Saintly Fish

You mean cack hand 

No danger for yew then Peat!! 😜

If you do enter don't follow @JonC to one of his marks, they don't provide!

Unfortunately I had changed some settings and inadvertently gone into loop mode, so the Cod footage was recorded over, however, here is a vid of one of the smaller pout (but still large), that tried to take a whole mack flapper and was cleanly hooked on an O'Shaughnessy 9/0
 

Nice one Malc. Enjoy the holiday!  

i have two sets of uglys  cant fault them and cheap two  have a look about for them the price varies  happy searching 

For quality rods at a decent low price I'd go for ugly sticks. 

Pete, for your usage any old wood will do 👍.
If you need to get wood, perhaps you could try a little blue pill??

Some months ago @Andy135 and I (and Leo) were invited by @JonC to join him on Janie to fish the afore mentioned comp. Andy decided he'd rather go to a Frozen themed fancy dress party, so that left just Leo and I. 
we made the long 3 hour drive up to windy Essex coast via a couple of local favourite landmarks. M&S food court and KFC. Leaving Jon to shove down the remainder of his spagbol. 
Arriving at around 8pm Jon swiftly shepherded us away from his house and into his parents weekend flat (they were out btw), he then proceeded to help drink the Heineken before leaving us for bed and an 05.30 morning rise. @ 06.15 prompt Jon arrived and we followed him to the marina. On arrival he declared we probably could have had an extra hour in bed as we were a bit early. I guess that's the military man in him! 

Anyway we made our way out of the marina to gather with some of the participating boats. Then around 08.15 the horn sounded and we steamed off to Jon's chosen mark at a very tidy 18 knot cruise. By this time the false starts of the troublesome engine and the black smoke were a memory only. 
Leo started well outside of the boat cabin..

Where after getting up quickly got into some fish, starting with an 83 cm hound... 
 

And then another just shy of 80cm..

Jon got into a couple around the mid 70's and a couple of small school bass.. 

 
Other photos contained a bit of non sporting blood so I will not post those. All fish returned alive and kicking. 
Bacon rolls were cooked and served then we moved marks. 
No fish, we moved into shallower water (nowhere near the deep water that the other boats were in must add) and no fish. So, we had lunch. 

And Jon sat and contemplated where he'd gone wrong. 

Leo retreated back to his normal position inside with his phone...

And I sat in the sun looking sad because I blanked...

Even though the fishing was slow and hard work, Leo and I had a lovely time and we thank Jon for his hospitality and efforts!! 
Leo decided to show off his "I won the boat" jumper.. 

The end!!
 

Yeah but you don't go on the water so doesn't matter . 

Or buy an ali one from the next new forest boat jumble. 

Yes & no. 
 
RIB’ s have very little freeboard and you are always aware of that fact, however, the tubes are also very wide ( 500mm diameter). So,  much wider than the average gunnel, so you tend to fall on them rather than over them.
It is a fast boat, with a low freeboard, so the wearing of lifejackets is a given.
 

Thanks for sharing Ian, looks like a good morning out. Nice little vid too. I must say the soft cushioning sides of a rib do look a delight to lean against as opposed to the hard gunwhales of a Grp boat! Just a shame you don't have 4 berths, a kitchen, toilet and candy strip curtains!! 

Yes, Neil, it is not so bad falling onto the tubes !
BTW you can have all of the above with a RedBay RIB, excellent sea keeping, highly regarded and made in Ireland, but you are talking £££££££££
With regard to the vid, I was using my new DJI Osmo Action 4, and TBH IMO it is streets ahead of the gopro. I was expecting to have to 'brighten up' any stills due to the position of the sun, but the actual video shot in 4k60 was fine, so I used it.
I don't know about the Solent, but here we have been plagued with a short sea, and it has been like it for 3 months now, with swell patterns of 1.7 - 3 secs, which as you well know, is mighty uncomfortable, both for travelling at speed and drifting.
But yes, it was a pleasant morning and worth taking the chance to get out 👍
 

Just a solo morning session and the weather liars were forecasting a good sea and wind conditions. Launched at 07:30 into a flat, calm sea, but that didn't last long 🙄
I had decided to go to a wreck, and then inshore for some Mackerel, and this was a 'food' trip, I had my instructions, Bass, Cod or Ling, and a Mack or two for the granddaughter. My lot are not keen on Pollock !
My destination wreck was the 'Meatboat' and I am pretty sure @Dickyasked about that wreck some time ago. It is in 190ft and about a 15mile steam. The flat sea was great, and nice to be cruising at 30kts, but once I got to about 6 miles out the NW wind picked up and was producing quite a significant swell with a short sea (1.8secs !). By the time I got to the wreck, I was down to 18kts and the wind was causing a lot of spray from the waves. Drifting the wreck was not easy as there were 2 crab pots on the outer edge of the wreck, but I found a drift line that worked.
First drops on the wreck were with SPJ and that was producing a Pout on every drop, decent sized, but hey, they are still Pout. Last time I fished this wreck I remembered sidewinders were effective, so I went down with a Skerries eel, After a few plucks down on the wreck (pout) at 31 turns up I had a decent take and knew it would be a bass. Sure enough a bass it was, not huge but a keeper of 50cm (3lb or so). The next drop produced the same result, so I was happy with a bag limit of 2 keepers and decided that the washing machine sea was getting worse, so time to head inshore.
The first 5 miles coming off the wreck I was down to 16 - 18kt into a NW very short head sea, luckily the RIB is a dry boat and I didn't take any waves over the bow. Once I got to the 6 mile from land, I picked up speed as the sea was much better being in the lee of the land.
Next stop was the Orestone, where I struggled for Mack, but managed to find a decent whopper Mack in amongst the continual Scad and Gurnards. So, at 12:00 midday, with the shopping basket full, it was time to head in ready for the school run.
Apart from the weather liars, it was good to be out there, with a trip distance of 38nm, 2 keeper bass, a decent Mack, plus a load of other dross like Pout (lost count), Scad, and small Grey Gurnard.
We had the Bass for evening meal and the granddaughter munched on the mackerel (she doesn't like spiky)
I had the DJI Action 4 camera on, so I could take off stills, but the cam is reasonable, so a little vid instead. I didn't bother with the Pout footage !
 
 
 
 

Of you go to St.Cats then!! Go do us a recky.. 

Must have been your thoughts I picked up on......

Damn Steve you beat me to it!

Hi, 
We don’t get a huge amount of tide down there unlike Cardiff etc. 
Try not to let out too much warp. A bucket on a bridle out the back can help a lot as a drogue. 
 
Other option is to anchor in a bit more tide. 
 
If you are struggling to downtide, cast your leads behind the boat, don’t just drop them off the back the distance will help avoid tangles too. If there is a bit of tide cast to the side and the tide will take it away from the boat.
 

So, what's yours? 

Too busy looking after you.

So, what's yours?