mike farrants

think it was November before they showed last year

looks like a cracking day out Ian! i want to bag a plaice - not sure where's best in Weymouth - they used to frequent the mussel beds - but they got destroyed in a storm. will have to give the bay a go! is it getting late in the season for them?

plan for Sunday was a close in day on my boat pugwash, me and Tim going for a few species - needed a couple to tick off the species hunt. Main aim of the day was to bag a gar fish or two on the float - but also to have a bit of fun on the light gear in and around portland harbour walls and structure - wrasse, gurnards, mackerel Pollock - that sort of thing. so we heard rumours that the squid were starting to show over at Boscombe pier, and I need no more encouragement than a rumour to go for these magnificent creatures. Squid jigs dusted off. We met at 8am and chugged out to the first (North) entrance, dropped 3 squid jigs down on one rod and feathers on the other - Tim did the same - no word of a lie within 10 mins I had a squid like 'take' on the squid rod - easy does it and I land the first squid of the the season. we repeat the drift a few times more and end up with 5 squid of reasonable size - good for dinner or bait! cant believe we are catching them and we're still wearing shorts! Tim also gets a solitary mackerel, a pollock and baby bream on his sabikis. we move up to the 2nd entrance (checkers) and begin a long drift in and across the harbour - set with a dexter on the spinning rod, and float with sandeel/mackerel strip - we have a long slow unproductive drift until near the end we see a splash behind Tims float as a decent gar hammers his bait. One in the bag. We then move over the 3rd entrance where HMS Hood is scuppered with the plan to fish lures for bass and mackerel over the wreck - the wind and tide together meant the drift was too fast to hold over the wreck for any length of time - so we switch back to the float gear and drift out of the entrance - we proceeded to have a couple of hours fun on the Garfish - these fish are excellent fun on light gear - really hammering the bait, fighting all the way to the boat with some very impressive leaps out of the water - immense fun on light gear! After a bucket full of Garfish (winter bait) we headed back towards harbour to try a close in small wreck - here we used flapper rigs and rag worm hoping for a gurnard or wrasse. we weren't disappointed - a steady run of bites and rattles and we hooked into a couple of wrasse on each drift - ballans and corkys - only small fish but great fun on light gear. at 4pm we called it a day - 5 squid, a half a bucket of Gars for the bait freezer, 2 species ticked off for me (Gar and Corkwing), and a thoroughly lovely day out on Pugwash. RFA Sir Tristram looking splendid in the Sept sunshine (if a little worse for wear) - now used for SBS and special forces training in portland Squid rings for a snack when i got home!

you do know they're giving out free pot noodles.......? (......i lied)

over 22,000 pre-registered already actually - and the 10% is off existing offers too. and i get 2 days in leui/lew/lu/looe/loo (fishing days)

We are back at Farnborough next weekend fri-sun...... huge event! come get a goodie bag, some amazing deals, 10% off everything, listen to some trade talks, meet some famous footballers and say Hi to me - if you aren't fishing that is! see you there!

I saw that punchline coming/cuming

Not too much to show sadly - decided last minute to brave the 10+Mph S Easterlies and one of the biggest tides of the year so met at my mates boat for the 8AM bridge and headed out with the charters! first stop was a small wreck not far off the stone pier - we initially just wanted to look at it on the sounder to see if it was any decent size - it was nicely marked with one pot bouy - but when we scanned it looked full of bait - so we gave a couple of drifts - i was straight into a mackerel - but sadly that was the only one after 4 short drifts. We moved to Portland's first entrance - nothing, we moved to the 2nd entrance - nothing - we were treated to a dolphin display in the bow wave of a tanker as it came out. after an hour of trying and only one mackerel there was only one thing for it - lose some tackle on the Hood - 3rd entrance. by the time we got there the tide was ripping out and the wind was blowing in creating a bit if a race/overfalls - there were others there too inc commercial bass boats - we feathered and lost gear - but luckily also caught - with 6 mackerel and a gar fish we were done and off to anchor some mixed ground. with big baits on the bottom and small flapper rigs we had a mixed bag in the tough conditions - tide was ripping out and holding us side on to the swell and chop i had a lonely bream, 2x decent conger, and a poor cod (needed for my species hunt) Tim had a red gurnard, poor cod, thornie and couple of dogs Tims son Jason stole the show at the end of the day with a monster 11lb Bull Huss - taken on Garfish fillet! a brute! after dealing with the huss - Tim asked me why i was fishing uptide........... i wasn't - yup the anchor had tripped and we were moving backwards at around 1 knot. time to call it a day.

