mike farrants

In laws were down so i took thurs and friday off to go fishing with Phil. Thursday saw us out on pugwash - first for bait in portlands entrances - the mackies were hard to come by and after over an hour we only had 5 having tried 2 entrances - we said what we really need is double that amount - just a couple more each and suddenly bang - i pull in 3 phil brings in 2 - doubled our catch and bait for the day sorted! I also had a lovely red gurnard on the feathers. we anchored at a spot i know turns up a great variety of fish and we weren't disappointed. I had a couple of decent sized thornies, gurnards, and dogs and phil was on conger duty! All day we were getting rattling bites on our big baits - so i chucked down a small hook rig - but try as i might i didnt find out what it was - either small bream or gurnard. I also had a monster spider crab that dropped off 1ft below the surface. and we saw the dolphin again! fishing was steady in a strong ebb tide - but the 2 big fish came at slack - a 10lb thornie for me and big conger for Phil that must have been close to 15lb lovely day out - and some fantastic fish!

i used sandtex masonry paint on mine - went on like a dream and doesn't appear to have affected my top speed 🤣

buy good buy once - i have only bought Berkley Whiplash Crystal for all my boat gear - fantastic braid. but did use Spectra 15lb on my spinning rod and some really cheap multi coloured stuff for my kayak rod and reel

nice one - glad you finally got out! been a struggle this year eh! at least you put a bend in the rod!

nice fun fishing! good work!

cracking few sessions by the looks of it! NIce one!

nice set up!

hmm thought we were moving towards equal rights? I was left next to some dodgy looking crack heads doing balloons in their car (is that nitrous?) - didnt feel safe there at all for a hour or so after dark.

nice one - looks smart!

glad you made it back ok - and caught some fish first!!

VW T4 s are known money pits - i knew that when getting into it and yes theres the lifestyle and badge that draws people in - id never be seen in a mazda Bongo for example - but i bet they are far better built and more reliable! Its not the breaking down that is the issue (i expect that with an old van) its the complete Sh1tsh0w that was the recovery by the RAC - It never should have taken 12 hrs let alone the 24hrs to get me home.

had the week off and the weather was lovely - went out fishing on Sunday (see catch report) took some friends out on the boat Monday - but no fishing Kayaks on tuesday then fished chesil in the evening (see catch report) went to exmouth and beer to be grockles on Wednesday (prawn sandwich was the closest i got to fishing) Beer was stunning! Thursday kayaks again but no fishing Friday we were at a loose end = Mrs really doesnt like fishing and doesnt really like the boat either - but we go out for a chug about as its so lovely and she can chill - she knows how badly i wanted to catch a red band fish so is happy to let me have a go as we pass the mark - small fish skin sabikis and after about 10 mins of trying bang - i finally get my red band. followed by a mackerel. in the evening we pack up the camper van and head over to join our friends in Selsey at their static caravan for the weekend (rods and tackle box in tow) Sat we have a day on East Beach with my mates Ring 20 - its a mental boat - 200Hp Mercury 2 stroke - this thing flies - literally - 50+knots easily - i have the bruises to show the slamming. great fun - but a one trick pony. Mrs loved it too! Sunday we aim to go fishing before we head back - but on route to the beach at 11.50am my van konks out - suspected drive shaft popped out - bugger - thats the day ruined - RAC called. We wait at the roadside for 5hrs in the searing heat for a RAC man to tell me what i already knew - he then passes me on to the recovery team, a further 4 hours and we get picked up by a sub-contracted recovery firm to be taken to Rownhams Services to be relayed on to weymouth. we arrive at Rownhams at 10.30pm - no relay - multiple calls to RAC prove fruitless as they cant get another firm to take on the job - RAC don't care, terrible customer service, leave us stranded expecting they are working on it still - by 2.30am after being promised a return call 4 times we hear nothing back and assume were stuck there till the morning so settle down - thankfully we had the camper! At 5.30am after just a couple of hours sleep we get a call saying they've found a firm that will take us (i believe they mean the Sub contractors "sunday out of hours charges" time has passed). eventually at 9.30am we get loaded and taken home for 12pm - 24 hours to relay us a 2.5hr journey, madness and terrible customer service, i will be cancelling my RAC cover. Highlights of this week - Red band fish, Red mullet, Gold Sinny wrasse, Sand smelt - ice creams, beers, wine, ring 20, feeling what 50 knots feels like, laughs with mates Low lights - Boat budget will take a hit due to the stoopid T4 money pit. and i never got to fish Selsey East beach - but we will be back.

