Davemc

Had a great time Andy , Never been to Pembs and came away with 2nd for the biggest combined 3 bass of 182cm ....I'm a lucky beggar 😁

Popped out again this evening for an hour. Had birds into the decoys from the start.

Three stone dead and one that made it over to the next copse, so I sent the dog in after it - she earned her keep by finding it deep in a bed of nettles. Good girl!

Here's how Thomas's dinner turned out. Pigeon Korma with rice and cashews.

 
Followed a couple of hours later with mine. Salt crusted pan fried pigeon breasts with red wine sauteed mushrooms, spinach & ricotta pasta parcels and pea shoot salad.

The estate that the dog and I work on during the shooting season has planted crops of summer wheat over much of our shooting land and this summer we're seeing an unusually high influx of wood pigeon which are feeding heavily on the growing wheat. The gamekeeper asked if we could discourage the pigeons and of course the dog and I accepted.
Not long after work we set up a handful of shell decoys on the edge of one of the pheasant pens on a flight line between two woods.

The plan was to draw the birds in as they flew from one wood to the other. The prevailing wind was from right to left in the photo, so the decoys were arranged facing into the wind - pigeons like to keep the wind in their faces when feeding so it's important to set up your decoys facing the same way or the birds will smell a rat.
I could see plenty of pigeons moving around in the distance so I felt reasonably confident we'd see some action. However, getting the dog to sit still for long enough to not spook the birds was a challenge. Such is life with a spaniel 🤣
After 20 mins or so we had our first customer, a bird who dropped into the decoy pattern at the last minute - I thought he would fly over the wood we were sitting in but he banked low and became an addition to the pattern.
Pigeons two and three followed at similar intervals, both dropping in directly in front of the hide. The dog couldn't believe her luck - three retrieves in sixty minutes, and in the off-season too! Dad is actually shooting straight!  Oh to be a spaniel... and covered in burrs no less! 

Before we knew it, it was time to head home to prep the pigeons and sink a well earned beer. Not exactly a catch report, but still good to be out bagging a meal. Pigeon korma will be on the menu this weekend I feel.

@Saintly Fish and I headed out on Tarlach Too yesterday in search of stingrays. An early start saw us leaving the Hamble at 0730-ish and made progress across flat water, despite the forecasted windspeed of low teens. About an hour later we rolled onto our first mark, in very shallow water within casting distance of shore.
The wind was blowing us off the tide throughout the day which made for some "interesting" line management throughout, particularly whe combined with heavy weed, which required removal every 5 mins or so. 😖 After a couple of hours with no bites the stingrays were clearly not playing ball for us, so Saintly skipper moved us back up the Solent a few hundred yards to search for some bream. Another hour or so later with still no bites we moved again, this time to a reliable mid-Solent spot. Despite the weed and lumpier conditions, it wasn't long before I had a decent tap on the rod and wound in a strap conger. A fish at last!
Neil's turn came next, as you'll see in the video below. Please excuse the poor quality sound of the background music - it was on in the background and clearly lost some fidelity between the speakers and the camera microphone 🤣

After this the bites dried up, so we tried one more mark on the way home where the conditions couldn't have been more different from the lumpy, bumpy mid-Solent. This time we found ourselves in calm, hot, almost tropical conditions in which to avoid catching fish. Neil rigged up a float rod and managed to winkle out a schoolie bass on ragworm which promptly dropped off before the net, but sadly that was all the action we saw at this mark, beautiful though it was.

So, with at least a fish each and some sunburn, we called time and headed home. Here's a gratuitous wake video taken as we passed Bramble Bank.
 
Thanks Neil for a lovely day afloat - it was great to be out on Tarlach Too again after so long. You're the only skipper I know who can make blanking almost as fun as catching 👍

Tbh I've always been against the idea of spearo's but if you take the elastic off you can come and spot the fish for me ?

Locked out at 08:30 for an inshore trip (reefing and a crack at the tope). 
 
Loveky to start but wind got up. Had pollack, cod, wrasse on feathers and…. ahem… dogfish…. They must be about in plague proportions to take artificial lures 😬😬😬😬
Anchored up and used the pollack as bait. Quite a few doggies, 3 dropped tope (was using circles not again!). 
 
Quite a few huss, best was 19lb 11oz so a nice PB. Had another at 18lb+ quite a few doubles…. 
 
Fished until 2, then went and sat in sunshine and ate a late lunch. (Freshly made pizza, no pot noodles here!) 
lock in at 16:00 as back to work tomorrow 😭

