mike farrants

ok fair enough! 🤙

Oh and @GPSguru - i caught a smaller bass on one of your Red Gill Evos i got from you! so thanks!

nice one = target achieved. but i have one concern - you said you ran out of bait? i'm hoping that's just a figure of speech or some sick joke - running out of bait should never happen - always take way more than you think you need! 🤣

i caught a lovely one off the back of the boat sat on the pontoon - they wouldn't take the bread submerged under a float or freelined - but when i kept the line and hook almost out of the water and the bread just on the surface they took it. seemed they were cautious when they had time to think - but when it was on the surface they smash and grab. frustrating, but also very exhilarating when you get one!

wow what a day, I met Tim and his son at Tims boat at 7.30 - with the plan to be a morning on the Shambles drifting the last of the flood for Turbot until the tide got too much and the afternoon under the bill drifting for bass and wrasse. We picked up 10 decent mackerel first thing and headed out to the shambles West bouy (as the tide as flooding W-E). Rigged up with booms, watch leads, and mackerel fillets on long traces - size 4 hooks so the small flatties have a chance too! Fist drift was a tad fast, but Tim hooked into a very nice 4lb Bass. great fish! 2nd drift it was my turn to get a bite - a good scrap, plenty of head shakes and taking line and I Bag a worldie of a fish - a monster Bass - it was huge - biggest i've ever seen let alone caught - it went to 10lb on the scales - put my previous 2lber in the shade! not long after dropping down again i got another hit - and this was another big fish - a decent fight, stripping line, and heading up tide, soon at the boat we could see it was a big tope - it didn't like the boat or the net so went for a 3rd run - soon enough we had it in the boat for a quick pic and then away. just as we had motored back to the west bouy the tide turned so we had to reposition - this drift produced a lovely Brill and a weaver for Tim. the ebbing tide picked up real quickly producing some nasty overfalls so we decided to drift off the back of the bank into deeper water and switch to soft plastics for the bass - we all managed a couple of smaller bass on lures - all around the 2lb mark. as we drifted away we realised we were heading into the race, and the sea picked up real ugly so we quickly aborted plans and motored slowly back through the horrible sea off the bill - swell coming from the SW, tide racing west - It was not pleasant for about 30 mins motoring. expert skippering from Tim on the wheel and throttle saw us back in the bay to anchor on the mud. here we caught doggies, smoothies and bream for the afternoon. I took my bass to the angling club to have it weighed as i believe it to be specimen size, meaning I might win monthly or even annual biggest Bass award. Sadly it lost weight over the day in the coolbox (I had bled it) and it came in at 4.072kg which is a fraction under 9lb - still a monster fish! Tim gave me his Brill to take home and then i had the dilemma - was i going to have bass or brill for tea? since i've never had Brill before i went for that and the bass got filleted up, Vacuum packed and put in the freezer. 10 decent sized fillets off it! there were 2 more brill fillets for the freezer too Brill fillets baked in butter and seasoned - delicious. it dwarfed my chopping board and sink! An epic day and a new PB - going to take me some time to beat that now!

nice one!

looks like a nice day out!

@Malc its points per fish per species up to 4 of each - 30 for the 1st, 15 for 2nd and 3rd and 40 for the 4th of each species so max 100 per species

I do all my anchoring and retrieval from the side - one fixed length - it all goes over and and it all comes back in. (tied off at the bow obviously)

headed out at 8am for a 9am start to the comp = Tim had got fresh mackerel the night before so armed with that and frozen squid, and launce we were hopeful. Very slow day for me only bagging 4 bream, 1 dog, 1 thornie, 1 Red Gunard, 3 ballan wrasse, 1 corkwing and a pout. Tim had a great day bagging up on the bream, dogs, eels, wrasse, pout, a tope, and more - he went on to win most points - well done Tim. weather was gorgeous all day!

haha! love it!

had the inlaws down so me and phil joined Tim and his son out on Seadog on Saturday - glorious start to the day a with mirror flat seas. Tim had been out the evening before to get fresh mackerel - so we went straight to our mixed ground mark. Fished small baits to start as the tide was running - we all had multiple bream, pout and I pulled out a lovely red gurnard. As the tide slackened off we switched to big baits - Tim and his son both had some big bull huss, I had a run of congers, and Phil hooked into a lovely big Small eyed ray! his first! the wind picked up in the afternoon - and about 10mins before we were due to pull the anchor something strange happened - the anchor buoy floated past us........ and off into the distance - now we had to do some quick thinking - how do we retrieve the anchor without and alderney buoy.? assuming the alderney ring had sunk to the bottom of the anchor rope we quickly hooked up 5 or so of the fenders to a large karabiner - hoping the chain would pass through - i went up front to hook it onto the anchor line - to my amazement the alderney ring was sat there just below the water - presumably the tide was holding it from sinking down the rope - amazing - quickly with the boat hook and a well timed wave I was able to catch the ring and attach the fenders. we proceeded to pull the anchor with the fenders - which promptly went under and failed to lift/trip the anchor. now stuck fast, we decided to attach the anchor rope to a rear cleat and pull it out again - rather than risk driving over the rope - so back up on the bow to pull in enough rope to reach the rear cleat - this did the trick the second time round and the anchor not only came up but the fenders were enough to hold it up on the surface. now off to find the Buoy that had sped off in the wind and tide and was well out of sight! we did find it quite easily well over a mile down tide by then, and i scooped it up in the landing net - catch of the day! some quick thinking saved us having to hand haul it up from 80ft! weird thing is all the Shackles and Karabiner were in tact - nothing had come loose? so no idea how it came free - can only assume the karabiner opened somehow...... (a twist in the rope perhaps?) we now have 2x karabiners holding it on.

oh sorry - i thought you didn't see the bream side on... doh. yes i get it now!

