Herbs73

Which one did you go to, we were in Tallahassee

I did let the skipper know we were dangerously close to one of your marks but he really didn’t seem bothered. Yes we did pop into the bass pro shop and wow, there’s literally everything you can possibly imagine, from hunting with cross bows to marine electronics, you can even buy a boat. I’ve never seen so many rods in one place. Got some Gulp alive bait which we were using to catch the red fish. Be interesting to see how they work back home.

So me and the wife have flown across the pond to see an old school friend who lives in Tallahassee Florida via New Orleans. He’s also a keen angler so he organised a fishing trip. We’ve travelled from Tallahassee to a small town called Apalachicola for a few days and yesterday we went out with captain John Layne from JB charters and fished the St.Vincent sound targeting red drum It was a bit overcast but flat Calm, fishing was a bit slow so we tried a few different marks caching small red drum, pin fish and cat fish Tim catching most of them, fishing in about 2 ft of water using light tackle. Then Tim caught a lively 10lb red drum which gave an hell of a fight and went back as it was a breeding size fish. I still continued with the small fish. The time to pack up came and went as John wanted me to catch a decent fish. Then on my last cast my reel screened off and after a very tiring 15 minute battle (these fish fight hard) John netted a 30lb red drum. when we came back John took us back to his house where he prepped the fish and which we could keep and we took to a local resteraunt. He also run us back to the hotel in his rock crawler 4wd, these Americans like their toys. The boat was pretty awesome, a centre console design powered by a 250 Yamaha which did over 60 knots. What was interesting is that it didn’t have an anchor, on the bow is an electric trolling motor which keeps the boat in position by gps, on the aft they have “power poles”which in shallow water are deployed by a motor and extend down into the mud to hold the boat. Fantastic days fishing with an old mate that I don’t see enough of and a brilliant skipper.

Went out from Brightlingsea yesterday with the wife to watch the barge race and sleep on the boat, no intention of fishing, the wife even had me take all the fishing gear off the boat. Luckily I left the spinning rod on board. Got about a mile out from Brightlingsea and saw loads of seagulls diving, so out came the rod and I drifted for about an hour catching small bass on a Surface popper, must have been hundreds of them, the water was gin clear which is unusual for the area. They were throwing themselves on the hooks, even though they were small it was good fun. Then back to the creek, for some food and a cider(s) and watch the sun go down. Came back this morning.

In fairness to Mike, I will tell the boy at work to go and cut me a bit of 4x2 @ 1660 long.

Your not wrong,

Thanks mate

It went off like a steam train, took me round the whole boat.

So went out yesterday at 3.3. Am to fish the Kentish knock for bass, had a run on my fist cast which I missed and then managed 1 dogfish in 4 hours before we called it a day. Today though I was out on a tope trip on a charter boat and caught this 47lb tope. Absolutely buzzing.

He will only start fishing your marks again.

The gallopers is a fair old way, probably a Bit too far for me. Scott has just about got over it, it took a lot of counselling and strong medication though.

The charter boat galloper

Will do

Got a busy weekend of fishing coming up. out at 3 Saturday morning to fish the Kentish knock for bass, it’s about a 70 mile round trip and then a 12 hour tope trip on Sunday on the Galloper. I’ll be knackered at the end of this but hopefully worth it.

Surely putting out fenders is a boating technique?

Made me chuckle.

Which fathom was it ?

That’s what I was thinking, maybe use them for bass and hounds in shallower water ? they are a bit sturdier than the Abu 6500’s.

Evening gents ive got a pair of original penn 525 mag mk1’s that i used during my beech fishing days. Havnt used them in yonks. I have been toying with getting some Penn fathom 15 lever drags but Are these any good for fishing from the boat ? How would they compare to the fathoms ? They always seemed pretty robust to me. TIA

Yes lovely fish, it just wasn’t me that caught it.

We were just about to anchor up and I said to the skipper “hang on I think this is Jon’s mark” So he moved a couple of hundred yards uptide and he thanked me for letting him know.

Out today for tope on the Galloper from Brightlingsea, apart from the big tope I lost after 15 minutes of a hard battle I managed about a dozen doggies. But on the boat the notable fish were 1 tope at 43lbs, 4 spurdogs from 14lb to 18lb and six hounds the biggest being 20lbs. Skipper was great, very helpful and knowledgable. cracking weather, cracking day.

Probably, snooze you lose in my book

Sounds like a lovely bloke. I know it isn’t easy running a charter boat but some of these skippers think they own the sea and that privateers shouldn’t be allowed past the creek mouth bouy. I’ll post up a report on how we get on.

About ten years ago, I was fishing on my mates boat and lee bollingbrook on the Sophie lee, pulled up next to us and insisted we move. We didn’t