Malc

of course Malc - i'm happiest when i'm afloat!

Too true! 🤫🫣

What happens on the boat, stays on the boat!
🤭🤣

Met up with Tim and his mate Marcus for a trip to the adamant - the Adamant bank can be hit or miss - red letter day or dog city - for me it was barely either. I wasn't to have a good day. 
 
Hit the entrances for fresh bait - mackerel feathers and Squid jigs - i had nothing in an hour - the others got 3 decent sized mackerel that was it. i had plenty of frozen so we headed for the adamant. 
we were spoilt by the conditions - mirror calm and the dolphins wanted to play! 



Marcus wanted some bream for the table so we stopped at our usual mark on the way to bag up a couple of decent bream. 
the bream were slow to come but Tim and Marcus managed a couple each. 
I got a dogfish on my bream rig, and brought it onto the boat to unhook - save him smashing up the rig or snapping off - however in doing so I must have somehow broken the tip of my 6-12 rod. sad times. but can repair by shortening it slightly. 

Off to the adamant - targeting rays - my day didn't get any better - only one more dog fish - but Tim had a run of Tope, and a Spotted and Blonde ray, Marcus managed a tope and a cuttlefish.  


Saturday was a disappointment and conditions remained good so Sunday afternoon i took my boat out for a couple of hours to drift around the bay in search of gurnards, Garfish, plaice anything really. 
I had 3 rods out - one float with a sandeel for the gar, one plaice rig for anything on the bottom, and a set of feathers over the side
I managed a nice tub gurnard on the plaice rig and a mackerel on the feathers. 

 

I was lucky enough to be out when the Waverly did a lap of the bay - I was too far away for any decent photos - but it was a lovely sight to see.

Not the best of fishing but some lovely time spent afloat!
I consoled myself with some turbot fillets out of the freezer!

What happens on the boat, stays on the boat!
🤭🤣

Not quite 40cm but @Andy135 and I did have a couple of chunky ones the other week, also some real small ones that were perfect live bait size!

Eventually it got posted but it is a bit annoying due to manic laughing and the shark was seen for less than a second. To my eyes its a porbeagle as I can't see a tail lobe.
I won't post it as its a waste of an hour of your life. 

Not totally sure as I've only baked bass and cod and ling are meaty and keep their shape but it should work as bass is fairly firm, just smaller flakes 

Fillets Malc, keep up!! 

That looks delicious, will that work with bass too do you reckon?

Quartered up ling fillets and cut into bite sized pieces, dredged in flour with lots of salt and pepper and some paprika. Served with chorizo, fried potato cubes, red and yellow peppers and garlic, lots of lemon for me and a squirt of mayonnaise. 

Good afternoon all, just joined the forum so thought I'd make a quick introduction.
I am Paul, and I currently live in Hull but moving back up the the North East region in the not to distant future (house sale depending)
Looking at buying my first boat in a few weeks and running it out of either Hartlepool or Seaham depending on mooring fee's and availibility.
I hope to be able to tap into the knowledge and experience I'm sure the group has.
 
 
 

..... I could have caught loads. 
But I wanted to get an early Solent unicorn. 
That didn't happen. But a second biggest bass of 8.37lb did happen and I'll take that all day. 
Had a couple more bream, a snake and an LSD (where have they been?). 
Went home and filleted the bass which will provide 3 people 2 good meals each. One in the form of a fish pie, the other to be determined!! 
 

 

 

 

Met at Tims boat for 7.30 and away by 7.45am
Met with Flat calm conditions - eerily quiet with no wave noise!

1st entrance for bait - targeting mackerel and Squid. We'd had 2 good sized (20cm) squid and 6 decent mackerel within the hour - so off to the mark earlier than usual.
We get to our mixed ground mark and drop the hook and start fishing - both on 2 rods - i'm on a 3 hook flapper with fresh squid strips for small stuff and one big rod with mackerel flapper for rays - Tim has gone with 2x big baits. 
Bream from the off for me - to the point i couldn't get my 2nd rod rigged and in for about 30 mins! and stayed like that all day - seriously constant.


also getting poor cod, mackerel and small straps on the rig too - at one point i had a triple shot - poor cod on the bottom hook, Bream on the middle hook, and a mackerel took the top hook on the way up - certainly livened things up!!

the big rod eventually got a look in, with a few bigger conger coming to the boat, then i sent a mackerel head down - usually deadly for a ray, huss or conger. wasn't long before something started to play with the bait - as I pulled into it I though I was snagged - but no, it was a fish, not much fight so i assumed Huss - but  to my surprise a lovely Undulate came to the surface - quickly netted and in. 


she went to 56cm - any one know the weight conversion for a ray? 
then followed more action from the bream, conger Eels, mackerel and Scad.
even had the smallest mackerel ive ever seen!

Tim had congers all morning - and then switched to the bream. i must have had in excess of 25 bream and Tim got into double figures too - they are ferocious eaters, stripping baits like piranhas and great fun on light gear!
the wind and tide couldn't make up their mind which was stronger so we called it at 3pm rather than swing around getting snagged and tangled. A great days fishing!
 