Launched at 7:30am this morning just before high tide, onto a beautifully flat sea, however, the wind was due to veer South later in the day and I knew that would bring a wind over tide situation, but hopefully not a problem as the wind speeds were very low.
Crew for the day was Kyle and my wife, both of them absolutely love fishing the banks.
We arrived at the Skerries in about 40 – 45 minutes, and I was surprised at the lack of fishing traffic, given the calm conditions.
Although the MLS for Plaice is 27cm, we decided to keep nothing under 35cm, and the smaller fish are a pain to fillet. Kyle was first in with a decent keeper, however, the drift speed was a tad fast at 1.9kts, so we were making 2 mile drifts across the banks from inner to outer. We found that unusually most of the bites came on the outer banks, so we concentrated on that area.
I also dropped down some snowbiki’s for fresh mackerel and the first hit was a full string of proper snake launce, one of them we measured at 26cm ! The drops with the tinsels were producing Mackerel, Launce, and something I have never had before, which was a full string of 5 Gurnard.
Talking of Gurnard, the Skerries was full of them and we lost count of the number caught, however, I know that we definitely had, Tub’s, Grey’s, Red’s and one or two Streaked. They were all a reasonable size of up to about a 1lb.
Just before the flood slack, Kyle hooked into a decent fish which was a 7lb Small Eyed ray, a new specie for him.
Once the flood slack came we were stationary, and that is when the dog’s came out to play, of which we had four, before I got fed up with them !. Whilst we were waiting for the drift to start again, Kyle set up my HTO Shore Game spinning rod and was catching Mackerel, Launce and Gurnard using a 12g metal.
Also, during the slack I managed to foul the prop with one of the lines, but luckily I was able to unwind and free if off quite easily after tilting the engine.
The wind veered south at about 2pm, but the sea didn’t get too angry, and we headed back the 18 miles to port at about 3:30pm, arriving back on the slipway at 4:15pm.
An excellent day in which we covered 49nm, we returned 3 Plaice, but 9 were keepers, also we had 30+ Mackerel, 20+ snake Launce, a 7lb Painted Ray (small eyed), 4 dog’s, and way too many Gurnard to count.


 
African Queen was close by,

Tbh I've always been against the idea of spearo's but if you take the elastic off you can come and spot the fish for me ?

Fantastic, even though it was relatively quiet the buzz of getting to know the environment from beneath the surface is something those who have strong opinions against spearing will never understand. You get home after a day under the water and play back all of what you've seen over and over in mind, something a day with a rod and reel in your hand doesn't come close to how ever good the day was. This feeling doesn't ever stop even after years of diving and some of those memories stick for life.
How did you feel for buoyancy ? had your weights slipped in that photo or do you have weights all around and the clip at the back or side ? I cant tell from the photo but if you dont already have the rubber dive belts these are so good as they don't slip as your body compresses at depth. We tend to wear our weights more towards the back as it helps assist the angle of your body at the surface when you need to get some air and re-rig the gun.
In regards to strong tides etc, I always used that to my advantage on the IOW by getting in at places and drift diving. These would often mean getting out walking the shore and drifting the same run a few times, St Catherins was great for this and surprisingly good in very shallow water on various sized pollack.  

No, Gordon Ramsay (Celeb Chef) has a £6m house at Rock on the estuary.

Yes, I had planned the dive with tides in mind and didn't want to be caught out over the bar. As it was we stayed to the west side of the bar and avoided the navigation channel... but I must admit I drifted perilously close without even realizing how far out I was - and it was a bugger of a swim back! Won't make that mistake again.
Who TF is Gordon though??

Brilliant Andy , A gripping tale , Well done !

Our family went to Hawker's Cove beach yesterday and today. I also brought my spearfishing gear along. The Camel estuary used to be known for plaice in years gone by, and I had a plan to see if I could spear one for the barbecue.

Yesterday was more of a warm up. I went for a swim but decided to leave the spear gun on the beach and focus on the lie of the land. Of course as sod's law would have it I spotted a plaice within the first 10 minutes. I dived down to wrestle with it but it escaped my grasp. I later returned with the spear gun but of course no plaice were to be seen.

Today I went back in with my speargun from the off. The plan was that I would swim out to the estuary mouth over slack and drift back over the Doom Bar and along the side of the channel where the sand meets the rock. My son and brother-in-law would paddle out on his inflatable kayak and drift back as my support boat.
It was a relatively quick swim out, with no tide to hinder me. On the way I came across an old lobster pot snagged on a huge abandoned anchor, a brown crab moulting site where the sand was littered with empty shells, and a line of active crab pots.
As I started the drift back the ground was quiet, just the occasional spider crab to break the monotony of endless sand. As I drifted closer to the rock wall at the side of the channel something caught my eye. A plaice, lying still on the bottom. As I circled round and duck dived he swam off, clearly sensing a predator. Maybe my body language gave me away as my heart rate increased and my focus sharpened. As I followed him on the surface I tried to relax and control my breathing, ready for the next dive. I saw him pause on the sand so I dived again but, clearly wise to the threat, he moved off again towards the rocky submerged scree slope. Up on the surface I gathered my breath and went back down to find him back over the sand and burying himself. I could still see his eyes above the surface of the sand so I went for broke and nailed him before he could make another break for it. My son and brother-in-law were on hand to capture the moment!

Not the biggest of fish - he looked huge underwater yet somehow shrunk on the surface - but as my first ever speared fish, and my first plaice of the year, he was a trophy I shall treasure.

They were absolutely delicious !
Thanks again Andy 

@Davemc just sent me this pic of one of his bream from yesterday. Looks flippin' amazing!

That sounds like a great day out, love Bream fishing
Top skippering 

cracking write up - well done!

I think I'll never walk again

I think I'll never walk again

I'm sure @Davemc can confirm that too.

A Wally does that! 

No, I just edited it to make you look good. As a good skipper does. 

No, a good skipper drops a spiky bream on your foot, as @Davemc can confirm 🤣