jonnyswamp
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Posts posted by jonnyswamp
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7 of us made the near 4hr trek down to Penzance on the Friday lunch time arriving at the digs (pub) around 6pm, just in time for some beer
Early to bed (bloody pub shut at 10pm) and up for 6.30 for a breakfast in a little cafe near the train station, just a 2 min stroll to the boat
Too early for me to eat a full English so settled on some jam on toast
7 full bellies boarded Lo-Ki around 7.30 and we were soon out through the harbour with the skipper telling us that everywhere was literally crammed full of bait fish, Sardines, Anchovies, small Mackerel etc and that maybe we wouldn't have such a productive day
First drift was off lands end and gave us a couple of Wrasse, as did the second
Moved a bit inshore and hit a nice shoal of Bass, did this drift once more and had the same sort of result albeit with a couple of wrasse thrown in as well
Another move and the odd Pollock was coming up with some small Coalies that went back and that was the story for the rest of the morning, although there were a few Codling coming up now and again
The sounder was black with bait fish wherever we went so we just had to persevere, the skipper did pull up a nice Coalie that looked to be around a double but it wasn't weighed and after a quick picture, it went back
In fact, everything went back except the insize Codling, a few Pollock and 3 Coalies
All my fish fell to a 150 gm Sardine slow jig, which took a bit of a battering especially off the Wrasse, but certainly out fished the other jigs I tried
The rest of the afternoon was spent at anchor catching some half decent Whiting and the odd dog.
With the forecast for Sunday being a bit lumpy, skipper said we would be at anchor for most of the day as it wouldn't be suitable to go around to the reefs off Lands End so wasn't looking forward to that at all
He took us to some different reefs from Saturday that were fishable with lures, but the wind pushed us along a bit too briskly for the slow jigs to be effective
I had a nightmare, loosing 4 sets of gear (including leader) one after the other, so spent a lot of the morning tackling back up
We picked up a steady stream of Pollock to around 4/5lb and a few Codling that were a bit smaller with all fish falling to 4" sidewinder type lures, the 6" weren't getting touched
The biggest of the weekend was a surprise 14.5lb Ling which took a 4" green lure
After my nightmare morning, I had a very good hour or so picking up 3 Pollock and a sizable Codling
We headed in for 3pm followed by pods of Porpoise and Dolphins. There were loads about, no doubt gorging on the Sardines etc
So that was our weekend, not a disaster, but not what was expected (I even emptied my fish freezer in anticipation of filling it back up with fresh stuff and I promised a load of people fish for the Monday)
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Nice one Mike, but are they them squeaky beans on that plate
They're only silent if they're fresh, squeak like fuck if cooked from frozen
Or is that just Mrs Swamps cooking methods ?
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Sounds like a great day
Just a tip regarding the food, less salad, more butter on the spud
Apart from that it looks tasty
- Andy135 and Saintly Fish
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After what felt like 4 months of rain and high winds, he weekend forecast was good, cold but good
Should have been around 5mph Easterly
Got the 7am lock out and as the tide was fairly big, decided to anchor up on the inner coral to wait for it to ease enough to get out a bit wider
It's only a short dap from the locks and the anchor was down within 15 mins and we started to bait up whilst the boat settled
However, the anchor had other ideas and we were dragging at 1.5 knots
I went up front and retrieved the anchor to find a boulder which fitted exactly between the 3 flukes (15kg Bruce, is that what the pointy things are called ?) so now wonder it didn't hold
No pics of that as I was hanging over the bow getting the said stone out of it's holder and didn't want to chance getting my phone out and it following the same route as the stone back to the sea bed
Anyway, re positioned the boat and dropped anchor for the second time and we were holding in quite a strong tide considering where we were
4 of us on board today with the usual baits of dirty squid, rag, lug and Shuff had some Mackerel