Apart from the weather, not much to complain about there!

Brief report
Myself and 2 others made the journey to Weymouth for a days Bream/Bass fishing
2 others onboard that were camping locally for a few days down from oop Norf 
Tried for Mackerel in one of the Portland entrances, but nothing for us there, though one of the other charters seemed to be bringing a few up
Went on around the Bill to see if we could pick some up on route to our first mark
We found plenty, but not many sizeable ones, mainly 5/6 inches long
Anyway, first mark didn't produce and the second only threw up a few pout and 1 solitary Bream
We were stuck here for a while trying to retrieve the anchor.....unsuccessfully
Skipper cut it free and buoyed it off, hoping to get it recovered by an obliging diver at some point
The next few marks were better, I didn't have many drops without a fish, my 2 mates were catching fairly regularly and the 2 other lads struggled, only managing a few between them
I put it down to my choice of rig, a yellow and red pop up bead just in front of the hook, only one other was using beads and he also did OK
The weather forecast was about right, pissed down form about 10 ish all day
Didn't take any pics as it was too wet
We finished up with a dozen around 2-2.5lb mark that were kept and we returned probably 3 times as many
A good day with crap weather
 
 

@Saintly Fish and I hit the Solent yesterday I the search for an early season cod. A very early 4.30am wake up for me saw us depart the marina not long after 6am and out into a flat calm river and a lovely sunrise.

We'd heard a tip from Neil's pet rumour-monger that a mile-long flock of seabirds had been seen working the Solent for baitfish recently, so our plan was to feather for fresh bait if we spotted any birds.
The Solent was pretty flat as we left the river, but scanning the water for birds was disappointing - nothing doing. We headed towards our mark and made good time. Nearing out mark we saw some fish on the sounder and dangled some feathers, more in hope than expectation, but Neil comes up trumpa with the first Solent mackerel we've seen in ages!

Marv the Mackerel was kept in a bucket as livebait, just in case.
On to the mark and down goes the anchor. Strap conger and smoothounds, but no cod.

The tide was ripping as we fished, requiring 1.5lb of lead to hold bottom. After a while it became clear that no cod were at home, so we headed to a new spot to see if that made a difference to the tide and made fishing any easier.
In short, no. One more strap conger, lots of beam-on rolly wash and an anchor tangle later we headed off to a flock of seabirds that Neil had spotted in the distance.
As we neared the birds the sounder cam alive with fish arches.

Feathers down and they were hit by large scad, mackerel and school bass. Many strings later we had a bucket of baitfish for the winter. A mix of mackerel and scad. A productive way to end the session.

When you stop for 5 mins on way home from sharking…. 

Met Tim at his boat at the usual 7.30am - off the pontoon before 8am. 
plans had to change due the fresh easterly as it was lumpier than expected  - we went to Portlands 1st entrance in search of fresh mackerel and to try for the squid - seeing as id had some off the pier.
wasnt long before we hit a shoal of scad, and as I was dealing with my scad tim spotted my squid rod going so pulled in a squid for me, few mackies on the next drift and my squid rod went again - this time a Cuttle that I lost on the surface.
Tim literally mentioned we'd never had a cuttle on his boat as his rod went.... cuttle again - he managed to get the cuttle in the boat - happy days. 
I also manged a lovely Tub:

due to the wind we chose to spend more time than usual gathering bait and ended up with 4 cuttle 2 each - (and 2 more lost on the surface), we had a squid each, a few scad, one Tub, and a bucket load of mackerel.
the wind stayed up and time was pushing on so we decided to drift a couple of inshore wrecks & reefs the other side of the bay in the lee of the coast which produced a few pout to keep us entertained. 
not long into the afternoon the forecasted storms started to roll in from the channel - and once we saw flashes of lightening we called it a day around 2pm. 

soaking wet we split the proceeds - half the mackerel each and I took the cuttle for the bait freezer - Tim took the squid for his. 

 
not quite the plan, but nice to fill the bait freezer!
 
 
 
 

Club comp last Sunday from Bos, foggy start and a bit of swell. First mark just produced dogs, thornbacks, baby tope and a hound to me. Moved further down channel looking for more hounds but didn’t find any just loads of small thornbacks, more dogs and some slightly better eels to around 15lb and a cracking double figure huss for my brother. Final move to try a new mark and this did throw up an insize Thornback amongst the smaller stuff. 
Back on the beach my brothers huss took first and my hound took second and won the pools so not a bad day.

Yes, please do. YT vids can be embedded directly so go ahead and post it into the thread 👍.

105 inches of shiny loveliness….
Snapped the rod after 30 mins, so the lucky angler kept going on tod and got it to the boat…
Stand up Stubby Style 🫣🫣

A great day all in all! Love the sunset?

I’ve heard about that….. intriguing!

700-800lb…. Better pics to follow, 18 hour day, got to get to work for 8am tomorrow…. The power of skittles and red bull keeping me going at the moment 😂

 
(all released as in the water next to boat as I didn’t have the phone number for John Smith and I don’t think his cans were big enough 😂)