So i've been living in Weymouth 3 years now and all i've managed to catch off chesil is a foul hooked gar fish (and im not counting that) - the fish simply elude me. No idea what was going wrong but simply couldn't catch - spring summer autumn winter, close in, far out, Portland end, west bay end, big bait, small bait - hell i've even joined the hoards of tinsle tossers and still not caught.... even if the fish are breaching in front of me..... but i never give up trying... Tuesday i thought why not try again- we'd had a lovely day out on the kayaks and it was warm and still in the evening - mrs off to footie training so i headed to chesil - armed with a mackerel, 2 prawns, 2 frozen squid 1 frozen peeler and we wont mention the left over worms that i ended up forgetting..... parked myself at Ferrybridge and noticed i was next to Wayne Hand - "The Shore angler" on you-tube on one of his coaching sessions = i instantly got a buzz of confidence - if he's here i must be in the right spot. I banged out a king prawn on a pulley pennel, and a 2 hook flapper with squid strip (hoping for bream) A 'family of Tinsel tossers' arrived and parked right between me and Wayne and that anoyed me a bit - its a 17 mile beach - no need to cram in - they clearly didnt care i had 2 rods out at angled left and right - anyway i let it go = there were loads of baits breaching they were into the mackerel and having fun. A bait ball exploded right in front of me and without caring or noticing one of them cast right over both my lines into it and pulled in a string of mackies and both my lines - fuming mad but remaining polite we untangled - once retrieved i had a foul hooked mackerel on my small rig - must have robbed one of his i think - that or he helped me = either way i'm not counting it. i was getting good rattles on the bream rig but no hook ups and baits getting stripped - led me to drop a hook size and bang - a bite and i connected - low and behold - not only my first fish on chesil but my first ever Red Mullet - just in keeper size, and gill hooked so it came home for tea (i tried to release it first but it wouldn't go back - so i waded in to try and revive it but it wasn't having it - so i grabbed it back) - absolutely buzzing! id done it and in style! a stunning fish! soon followed by a small black bream. I added mackerel strip to the prawn baits with elastic- nothing - but the mackerel did get eaten away - small bream i guess towards the end i swapped the big bait over to the frozen peeler and had a lot of interest - big bites but i couldn't connect. happy with my evening i went home with a decent mackerel for the bait freezer and a delicious red mullet for tea! Treated to a stunning sunset too! Happy days!

we entered the boat comp again this month - 2nd time and still lots to learn. comp is diff points per fish, max 10 per species, catch and release, no min size, you mark your points on a card so we need 2 persons or more on a boat to adjudicate - theres a different bonus species each time and specimen comp too. Bonus fish this time was Bull Huss (we didn't find any) we headed out the harbour at 8am straight to the adamant to drop the first baits at 9am on the dot. I soon pull in a Tope - nice 25 points and new species for me this year, followed by a dog or two = but it wasn't producing much so we upped anchor and headed to the spoils. here i was rewarded with a Red Gurnard (again first of the season) and a few more dogs. Tim had a couple of bream, gurnard and dogs too. with the fishing slow we decided to head inshore for the small stuff - and we quickly bagged up our 10 pollock each - around the 10cm size, and a few wrasse - i had a Gold Sinny which i was delighted with - as its quite rare and i had 2 sand smelts - sadly these fish go down as small unclassified 5 points each. Tim had a load of pout and his 10 wrasse - i struggled. we went in search of bream for the last hour - but sadly nothing more. Neither of us won anything, but i improved on my last score and we learned a lot about tactics - and the pints back at the club were lovely and cold. cracking day afloat!

cracking day out!

nice one!! no pics?

cracking little fishy on a little dishy

Check my profile pic then 😉🤣

One of these you mean? 😇

Had a good day on the boat comp, didn’t get anywhere near winning. But did get a few fish! Will post a catch report soon!

Easier to get a full string too 🤣🤣🤣

Turns out I didn’t need it, still blitzed it!

You have until 6.30pm tonight to sort you team out for the first game week of the season! good luck everyone!

i've made a simple 2 hook flapper for the small stuff - which goes down to a short 30cm length of mono with a lead slider on it, locked in between swivels - off which comes the long trace for the big baits - the idea of the lead slider being to improve bite detection - otherwise the snood is 'below' the weight and we use big weights given the tide out here! ive also cut down some feathers and sabikis to 3 hook rigs which i intend to bait up for the small inshore stuff! i'll let you know how we get on!

Weymouth boat angling comp round 3 on sunday - i missed round 2, so this is our 2nd stab at it = lets hope we do better - 1st rounds was a huge learning curve - we've been out practicing tactics!