daio web

The further West we went, the fish became scarcer
Another waste of fuel 😪

Pics to follow…. 
But it’s big, it’s white and it’s got 2 hulls 🤩🤩🤩🤩

nice one fella some great fish there 👍

I did personally in 2022 and 2023 and my boat also came second best Bass this year (third year) with my brother in laws Bass, the prizes retailed at about 2k over the last three years with cash as well so I class that as winning especially out of 60+ boats😉

Me and Jon C entered Brightlingsea Boat Comp on Sunday, the tide was awful, the sea conditions were terrible and the weather was crap but despite that Jon C won a £50 chandler voucher with best unusual catch which was an 8lb Stingray, we both enjoyed the 3 hour raffle after as well which meant we missed all the football but we made great use of Jon C’s Willy Wang Air horn abusing Bradwell beach goers as we passed them.

Overnight fishing seems to be the in thing at the moment, but a lot of guys just ended up sleeping 

being away from it all, back ground noise, ect fresh air and back to nature, maybe

well i had a trip booked for my boat overnighter  early july what could go wrong well the weather is not playing ball wind speed 22 gusts 39 wsw hope it changes 

Managed to get out on Saturday after having had a few issues with a gearbox but now all sorted so was lovely to be out
 
sadly the forecast changed at the last minute I warned the crew we’d be in for a rough ride but tbey were keen to get out. 
 
After a rather bouncy 3 hour steam we were on the shark grounds…. First run in 30 mins. Was a decent porbeagle but sadly managed to slip the hook. Rather frustrating! 
 
we had another run which after a spirited battle we had a cute little porgie abour 100-110lb to the boat. It was wrapped up but a wave soon washed it through the door…
Quick photo, tagged and released. 
 
Anorher blue of about 80lb soon came along, again tagged and released. 
 
Sadly the crew lost another porgie just underneath the boat…. 
 
I was keen to carry on but with 4 anglers with heads over the rail they decided to head in… another 3 hour steam home in a lumpy beam on sea and we were home 🙂 
Lovely to be back out there hopefully a few more weatger windows abd can get out again 🙂 

I am not an expert but we have been smoking fish, fowl and vegetables for around 20 years so I hope that I can cover the basics. Our smoker was blagged by my wife when we were buying our new kitchen units and the smoker was part of a display kitchen, it's a Camerons smoker Quick search  but you could make your own with 2x roasting tins and a cake cooling rack, the heavier the better as I would expect cheaper tins to buckle. If you have a deep enough single tin you could try sealing the top with foil.

That's my set up you can easily get 2-4 mackerel fillets in it or 2 chicken breasts.
Meat and fish need to be salted before smoking as it really does enhance the flavour, brine or dry salt is used, I prefer dry as it is easier to see it working and you don't need to weigh the ingredients or wait for brine to cool, but brine is great to flavour a chicken for Sunday lunch. 
Coarse or fine salt can be used and I prefer any salt that doesn't have anti caking agents or anything else, just pure salt. You can use sugar as well as salt and I sometimes use it when doing hot smoked mackerel for a salad rather than paté, 50/50 seems to work well enough. You can also try adding other flavours (spices, chilli garlic etc) but you need to be bold as the smoke may mask subtle flavours. 
How much salt? This is the magic bit...just bung it on! Not 3" thick but a bit like a doughnut, a good covering, if you are using sugar, demerara is good, use a spoonful of each mixed together and coat the meat/fish. We have smoked sweet peppers and chilli which worked fine, no need for salt, just wash and split into two. Length of time is indeterminate, mackerel takes about 15-30 minutes and what I like to see is fluid on the plate, below is just after salting and you can see it is just dry. 

Next is about half done and the salt looks wetter, but as I said I like to see fluid on the plate that the salt has drawn out. 

After that wash off the remaining salt and dry well on kitchen paper, if you can leave it on the rack to dry further before smoking. 
Timings? How long is a piece of string?
I put it onto the smallest gas ring at 1/2 heat for about a minute or so but I wait until the top of the smoker is getting a little too hot to touch, then I turn down to lowest setting. Once I think it is half cooked I turn up to 3/4 for a minute and then turn off and leave (don't open it up) for 15 minutes or so to maximise the smokiness. Timings are not set in stone unless you have the same smoker as me, however I find that around 10 minutes cooking  for mackerel or similar size fish, 20 minutes for chicken and 30 for peppers. Leaving in the smoker gives more smoky flavour but that's just personal preference, you could take it straight out and scoff it. However always check that the food is fully cooked first, meat thermometers are good but most people can tell if you cut through the thickest part. 
Wood. I have been processing my own wood for many years and initially I ran my saw with vegetable oil instead of chain oil for a while and then cut some oak and cherry limbs and kept the chips. They were good but I also use hand saw sawdust as well. A level tablespoon dampened works well enough for fish and heaped for chicken and veg. 
You will mess up on occasions, but a couple of leather hard and blackened mackerel fillets isn't the worst thing to happen to you (we forgot to set the timer!) but over cooking is preferable to uner cooking. If it's too salty this time just use less salt next time or reduce the salting time. It isn't rocket science but it is fun and the results are tasty!
If I've missed anything or you aren't sure what I meant just ask. 

know the felling, i think neal could tell you a few stories on that subject

Eek…. That’s not good… fingers crossed it calms down for you 🙂 I love camping out on the boat overnight 🙂 even if the sound of the water sloshing against the hull really makes me want to pee 😂😂😂😂

nice one mate i am out friday to saturday overnighter  👍

nice one mate i am out friday to saturday overnighter  👍

great report bud nice 🐳

Hi Jonny
How come you didn't fish the Nash, i hear it's fishing well for bass and tope not to far away.

Did think about it, but the amount of boats heading down that way on the morning meant it would've been like the M25 at rush hour
Had the Foreland trip planned for a couple of weeks
In hindsight, Nash would've probably been more productive

Glad you’re getting it sorted, I’m a Simrad person (boats I buy come with Simrad) so sorry I wasn’t more use, hope you get it sorted in time for the cod season, we need all the help we can get after last year 😂

Was nice to get out again for sure…. Hopefully the setbacks are behind me… until Plan B comes into action…

A few sharks before mal de mer took over….
short day, happy customers

i have mate thanks i am in the prosess  of sorting it 👍

I use Garmin blue chart g3 vision which has been extremely good in both 8410 and 8412, one off purchase, no subscription. I also had the simrad Navionic vision for simrad, which I gave to the owners of the commercial boat I work on at times. I also had the phone app version but dropped it after the subscription doubled. 

I also build my own quick draw charts in areas which haven't been surveyed. To be honest though, Ive been busy on other boats and stuffed with my back for a while, so will need to get my head around using it again now, especially given the boat Ive been working has Simrads. Building your own charts and setting various colours for different depths can be very useful.

Then why not DM @GPSguru first to sort the finer details out, then you'll know where you stand!! 

That's fair Mike, like I said it's just my POV, I'm not implying you should do what I do. You're a grown man who makes his own decisions in life.