We took both boats out the water on thursday for a quick lick of paint Pugwash and Seadog - I discovered I need a new cutlass brearing so not great news - otherwise all the painting went ok and in fact Tims boat Seadog was back in the water Friday evening. so that meant console my worries with a trip out on saturday. Small tides and a clean hull saw us hatch a plan to round the bill and hunt the wrasse in the morning followed by anchoring on the Kidney banks in the afternoon - last time we went the kidney bank threw up blondes to 20lb, 8lb Turbot, Spurs and Tope - including my biggest ever fish (40lb Tope). this time nothing but Dogs. Luckily we had success on the Wrasse just off the bill. Tims all went to 4lb I have received the new Cutlass bearing from ASAP supplies and will start re-assembling this week - hoping to get back in the water next weekend.

? the bream is in both the pics

doesn't have to be big to be enjoyable!

Just a quick report as the fishing wasn't great - Weymouth boat league comp number 3. We went to our usual mark and i got off to a good start - but it dropped off once the tide slackened. Loads of bloom in the water made the fishing really hard - I managed 5 dogfish, 4 bream, and an Eel. Tim had 4x bream, 4x doggies, a Red gurnard, a Cuckoo Wrasse, a mackerel and an eel. Mid afternoon we moved spots - coming closer in to search out Wrasse, Pout and pollock on the reefs/wrecks inshore to up our tally But only Tim managed to find one Ballan wrasse Neither of us placed anywhere near the top. the last bream i had was a feisty one of +2lb with some awesome colours - i had already kept an earlier one for tea so he went back to help the stocks! Classic bit of Bream juggling...... lovely day afloat despite the disappointing result -

Wind stopped play this weekend so I thought i would brave the "big beach of broken dreams" on Friday evening and i wasn't disappointed - dreams were broken - No double figure blondes, no Smoothies, no Bass in the gutter - Just a stiff cold breeze, a mountain of shingle to climb over only to be rewarded with a Spider crab and single Dogfish - before the lung busting hike back over the bank. fishing the flood from 6pm to 9pm - one rod was a 2 hook flapper baited with Squid, the other was a pulley pennel with big mackerel bait. I also did a bit of lure fishing and tried for squid at dusk. No Joy. Really cold, too windy to see any bites, hardly anyone else there. at least the wind was off my back - helped with my rusty casting skills! after only one baby spider crab I was feeling defeated - at 8.30pm I started reeling in the small rod to pack up and noticed the big one had gone slack, i tightened it up again only for it to go slack - so i left it while i packed away the other rod. when i came to reel the big one in, it was heavier - another spider i thought - to my surprise a doggie came through the surf, blank avoided - but only just!

Weather looked good all weekend - but my fishing buddy was in Benidorm until Saturday night - so plans were made for Sunday - however the wind was freshening and turning more easterly - so not ideal. After a failed attempt to get mackerel in Portlands entrance we opted to seek shelter under White Nothe - East of the Bay. New ground for us - but worth a go! It was slow - i only managed 4 doggies, Tim managed doggies, Smoothounds, Bream and a thornie, his son had dogs and a blonde ray. wind was fresh all day - but the sun was out and we were afloat - so all good!

ouch not good - at least you got home ok - was anyone wearing green on the day Luke? or eating bananas?

I do use thick hooks for bream - these ones size #10 i think

We catch hundreds of bream here in Weymouth - they are here all year round! Simple to catch if they are there. I use a very simple 2 hook flapper - tied snoods about 6-8 inches long and about the same distance apart, small yellow hooks, yellow beads (can be floating but i don't see the need from a boat!), small strip of Squid, mackerel belly or sometimes they want rag worm. if they're hungry they will take anything on any size hook - but your best chance is small gear. the bites can be aggressive, rattly bites but they have hard mouths so i tend to strike into them - if you don't hook up let the bait settle again for a 1 minute or 2 - if they haven't robbed it they will be back on it - but do check your bait if it goes quiet - they will rob you! - when reeling in don't ever give them any slack - steady wind to the surface and straight into the boat/net

nice going - the GG is a great catch! well done!

nice looking set up - seen plnety of you-tube vids of the Aussies doing it - Youngbloods, Reef addicts, etc etc looks fun in warm waters - not sure how many days you get out round here - must open up opportunities to try new areas though! welcome!

you talking about us Caulk'heads? haha!