Not a sniff for the first hour or 2, then whilst I was making some hot beverages, I noticed my line kiting
I was using 8 oz Gemini extended grip wires and hoped that it had been pulled out by a fish, rather than a lump of weed, so started my retrieve with a bit of hopeful anticipation
First Codling of the day at 2 3/4 lb, so although not big it was a keeper
Another or so hour went by with very little movement on any of our rods, until Nipper had quite a big nod on his
He lifted into it and quite quickly brought in a slightly smaller Codling of just over 2lb
After hearing what the other boats were catching (or not as the case was) we decided to stay until low, then move
Just before low we made the short move up Channel to just inside the Cardiff mid buoy, was going to fish one of the holes off the foreshore but not enough water to get in to them on low, sounder was showing 5 ft and getting shallower so I erred on the side of caution and went out a bit wider
Did I mention the biting Easterly ? It was fine on the ebb as we had shelter from the cabin (shed, wheelhouse, greenhouse, outhouse or whatever you want to call it)
When we turned on the flood the wind was straight onto the back of the boat and by christ it was cold, but we had a bit more rod twitching up here and Llewelyn was soon into a good scrap which put a hell of a bend in his new rod. A Savage Gear 12-20lb class I think he said, This was soon on the deck and was almost a twin to mine from earlier in the morning
Just a couple of bites followed this with Llewelyn dropping what was thought to be a Ray. He was only using 18lb traces and that just aint enough to deal with the teeth on a Ray, or any other part of a Ray come to that
I made an executive decision to get the 15.15 lock back in, which due to the temp and lack of any more fish was very much welcomed. We had the anchor up by 10 to 3 and we made the short journey back to Cardiff
There were 4 other boats in the lock and after chatting to them it seemed that we didn't fare too badly at all, with only 3 Codling between them and a few dogs
That put my mind to rest as the boats that went down the channel to Barry/Aberthaw areas hadn't done very good (that was my plan A for yesterday, but thankfully decided to stay local and save a bit of fuel)
If the weather holds we have a couple of days fishing out of Penzance this coming weekend 🤞
Just the one group photo
- suzook12, Dicky, Saintly Fish and 6 others
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1 hour ago, Odyssey said:
Does anyone know much about marine gas safety certs? I’m looking to get my boat gas checked but not sure what I should be asking for 🙄🙄🙄
@Saintly Fish @jonnyswamp any advice? 🙂
I didn't go for any of the marine courses as there just isn't enough work for it IMO, so don't know what the cost would be
What have you got on your boat ?
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9 minutes ago, Saintly Fish said:
I'm out on Thursday. Been booked in this week to do my 5 years gas resits, but got done in two days. So here fishy fishy's...
Strangely enough, I just tried to register an install and all mine ran out on 12th Jan FFS
I'm now trying to book a course somewhere for next week 🤠
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I'm hoping to get out Friday if work commitments allow, failing that, Saturday
Haven't been out since 9th Dec 🤞
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6 minutes ago, JonC said:
Whatever scales you have you will still be accused of fibbing by the usual people, so save your money.
Sounds like you speak from experience
This is why I wanted the digital scales, whatever they read (after 2 identical weighs) will be recorded, unlike listening to someone arguing that they thought it was an ounce or two heavier
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Right then experts (that's you jonc) what scales are you all using
I'm after a set for our club as we have a heaviest fish comp that lasts until our last trip of the year (10 species in total)
It's £20 per species, so not a fortune, but can mount up if you get a few lumpers
We have been relying on various Chinese crap that don't always show the same weight twice, so want something a but more accurate/reliable
I've just had a look at the Reuben Heaton 9000, small enough and at around £40 won't break the bank
Prefer this type as these allow for a bit of pitch and roll of a boat, unlike an analogue set
Has any of you got a set of these or have you got something better ?
