Saintly Fish

Made our way to Gorleston harbour to jump on the High Flyer 2. The previous day the sea had been flat calm and a boat record tope was caught at 70lb. They had also had a big session on schoolie bass, tho mist were undersized. The first notable thing before casting off was there was a significant breeze, NE 12-15mph, so was going to be a bit snotty to start as wind against tide, The day was also rearranged to hit the bass marks first and do some drifts rather than be at anchor, then anchor on the tope mark once tide had turned and sea flattened off.....
Mackerel, plenty of them, all bait size, but no bass. Got harpooned by a scad, and thrown about a bit, but unlike 2 of the crew who needed to rearrange their stomach contents, all good...
The time came to hit the t5ope mark, a little bit early, but weren't too bad. First rod goes flying off... My mate to my right off of the back, then it goes quiet, dropped........ Shortly after, the rod to my left goes off, this time a 20lber on uptide to scad head. Then the tide dropped away and all went quiet, the wind switched to E, and that was us done, not a thing after that on feathers, bait or tope rigs, even with a move.
Right at the death a rod goes flying off, I jokingly said it was the seal that had been watching us for the last hour....... It was!! Hook pulled, seal reappeared to give us the flipper, and that was that.
With that we headed back in. A good day out except for the fish..... Roll on the 16th

But if that row style boat is just a taster boat then he could well be trading up ? Or maybe a mate has a boat with a vhf, or maybe he will go on a charter and the skipper falls ill ........ lots of if buts and maybes !! Better to do a course and not need to use it. 

The swell is starting to back down, so I may get a chance at getting my boat at on the weekend at last.  Or at least a beac session.

But if that row style boat is just a taster boat then he could well be trading up ? Or maybe a mate has a boat with a vhf, or maybe he will go on a charter and the skipper falls ill ........ lots of if buts and maybes !! Better to do a course and not need to use it. 

But if that row style boat is just a taster boat then he could well be trading up ? Or maybe a mate has a boat with a vhf, or maybe he will go on a charter and the skipper falls ill ........ lots of if buts and maybes !! Better to do a course and not need to use it. 

Down in Cornwall for the week and we headed to Lantivet to take my son snorkelling. As we reached the headland we were greeted with a stunning vista.

Heading down to the beach itself we were looking forward to getting into the crystal clear water.

After an hours' snorkelling together Tom headed back in for lunch. We'd seen some amazing ballan wrasse amongst the kelp. Both cocks and hens, proper fish the size of piglets, plus plenty of sandeels, spider crabs and a sneaky brown crab in a rocky hole that we couldn't quite tease out into the bag.
I stayed out and loitered over a submerged reef for a while, having a suspicion that bass would also frequent the same spots as wrasse. Of course I'd taken my speargun out with me. As if someone had flicked a switch I found myself surrounded by schoolie bass, with a huge mullet cruising below them. I took a shot but missed, the spear bouncing off the rocks below. Cursing my luck I reloaded the speargun and floated motionless above the reef again. Didn't take long for another shoal to come by, again with a mullet in tow. Another shot and success! A golden grey in the bag.

He tasted great on the barbecue with lime, salt and pepper - very much like mackerel.

Glad you found some. "Thin on the ground" is an understatement! I was beginning to think it was just me..
9hrs afloat July for the Teignmouth airshow, 2 of us fishing quite inshore out of the wind for 2 gurnards. Last weekend 4hrs out on the kayaks for 6 on sat, 3 hrs on the boat out a mile or two for 1 scad (from the sewer buoy "reef" 🤮) on sunday over HW. Even the mackerel boat followed us 3 times, as if we knew best😂
Shore fishing the Ness beach was much more productive for a few evenings but that soon dried up. Anyway the ones we did have were good sized.
Keep up the reports, I was inspired by your short videos and managed to shoot the typhoon at the airshow from the back of our tub but need to work out how to YouTube it.
Cheers, Roger
 

Agree. It's an estuary boat I reckon. Not sure about taking it out beyond Bembridge Ledges.

