Saintly Fish

I hear the sperm bank is opening again soon too!!

Nice one Pete.

I’m not a massive fish eater, most of mine is done for sport. But, if a fish needs to be dispatched then I always use a priest. Then gut it straight away, and stick it in cold water if Ice isn’t available. Cutting the gills and bleeding the fish isn’t a bad idea.

It’s ok. 6/10

If you don’t want to sit there wasting your life away making rigs (you did say time saved is a good idea), then for starters you can search for “Ken’s rigs” on eBay. I’ve purchased bream rigs and plaice rigs from him and they are quality home tied rigs. But with any rig you don’t tie yourself, always double check the knots. I can’t be arsed to tie rigs so generally use Ken’s and then running ledgers for all other situations. just remember with hook lengths, in a small tide make them double length over the strong tide lengths. This allows them to flow around that bit more.

@Geoff As I’ve already told you, you to/too/two made a sterling effort to come down and spend some time with us and it was very much appreciated. Sorry we missed you on the Sunday morning for coffee. And I hope the packing up and drive home was both dry and effortless!

Yeah I’d heard about that. Hope she recovers.

🤣🤣 don’t panic Martin I wasn’t about to ask you to organise anything. Just give some ideas is all. Which you’ve done. It’s Andy or Jons turn next time!! 👍🏻

@Maverick thanks for the report Martin. Glad you had a nice couple of days, but sorry the fish didn’t materialise for us. As discussed, maybe down your manor next year? You’d better start thinking!! 👍🏻

@Plaicehunter what made you go for this one over something like the torquedo?

Where is the bun?

It’ll be a pop up book though yeah?

Superb official photography there Jon!

Bet that put a bend in your 30/50 rod Pete.

So we had a lovely weekend which started of with our small flotilla of boats leaving Mercury yacht harbour at circa 8am. Madness and Jersey Girl. @JonCchose this opportune moment to change the mono on his reel. Once out of the Hamble we turned east and headed to Browndown. This gave @Andy135 and Jersey Girl a chance to play in my wake. Once on the mark we anchored firmly (well Tarlach Too did, the other amateurs struggled). We thought Andy and @captin slows old outlaw had had a lovers tiff because Andy spent so much time on the bow! 🤣 Any way fishing wasn’t prolific, I had a mackerel on my first drop down which took a frozen sand eel. Jon managed to professional unhook a hound before it reached the boat and Leo had a nice little 6lb hound. We also had a splattering of LSD. The fishing wasn’t very good, we sat it out for 4 hours then I made the decision to pull the pick and relocate. So next mark was quarter mile west of the East bramble cardinal bouy. This proved to be a better choice. For about 2 hours we were kept busy with a series of small fish, mainly dogs, small hound pups and a first for my boat, Leo landed a couple of very pretty Bull huss pups. Then Jon got into his stride and landed a nice hound, and a lovely bream which went to around 1.5lb. Leo also had another 6lb hound. After that the fishing died off again. So in an attempt to make Jons long drive down seem worth it, we relocated again to Hillhead. Fishing in only 4m of water and not a lot of tide I knew it would be tough but there was every chance of a decent hound because of the decent beach fishing there. And soon enough Jon landed his “biggest hound” comp winning fish. A decent double figure, at just over 10lb. Not a long fish but very round, muscular and determined to hide himself in my net by rolling and rolling and covering himself in the mesh. And that was really that. The wind and chop started getting up so at around 4pm we headed home ready for showers and a night out. A great day out and a pleasure to have @JonC on board making a mess with his worms!! 🤣 @Maverick had a couple of other species on his boat. But I’ll leave him to tell you about them! 👍🏻

I’ll put some pics up tomorrow. But needless to say, we had a fun weekend.

I saw people catch fish, but only on my boat. I saw Andy look like he was about to, but didn’t. but then did……. Eventually ….

Ffs 1/10

Meh. 4/10

Well done bones, cracking fish. And as Andy says, sometimes it can’t be helped. At least a decent meal was had and the life of the fish met a tasty end instead of being washed up on a beach half rotten. Now that would have been a waste .

I was waiting for somebody to pick it out. Guessed it would be you 🤣.

It’s the angle mate, flue is dead straight. Looks worse against the loft angles admittedly .

Jon sounds like you did the right thing by walking away. It’s tough out there atm, but something will turn up, just be patient and keep your eye on the ball!

Apart from the last couple of hours of the ebb on both Saturday and Sunday we will have wind with tide. Tides are also small so the chop should not be too bad in the solent, if much at all. Look forward to all of your arrivals tomorrow!