mike farrants

After a sweltering commute home from the office i was straight out to the pier to cool down - a strong SW meant no other options really. Armed with my light Kanji set up, tiny hooks, and some smelly old dead rag from the weekend - aim was drop shotting for anything tiny! rattling Bites on every drop, and fish from the off - what a fun couple of hours! Black bream, Corkwing wrasse, Ballan Wrasse, Pouting - all great fun on light gear! And my since ive never caught a black bream from the shore before - that will be my shore caught PB! whopper! to top it off - just after id chucked the last of my dead rag and packed up i got given a handfull of king rag - so they're in the fridge for thurs/frid evening!

nice write up and pics! a good session in glorious weather!

Had the inlaws down again this weekend so me and phil went out in pugwash! despite the heatwave the wind was forecast a fresh 7-10mph ESE which might have made it a bit lumpy so the Plan was to go see what it was like and adjust our plan accordingly. first off was the mackerel - we spent an hour or so drifting for mackerel near portlands 1st entrance, bagging up 10 or so - including 4 decent sized ones, then phil pulls in a whopper - boat record at 1.5lbs. - that's 5 for bait and 5 for the BBQ. we were joined by the local dolphin who was also chasing the fish - it stuck around us for a good half hour and we continued to catch. next up was a trip over to the red band fish mark - but a couple of drifts over that produced nothing. we decided to head out to our deep water mark on the spoils - but on route and given the Ebbing Spring tide, and the choppy sea i decided against it - not sure why but it didn't feel right. instead we decided to try an inshore sand/shingle mark id seen on Navionics, over at Red Cliff / Ringstead - anchored up and settled in - however nothing was interested in the rag worm, so we switched to bream rigs with squid, nothing - then we went big - with a mackerel head and mackerel flappers - nothing. not even a dog fish. no bites nothing. looks like it should hold fish here? but no. fed up with that we pulled anchor and tried drifting soft plastics lures over nearby ringstead ledge - hoping for pollock - I had one hit but missed it, couple more tries and we gave up on that too and decided to try to mend the day using the ragwom on the wrasse close into Portland harbour wall. However after 4-5 drifts close in to the rocks we had nothing but tiny pecks - we called it and headed to the pub. A tough days fishing - my mate was out on sea dog over at lulworth and he also had a poor day too - with only mackerel and one conger. lovely day afloat and some lovely mackerel - gave each neighbour 2 each and we shared the big one between us on the BBQ!

nice blast out for a load of bait!

nice write up - and decent bass - good swap - i love scallops! shame about the lost fish - but still a story for Leo to tell! memories made nonetheless!

haha looks like i'm in the water - but no - the patch of water nearest the boat was that flat it looked see through

I was working from home on Thursday and was planning to spend the evening fishing from the pier, but i know i would be wishing i took the boat out - so i did just that. shut the laptop at 5 on the dot and headed for the marina. Pugwash has just had an engine service so wanted to a) run her in again, and b) build up some more solo confidence as I haven't been out on my own for a few weeks. plan - mackerel feathers on one rod over the side and a small lure/Jig/perk on the spinning rod as i drifted over mixed ground. not much to report other than it was a lovely evening and the feathers produced 4 mackerel - 2 monsters which got filleted up for colleagues in the office on Friday. lovely evening out!

Set for a cracking day - 4 of us met at 6.30am on Sunday and headed out on my mates boat Seadog for the day - original plan was Kidney banks - round Portland bill - for the double figure blondes but the tide was forecast 1.7m and you shouldn't really attempt to anchor it in anything less than a 1.6m - so new plan was mackerel for bait, Lulworth for bream, Adamant for rays. We feathered up some mackerel in Portland's north entrance, and had the bonus of a few pollock too, but the mackerel weren't thick and fast so we moved to the East entrance and bagged up a bucket full - must have been well over 20 good sized mackerel. we steamed over to Lulworth banks and tried a new mark near a drop off - 2 hook flappers and small squid baits we were quite quickly into the bream and wrasse, with one conger also showing up. When the tide eased off to low we upped anchor and moved off to the adamant shoal, anchoring on top - big mackerel baits down hoping for rays and tope. I managed a double figure thornie (was 12.5lb in the tub). and Tim had Tope to 10lb, otherwise it was just Dogs, Jamie lost a big ray as his knot tying isn't up to scratch. a relatively slow full days fishing compared to recent trips - but basking in the sun in the flat calm conditions and still plenty of fish and variety! 7 Black bream and about 12 mackerel to take home! Portland looked amazing through my polarised sunnies! Knackered and a bit red we got back to the marina around 5.30pm awesome!

nice day out and plenty of fish!!

nice mixed day out - and what a stonker of a bass!

Hi Sean, i have a colvic 20 - Pugwash - out of weymouth - love it! yes its slow and chugs along, but t gets me fishing!

Spotted: Blonde: spotted: Blonde:

but theres no white spots/patches and the dots are very dark/pronounced - making it look more like a spotted at first glance

its a difficult one - but id say blonde too - spots go all the way to the very edge on a blonde - a spotted ray they dont.

i got the 40g for use from portland rocks with Nomuri kanji 30-70 spinning rod - but took them out on the boat for a bit of fun in protland entrance (Schoolies, pollock and macks)- i have bigger ones for when we go over the reefs etc - but will look at "the Boss"

it was a major craft Slow Jig para in lumi stripe at 40g

awesome - the Jigs are really doing it for you! what a greedy corkie! i tried a small jig for pollack recently and it lasted all of 3 drifts before i lost it - will take some practicing to get right!

crikey - your arms aren't even at full stretch! what a tank! what was it taken on?

no i meant you'll see the brand trashed in "The Range" - not my range..... although you might be on to something - we are looking for new categories and may tradespeople fish........

you'll see the brand in the range soon.......

so pretty much sink and draw works if you aren't vertical jigging?

any particular technique from the shore?? i've just got some cheapo 28g ones from amazon to try off the bill

sold 3 last week, 41 so far YTD - someone likes them!

I don't like to show off 🤣

great write up and great pics and fish - that Gurnard is a lump! awesome. I chose to avoid Chesil on NYE and was at preston beach catching 1 lonely Dog instead!