very sad times indeed - RIP HM Queen Elizabeth

Or maybe its an issue me and captian slow aren't familiar with.....

I don't get it.......

how did that go Andy? 🤪

nice day out by the looks of it! and well done on the win!

thanks Ian - both sets of scales showed around 2lb 4oz........ I did blead it immediately on the boat - we do it with all keepers!

similar here then - a few headshakes from the bigger ones

i was surprised - thought it would have been heavier too

well we used digital and mechanical scales - its fillets in the freezer now......

top day out! nice one!

its deffo a grey gurnard! theres no mistaking the reds! and Tubs have blue edges to their pectoral fins

yeah lots of triggers and john dorys off chesil at the moment - but also codling..... plus bonitos further west keeps us on our toes i guess.

i've just posted my catch reports from Thursday and Friday happy days!

70-80ft - my 10lber was stuck fast on the bottom as it was slack water and put in a few head shakes and a couple of runs - the tide runs hard here and that usually lifts them - its hard work with them kiting in the tide.

thanks - and that's the fist time Phil has fingered a conger.....

My In laws were still down and Tim was free so me and phil joined him and his son on Sea Dog for the day. Plan was similar to Thursday - bait in the entrances and off to anchor mixed ground. Much earlier start as the tides meant we wanted to get out under the bridge rather than wait for the 8am lift. 6.30 at the boat and away by 7am. The mackies were again had to find - 1st entrance produced nothing in the best part of an hour - so we moved up to chequers entrance, and only phil managed one joey- that left only the hood to try - which for those that don't know is the scuppered HMS Hood which was sunk in portlands south entrance to protect the harbour - a good wreck, but tackle graveyard - and hard to fish with the tide rushing out the entrance. Tim held the boat in position and the 3 of us feathered - soon enough we had full strings of mackerel and a bucket of bait ready to go. Tims son caught a few pollock and the wreck..... we moved off to a mark similar to Thursday but about half a mile further out and about 20ft deeper, between 2 long sand/shingle banks. Tim fished light with squid and had a steady stream of bream, red gurnard and scad, plus one mackerel. Early on i had a nice Tope - put up a good scrap, and Phil had some decent thornies which also fought well in the tide- including a pregnant one which we released as quickly as possible - one also came up with a big leach which we removed..... nasty thing! on the big baits we all had plenty of dogs, congers, thornies etc to keep us busy and phil had a lovely red gurnard - might have been his first he couldn't remember! the calm was disrupted by phil catching a seagull (his PB) - it grabbed the bait before he could drop it down - hooked in the top beak - we managed to unhook it quickly with the t bar, and the gulls left us alone for about an hour. Just as I was bouncing my bait back down tide, lifting and bouncing, i got a hit - a decent hit, thinking it was another tope, i brought it up through the tide, Tim said its a big bream, but i had a size 10 hook and mackerel bait....... no the shiney silver fish approaching was a BASS - now i haven't caught a bass in about 30 yrs (schoolies in the river medina) - and this was my PB - it was only 2.5lb which surprised me as it was a big fish at 50cm - but a PB none the less! absolutely buzzing! by 3pm we were done, wind was picking up, tide was dropping off and people were falling asleep - what a cracking day out - especially as we had some decent fish on Thursday too! Me and the Mrs then spent the bank holiday weekend on a friends canal boat in Rickmansworth - very pleasant but no fishing.