we get from so-called environmentalists and land owners (we know of at least four diggers including our secretary that have been threatened by shotgun wielding farmers)  with some of us having been diggers for more than thirty years with at least one of our members being a third generation bait digger. We feel we provide a valuable service keeping anglers supplied with bait and lessening the need for the unwary to venture onto the mudflats.
 

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