mike farrants

Let us know how the first charter trip goes Luke!

awesome - the size of that pollock! nice one!

nice one Luke!

nice one! looks lovely out there!

thanks! it was a 2 hook flapper with pop up beads, small hooks and squid strip!

nice one - i loev the spur of the moment sessions - low expectations makes any fish more rewarding i think!

Another weekend another cracking day afloat! Met at the marina for the 8am bridge lift - big tides so had to use the bridge - off out to try a new mark - looked on navionics and found somewhere fishy looking to try - about 5 miles out, 70ft water, over mixed ground. Hoping for bream, rays, congers, that sort of thing - plus being a new mark you just never know! dropped the hook and rigged up a 2 hook flapper on the light rod with squid and a medium fish bait on the heavier rod. Bang straight into a fish on the light rod before i could bait up the other rod - Scad - another for the species hunt. Not long in we had a steady stream of black bream, Dogs, Eels, pout etc. I had a fierce rattle and though bream - but was delighted to see a stunning Mr cuckoo wrasse - always a pleasure to see and only my 2nd. plus a tick off on the species hunt. About half an hour later Mrs Cuckoo showed up - my first female Cuckoo the wind dropped to nothing over slack and all we had were dogs and bootlace eels. - until Bang Tim had a decent fish on - big Bully not long after i too had a Bull Huss - my first and an absolute chunk of a fish - another ticked off the species hunt! as the tide picked up so did the fishing - the bream came back on the feed and Tim landed a boat record at over 3lb. He also had the only ray of the day - a humble thornie (one for his species hunt) the tide was racing through and it made holding bottom difficult - but we persevered. and im glad we did we had big chunky squid that we had caught ourselves over the winter and so I decided to bung a big squid bait down for a hound and i was well rewarded with my PB smoothy - a spirited fight swimming up tide, head bangs, taking line, we thought tope to start with - an absolute tank of a double figure Smoothound! just over 10lb absolutely cracking day afloat - and it was T shirt weather for about an hour! I'm now on 13 species for the hunt in just over a month - i totalled 22 last year - so i'm doing well. Tim also hooked 2 scallops and a doggie on one trace - so the scallops came home for a snack!

@Saintly Fish - yes i'll have a cap please!

ahh now you are talking - i love Von Dutch would go so well with my vest

any good on the baaarbie?

depends on the style for me - i like a baseball cap - deffo for the boat - but its got to be decent - if that makes sense - nice padded front, meshback, decent shaped peak. hard to tell without seeing them. any idea of cost?

nice one!

PB bream - 2.25lb Caught April 16th on the spoil grounds on Rag - good fight - delicious eating!

It was the 1st comp in a series run by Weymouth Boat angling society and we were aboard Tims Boat seadog. over 30 anglers took part across about 10 boats How it works - One rod each, max 3 hooks, min 2 competitors on a boat so you cant cheat. Leave the harbour at 8am, fishing commences 9am - 3.30 - last bag back at the club before 5pm. theres a list of the usual species (not inc mackerel) theres no min size - fish recorded and returned, and you score as follows 30 points for the 1st, 15 second, 15 third and 40 points for the 4th fish of a species then 1 point each up to a max of 10 for each species. (eg 1 doggie = 30 points, 4 doggies = 100 points, 10 doggies = 106 points) seemed to work well - it Encourages variety and pushes you to get that 4th fish. the kitty is split 4 ways - with Prizes for most points, most fish & most species, plus there's also a nominated species revealed on the day with the biggest fish also taking a share of the prize money - this month it was Thornback ray. we set off to our usual mark over mixed ground - i deployed a novel rig that i think stood me in good stead - a 2 up flapper for small fish & 1 down rig - big bait on the bottom. I had a glow weight, pop up lumi beads, the lot and i hoped the big fish bait would not only get me a big fish, but act as a bit of chum to draw in the smaller fish and stopped me changing rigs all the time - it worked well as i had a good run of bream/pout/dogs/rays and conger all on the same rig. Baits were Rag, Squid, Mackerel, and Gar. with a few hours to go we moved location to go and try for pin whiting, small pollock and Wrasse - as that seemed a good tactic to bag more points - but we really stuggled and should have stayed put for more rays I got 3 thornies - biggest 21inches across the wings but didn't win, 2 pout, 7 bream inc a PB at 2.25lb, 7 doggies and a conger I ended on 335 points and didn't win - but Tim did win most species with 8 as he also had a poor cod, Bull Huss & Ballan Wrasse - a nice £64 for the day! great fun!

awesome!

heartbreaking

i bloody love a scotch egg - Sainsburys taste the difference ftw

id rather be catching dog fish

sorry i meant its easier to tell the difference between a tope and smoothie if said smoothy is of a starry persuasion....

don't you know it - all my fishing gear is now Dewalt - every sample sale i bag up - clima-cool T shirts, trousers, shorts, fleeces, hoodies - i have so many pockets i dont know which one has my scotch egg in it half the time! i do wear the OO gear too though!

ahh for our species comp they usually just want a pic of the mouth if unsure - if the hound happens to be 'starry' - thats an easier ID of them. I think there may be a difference in the eyes - pupil shape - but i'm not certain!

easy one is stick you finger in its mouth 😄 - seriously though don't do that - Tope have teeth - Smoothounds have crushing pads.

4 of us out on Seadog for a blast over to lulworth and other spots ahead of the 1st comp of the year in the Weymouth Angling Club boat league. (which is this weekend) We anchored up on lulworth bank 3 of us targeting bream on 2 hook flappers on squid and one on mackerel flapper targetting the big stuff. a few Bream, conger and Dogs, but not much else - fishing was slow. so we pulled the anchor and moved off to the spoils. Similar tactics - produced more fish - including bream, Pout, Scad (very early i guess?), poor cod, & whiting. plus the usual dogs and conger. I switched to a big single bait rig and put on some Squid hoping for a hound - and soon enough i was rewarded with a nice angry smoothhound - so angry we thought tope at first! followed by a smaller smoothie, and then a lovely spotted ray and a small thornie. a very good days fishing - and it was almost warm in the sunshine!

Got fifty plus in the freezer if they want them back!

Have friends staying from land locked Bucks so braved the weather on sunday on my mates boat. the wind was forecast to drop off in the afternoon - but it didn't = made for a slightly uncomfortable day but enjoyable nonetheless. after failing to get fresh bait in the entrances we headed the 7nm out to the adamant shoal - armed with frozen mack and squid. Started off slow going with only congers & dogs - nothing small - no whiting or pout. I got a decent Blonde ray - but that was it so after an hour or so we moved off to a different mark closer inshore. we had A steady stream of double figure Congers, Dogs, thornies and bream. with my mate getting a decent share of the action with plenty of big conger and a thornie! I had a weird bite but when i lifted the rod I felt nothing - when i went to drop the weight back down the weight didn't hit the bottom - ahh - fish on and its running - after a spirited fight i land a feisty Tope. great fun on 12-20lb gear Happy with 4 species ticked off the small boat species hunt = Conger, Blonde ray, Tope and LSD.