Malc

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 😂) 

Awesome job to the those guys who chanced it for the tuna off there . First and only tuna on that side in what 60 odd years turned out to be 100inch fish … what else lurks beneath

Well that's what we're calling it. For some reason mackerel sizes have been going bonkers here with increasing length and girth, biggest this week was a 40cm fish with plenty pushing for the title plus the launce are getting bigger with one weighing 82gm at home on my digital scale so possibly 90gm+ fresh weight. 
Not surprised that a BFT is caught off Whitby really! Just need the herring shoals to get closer in.

Well that's what we're calling it. For some reason mackerel sizes have been going bonkers here with increasing length and girth, biggest this week was a 40cm fish with plenty pushing for the title plus the launce are getting bigger with one weighing 82gm at home on my digital scale so possibly 90gm+ fresh weight. 
Not surprised that a BFT is caught off Whitby really! Just need the herring shoals to get closer in.

Well that's what we're calling it. For some reason mackerel sizes have been going bonkers here with increasing length and girth, biggest this week was a 40cm fish with plenty pushing for the title plus the launce are getting bigger with one weighing 82gm at home on my digital scale so possibly 90gm+ fresh weight. 
Not surprised that a BFT is caught off Whitby really! Just need the herring shoals to get closer in.

Well that's what we're calling it. For some reason mackerel sizes have been going bonkers here with increasing length and girth, biggest this week was a 40cm fish with plenty pushing for the title plus the launce are getting bigger with one weighing 82gm at home on my digital scale so possibly 90gm+ fresh weight. 
Not surprised that a BFT is caught off Whitby really! Just need the herring shoals to get closer in.

So i've seen quite a few reports of the squid being in early across the south coast - and despite failing form the boat on Tuesday, Thursday evening looked good for a spot of squidding form the shore. 
I got back from the office around 6.30 and was on the pier by 7pm - i was the only squidder amongst lost of other fisher men mostly targeting mackerel and it was very quiet for the 1st hour. 
I was using one jig under a float drifting in the breeze and a variety of casting jigs, switching colours every 20 mins or so. i use a variety of £15 yamashitas, mid range DTD, and cheap Chinese 50p jigs - all work equally on their day.
as the sun set the pier started to empty so i moved to the end where the rock changes to sand and seagrass and the water gets a bit deeper - I spotted a couple of ink stains on the pier next to me ..... i was more hopeful now 
wasn't long before the float started moving against the wind - a tell tale sign - as Squid don't pull the float down - and bang - first squid of the season landed. on a mid range DTD Jig.

i cast straight back out and let the float drift - on retrieving, i saw a quid on the surface following the lure so i stopped my retrieve and watched the squid attack the lure on the drop - bang off the float went back out.... bang 2nd squid in. 

despite trying again that was it -  2 squid within 5 mins during the 2hrs i was there and both were just as the sun dipped. 
A young lad next to me just lost a mackerel and a lure, then had a squid chase his 2nd lure, so I donated a squid jig to him to have a go - i have no idea if he got one or not as i left him with it. fingers crossed he got one!
Home at 9.30pm and pan on for fresh squid rings! the other one in the bait freezer!


a lovely evening!

 

Out on White Waters in Neyland yesterday. Left home at 3am for a 7am sail. 5 of us onboard for a shark trip with 2 shark virgins in the crew. We steamed out around 35 miles off the heads, loads of wildlife on the way out as usual. We drew lots with the newbies getting 4 and 5 but I was confident we would all get a couple😂😂, how wrong was ! There was no wind and a small tide so we were virtually stationary with the baits coming back towards the boat at times. The morning was dead with no runs but once the tide picked up and the breeze increased the chum started working and the baits all sat nicely in the slick. 4 sharks in the afternoon and we made sure the newbies had a fish so unfortunately it meant my bro missed out. On the steam in the Andy made a bit of a detour to where he had seen tuna the day before and sure enough we found a couple of busts. They ignored the popper but couldn’t resist the livebait and we soon had a hook up. We had already agreed to share the fish so everyone had a go on the rod and 45 minutes later a bluefin around 500lb was was boatside. Once revived after a successful release we still had 26 miles to get back to the heads. Got tied up on the pontoon at 9.15 and crawled into bed at 1.45 best part of 23 hours later🤣🤣🤣. The wildlife out there is truely amazing and is a special fishery.

Following the constant wind on my week off and the typical flat calm on my 1st day back - i though sod this - im going out after work - working from home and being 2 mins from the marina meant i can be off the pontoon shortly after 5pm. the plan was to drift the inshore sand for plaice, and tow a float for anything else
as it was such a lovely evening my other half Kate wanted to join - this usually means keeping the bait and fish away from her as she 'hates' fish and just wants to bask in the peace.... however after seeing me catch a couple of mackerel on the float (it was her that spotted the float go under too) she asked if she could have a go at feathering - as long as i helped her. 
I was fishing 3 rods - one spinning rod for the float off the back for mackerel/gar, one plaice rig with rag in the off chance, and i chucked the squid jigs over for an even slimmer chance of an early squid in the sea grass.
I had managed 2x mackerel in the first 2 drifts when Kate said she wanted a go - so i rigged up a 4th rod for her with tinsels. and bang - shortly after dropping down she reeled in a small pollock, followed by another,  then a pout, then 3 mackerel, then another pollock and i think lost a pout at the surface...... 



(trust me she isn't holding them at arms length to make them look bigger - she did not learn that from me - that's just to get them as far away form her as possible!!!)
in between unhooking her fish i was playing with a cuttle fish - it followed my jigs up so back down i went, and it was on, dropped at the surface so i grabbed the net, it then let go at the surface another 3 times before it gave up. 
never mind. 
5 mackerel for the bait freezer, and full bragging rights to the newbee.........
happy for her to overcome her fear and get to see the Buzz around landing a fish!
 
cracking evening

new packs of feathers on the card backing are the worst - i attach a small lead to keep it taut, then undo one hook at a time - if someone takes all the hooks off at the same time that's their problem!
 
i find winders are good for multi hook rigs, and use them on the boat but tend to use a wallet from the shore as you say malc, due to space in the tackle box

Not going now, skipper double booked us and a strong easterly forecast which, said the skipper, he wouldn't go out in and would've cancelled anyway
 

With pre made rigs I find if you attach a small weight to it before taking off the twist wrap then they fall nicely without tangle. Trouble is I always forget to do it 😬

love finding free tackle = I was spinning the other day knee deep from the shore and spotted a free weighted sandeel type lure lying there, picked it up banged it on and gave it a go! no fish though!

Apologies for the recent winds, I took a week off work to fish - so of course it blew up.
Saturday 17th August - Me, Tim and my father in law Phil out on Tim's boat - with fresh baits sorted we picked a new spot south of the shambles in 100ft of water, reportedly good for big rays, the hour long steam out was made better by the arrival of a pod of dolphins who played with us for about 5 mins. 


on arrival at the mark we were comforted by the fact 3 charters were there too - hopes were high! 
down went the fresh mackerel baits - pretty soon phil was into a run of pout - some of them pretty big, 

I had a big tope, which put up a good fight - it was t-barred at the side so no pics. we also had eels and dogs.
pretty soon the charters moved off and we soon found out why - the tide was ripping and half pound of lead wasn't holding - so we moved too.
The new mark showed up some rays, more conger and dogs, plus bream

with the wind blowing 15-20mph the rest of the week we didn't have many more options other than to take my boat Pugwash out and stay close in fishing the inshore reefs wrecks and sand. we managed a few afternoon trips and had mackerel & Gurnard.  

plus we got papped going out under the bridge!