Budget is up to £50
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A good morning and some nice Whiting there, we don't get them anywhere near that size up here (Bristol Channel)
We did have one decent year in early nineties IIRC, quite a few 2lb plus around for a while
Be interested on what your mates had off the wrecks, we were supposed to be out of Weymouth this Sunday but not looking likely now so I'll have the rest of the week off (been looking for a new car also) and take my boat out Friday if weather holds
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Nothing massive for me, had plenty of doubles whilst wrecking, but never out of the Bristol Channel
My best Cod out of the BC at 14lb something earlier this year (Jan or Feb I think)
Oh and my British record Grey Gurnard of course 😁
Caught on a blue/white Sidewinder copy this April out of Brixham
EDIT
Just checked and the Cod was last December 19th, so doesn't count really
- thejollysinker, daio web, suzook12 and 1 other
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Went down to the boat the day before to have see how thick the ice was, at least 25mm around my boat and out towards the main drag
The forecast was 2-3 degrees overnight, so thought we would be able to break what ice would be left by my 2 crew on the front using brushes
Got down at 6.30 Sat morning and it was quite obvious that it stayed well below freezing all night and the ice had thickened
No chance of breaking the ice with brushes, or ploughing through without damaging the hull, so back home we came
Shite weather for the foreseeable as well
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5 minutes ago, Odyssey said:
Thanks for offer but already got plans. Was a mates boat up river.
Saturday looks warmer! Will spend day get boat fixed up me thinks 🙂
No worries, if you change your mind I'm getting the 7am lock
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1 hour ago, Odyssey said:
Boat is frozen to mooring….
What boat were you going out on
I got a bit of room if you can make Saturday
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Was going to go out tomorrow, but decided on Saturday as it's warmer
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19 hours ago, GPSguru said:
Yes, it has an old school glow plug system. No glow plug light, the plugs are energized through a timed relay that is connected to the ignition live.
The plugs 'glow' for 8 secs. Each plug draws 10 amps. I haven't looked, but I assume the relay is old school with a mechanical bi-metallic timer, and it is probably bolted to the engine.
Without the plugs, it would never start in temps of 5c or lower (unless you pump ether into the intake 😉)
This system was used by old school yota, BMC, commer, Bedford, and Vauxhall engines.
Modern engines (that fail to start more often), are vastly overcomplicated with algorithms to determine how long the plugs should glow given the air and fuel temp, and some have a diesel heater in the secondary fuel filter bowl to shorten the glow time, blah,blah, etc, blah ........
Interesting, I was told that these engines didn't have any glow plugs and simply rely on fuel pressure to start, even in the cold weather
EDIT
They certainly aint very visable either
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5 hours ago, GPSguru said:
Is it a carbed petrol ?
No, old school diesel, 4.2l 230hp mercruiser, no ecu, mechanical fuel pump etc
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8 hours ago, suzook12 said:
Yes it can. You would need to take a wire either straight from switch or starter solenoid. You could even use a second starter solenoid, same thing.
Starter solenoid sounds better, thanks
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8 hours ago, GPSguru said:
So I guess that will be the Merc ......... nice motor
Yes, the cold weather will play havoc with starting, as that motor will need a lot of current to get it going.
Not only will you have thicker engine oil to turn, but you will also have an additional 50 amp of glow plug current.
So the battery must be able to supply the additional starter current, the glow plug current, and whilst supplying all that current, also maintain quite a high (IIRC 11.5V) voltage to the ECU in order to fire the injectors.
Given that the temperatures we have recently experienced are a rarity, I would be inclined to just keep a couple of purpose made jump leads in the boat for when you need to parallel the batteries for the extra current.
Automatic marine battery systems are marmite, some swear by them, others swear at them, and there is a lot that can go wrong.
When I had my boat built in 2019, I specified twin batteries, but also specified a simple (but quality) OFF - 1 - BOTH - 2 switch, and not the blusea automatic system that they wanted to fit.
Generally I run on both, but when at anchor or drifting, I switch to one battery and save the other for starting (if needed).
This engine doesn't have an ecu or glow plugs, but I get your point
28th and 29th Jan Penzance
in Catch reports
Posted
Yes he does, he lives and breathes fishing, if he isn't on the boat he's off the beach/rocks
We had some trips booked out of Dale this year, but fell out with the skipper over deposit, so cancelled them all
Managed to book Rob Rennie for a wreck/reef trip (what ever is fishing the best at the time of trip) in June
What boat does he have now Luke, does he fish 10 or 8 ?