Nice Ian, looks nice out there. But I do see clouds ! Unless that's a stolen picture from  another trip!!!

No plans, sorry!!

Yes, a few clouds but they were very high, and generally over the land mass.

🤣well spotted 

Boat comp time again - i'm a serious match angler so no time for photos lol 🤣 (read: not many photo worthy fish)
Max 106 points for 10 fish of each species (30, 15, 15, 40 then 1 point each for the next 6), there's also prizes for the most fish, most species and the nominated fish of the day measured on length - todays fish was Red gurnard - and as no one had won the nominated species last 2x times it was a double roll over - £180!!!
Comp started at 9am and we hit the small stuff first to bag a few early points - Wrasse, pout, pollock and unclassified (other small species), Tims son drove the Boat as his target was the nominated species.
I had 4 pout, 2 wrasse, Tim had his 10 pout, 10 wrasse, 4 unclassified and 4 Pollock
i was on 145, Tim was off to a flyer on 412 after 2 hours. 
we moved off to the mixed ground mark - leaving us about 4 hours for other fish - Tim's son dropped down first and would you believe it - must have put his bait right on the nose of a red gurnard - measuring 30cm - at least he had a chance of a prize.  

Tim then bagged up = bream, congers, Dogs, thornies, more pout. His son also had dogs, eels and lost a 20lb tope at the boat!
i had a slow day - well out of contention with just 3x bream, 2x dogs and 4x congers,  
we got to the club house to be me with someone with a large red gurnard - so our only hope was Tims count or the raffle! 
Tim didn't win most points but did win most species! 
A lovely day out - flat calm and sunny all day!

 

JDP I took your advice and have purchased a solar panel kit which includes a solar controller that is suitable for SLB batteries so thanks again for your wise and knowledgable advice. Cheers

He went off like a steam train,
 

Back at it today.
Mission today was to find out why water wasn;t draining..... Quite simple really, nowhere to run, no drain hole to allow it to get to the bilge pump!! Cut a section of cockpit floor out so as could get a pistol drill in to run a 19mm hole saw through. Will enlarge at some point and glue a tube in, will also make  a cover for the hole so water can drain out of the cockpit
A tube of sikaflex will stop other points getting water in and capping a hole off where we think an anchor winch was fitted.
The lead and plug arrived for the NMEA plug for the radio, so can get that coupled up and test it once I dig the navionics card out....
So, few little jobs for this summer to finish the boat, will be starting on the trailer very soon, and getting the engine ready.......
Video up soon

Not managed much fishing lately due to work but yesterday came free so i grabbed the opportunity. 
Picked up my couzin David at 5am amd was driving out Brightlingsea harbour by 5.30.
We headed for the priory spit hoping for smoothounds with an hour Before higj water left, but jt was a bit slow, David had 1 houmd at 6lb and i had a couple of doggies.  We fished it down for an hour so and them moved up on to the gunfleet where it picked up a bit  i had 1 bass at 3lb and 4 hounds around ths 6&7 lb mark amd a small tope,  David didnt get a bite which caused him some consternation, he put it down to the side of the boat i was fishing from unitl the tide turned again and the boat swung round amd i carried on catching and he didnt.  We fished the tide back up for a few hours then moved back to the priory where there was now 3 charters and 2 privateers and we were straigjt into the hounds. My total was 12 hounds with the  biggest at 13lb and David had 4. Bait was ragworm amd squid. 
  Great day especially winding up David about his poor fishing skills. 
 

I actually had factor 50 on 🤣

Not 100% sure how they landed it. It was a club member but I wasn’t there when it was caught. 

No not far from a couple of hundred yards to a mile out, as for a bigger engine yes but I’m having to save up for that 

Superb boat Brian. Hope you are not giving up fishing and the PBSBAC ?

Snob. I quite like the "all inclusive" colours!! 

Well done Pete, nice to see a report from you !! 

not like the uk  no rain😅

just keep taking the tablets you will be all right