Malc

Good tale to tell, as you made it back.

Stunner of a fish! Nice one apart from the ignoramus

Shocker about the RAC, otherwise it sounds like a great week, thanks for sharing!

...on a little dishy, when the boat comes in! As the song goes After a couple of trips to get the elusive herring I went out to a short pier that I couldn't fish in front of from the kayak as its the main shipping channel of the Tyne, where I saw some good fish arches on Thursday. Mid tide was strong but very low and I lost some sabikis from my rig to the weedy rocks, as it moderated two hours before high I got a big feisty mackerel and half a dozen casts later I put a hookless metal jig on and got my first herring on the drop, I thought it was a big launce so cranked it in! Half an hour later and I get a rattle and knew it was a herring and took it easy getting it in. Happy days and off home. In the sea 3 hours ago, but now in my tum. Patatas bravas, home grown runners and lots of seasoning and lemon, splash of vino to wash down. The other one was resting in tin foil as I was sharp set as they say.

Don't forget we have cod too

Would it not be better to use plastic booms to help with presentation? Or will they just be a weed and snag magnet?

Monday is looking good up here, might try the inshore wrecks from the kayak!

Certainly from the shore, from the boat we just looked for the sounder to light up and a couple of drops and we had enough, I was even getting them on 4" sandeel lures and regularly had rattles as they hit the tails. Tight lines everyone

...but not today! Today was different. A yomp one mile along the pier, three casts and I managed 2 nice mackerel, couple casts later another. Others were hitting a few herring but about 4 to one on the mackerel. As I was really wanting herring I put on even smaller sabikis and watched people getting them on big daylights and tinsels. So after 3/4 of an hour I yomped back a mile to the bottom of the pier and decided to try the groyne half a mile away and when I got there it was just about slack water and I lost 3 sets of gear in 15 minutes and set off a half mile back to the car. I met a church group, mainly Ghanaian, having a barbecue and offered them 2 of the mackerel and they insisted I had a little food and drink with them which was nice as it was 23-24C and I was getting dehydrated. Back home and tapas with baked lemon mackerel as a final course but we over did the cheese so will make croquettes/fishcakes with the cooked flesh tomorrow 😋 It's still a bit sticky inshore with the mackerel and herring but I think it's changing soon.

My wife and daughter were going to get their hair done this afternoon and I thought that I would be grandad day care but no, I was free for the afternoon. Long walk down the pier including a scramble around the gate and I hoped to contact a herring or two as they were being reported, but as the mackerel have been absent due to a dirty onshore wind there were few people on the end. It was dreadfully slow and I didn't want to fish too deep and get loads of small pollock so started with a float set to 30'. Two guys eventually started to hit launce for bait when they go to Luce Bay and as I wasn't getting any fish I started to fish small sabikis deep. I couldn't catch my fingers in a door today and watched them using the same rigs in the same place hauling in ones and twos as I blanked. There were even a few pollock and coalie in the mix with a single mackerel and eventually I started helping out with a few snakes. Eventually one guy hooked a herring and offered it to me. RESULT! Pan fried with pointed red pepper, baguette and a cold glass of sauvignon blanc...bliss, I could have eaten another 3, but I was rubbish today 😆

I am using HTO osoi and the other slow jig which are ready rigged, and the other is similar to savage gear odin but can't remember the name.

OK, I have given it a go and caught fish but all have been hooked outside of the mouth, I tried with just one hook but same result I have to add that all fish were small, no more than 2-3lb. I don't like it, but is there a way of stopping the foul hooking? I'm not decrying anyone using this method but I just don't like foul hooking, especially if there are smaller fish about as it means killing them. Cheers in advance

I sometimes use my home made bait spoon, like the fly fishing marrow spoon only bigger. It's basically a piece of waste pipe cut at an angle and smoothed off, bait sits in the spoon and gets wrapped with lakky. However mostly it's used for bait presentation and not masking the hook point.

Excellent blank, well done 👏

Nice but not as nice as Pilsner Urquell

Apparently it's the skip that gets you on the mark that should get the praise 👍

Hmmm, just looked on faceache and there were 2 ling a bit bigger than mine too so although they haven't done a full set of positions it looks like I would have been 7th at best. It was quite funny seeing a couple of fish being weighed in the same size bracket and it was all smiles when someone was a couple of ounces up and then this lad turns up 😲🤣

Early doors at the marina to meet up with my friends and off out for the marina competition. Lock was on free flow so we weren't slowed up leaving. Lots headed east to the deeper wrecks etc we went along the coast and tried for pollock on a shallow reef but nothing doing as the tide was sluggish and I think it fishes better with less water over it, they get too much time to watch your bait wriggle past. Rough ground further out was quiet as was a nearby wreck so we moved to a decent lump and I connected with a pollock of around 4lb so we drifted it a bit and picked up codling and pout until the tide and wind conspired against us. Was amusing to see two sibs whing it up to us when they saw us catching but by then the drift was 2kn 🤣 Back at the pollock reef the drift was .5kn or less so ideal for flicking sandeel lures over and through the kelp. I had another pollock a little smaller than the last one but it must have picked the lure from behind and slack lined me as after a nice tussle I found that the hook was in the throat near the heart and back out into the gills and bleeding badly so had to be killed. After another move the boats that went to the horizon returned and we moved too, to a big rough patch but the wind was picking up so the drift was fast again and without a drogue we packed up. My bigger fish got me 5th but everyone's fish was dwarfed by the winner, a 17lb coalie!!!

Commercial or pleasure/recreational fishing?

My lowrance 5 was showing my rig descending to the bottom of Loch Etive @ 100m but I couldn't see the small spurdog we were catching. In fact it does all I require of it, is easy to see as it's at my right knee and doesn't get in the way of me peddling and by having the battery port fwd the kayak is nicely balanced.

Cos dementia hasn't kicked in yet...give it a week or two.

Thanks for the link I'll have a look later. I know you can see them but the rough ground we were on was 30-45ft deep so the cone of the sounder is going to be small and its not going to be economic to try and chase codling over 3/4 square mile of rough ground and then set up a drift to go over them when they are likely to have moved on from the first sighting, this bit of ground is not like that. We normally have to set a drift across it and hopefully there will be fish intercepted along that drift. The place where we caught all the pollock was a drift of 150m for that wind and tide direction and 250 if the wind was pushing us inshore and we knew that the fish would be patrolling the drop off and hiding in the kelp fronds so we only need to use the sounder to see when we are off the reef, but you can feel that as the rig wasn't pulling through the kelp and the drop was longer.

Pretty fish, pretty sky, pretty good day all round

Next weekend is looking good and I might be out with my friends again so I think the pollock marks might be the place to be 😁

Because cod hug the bottom so you rarely see them, plus that area is large unlike the other reefs which are around half a footie pitch in size so they are easy to find without using the sounder. The tide was fairly slack too so we weren't covering the ground. If I'm on my kayak the only thing I'm interested in is changing depth so my lures are working correctly although on occasions I have seen a fish following the lure and have tried to induce a take but that's a rarity.