Josh

Headed out Saturday 
stiff northerly to begin with which kept us inshore 
loads of bait around which was nice 
drifted a couple inside wrecks for ling 
while waiting for the wind to die off
Ash managed  one pollack for our efforts.
he also managed a Coomber fish on the sabikis which was pretty cool to see.
pushed out another 15mile as the weather really started to flatten tad of east but much lighter .. algae bad 
no sharks 
literally millions of gannets out there
I saw good few sets of dolphins feeding 
and one definite BFT 
but not loads showing themselves no doubt their underneath 
nice to be out !
 

 
 

With the hot high pressure recently and calm seas i thought it would be great to spend some time offshore. Leaving the harbour with some new gear/jigs to test out and needing a bit of content for a future article my hopes were high. 
I thought id start on the north wrecks to target the bass that should be there first and make my way down south after the pollock and then the cod at slack after flood. Every single mark, wreck, reef was netted and pots all over them. I was quite surprised as we are in the biggest springs weve seen for months!
I tried to pinch little drifts avoiding the gear on the bow or stern of certain marks and pulled out a few small pollock and a couple of schoolies before heading 25 miles further south to a little honey hole that has produced some really good specimens lately. I arrived to find 2 sets of nets up and down tide on this and they were a large spread with no way of drifting any part of the mark. I moved further east to its sister and to my surprise i found that had the same treatment. This sister wreck is not on any graph and is a little secret so i was surprised to find the commercials had put gear on it. I moved further south to a wreck that rhyms with curry’s to also find that with gear and pots on it. This one is a special mark in my eyes and so i roped up a bouy and just drove in circles collecting and tangling all the bouys in a heap and leaving them. 80mile trips to. Ot have one mark we can fish really crossed the line with me. I understand that they have to make there money but this is catastrophic. We have gear being dragged in every part of the bay and around the wrecks and then every single wreck is netted. I doubt we are going to see a very good season and its about as bad as anyone can imagine. I dont even think its worth filling the boat up again and have been thinking of taking it down to birth in cornwall and get away from this.
My explanation of my alarming whale rescue!—
I was returning home on one of the last sessions happily cruising along drinking coffee and eating gingernuts!
I was approaching the bay and had 5-6 miles to go and i see this thing yellow and disappearing in the troughs of the little swell we had. OMFG its a very intoxicated woman sitting on a yellow rubber ring made for kids lying back in the water and going turtle arms. She was propelling herself further out heading east! I came up to her and asked if she was ok? She casually explained her events of the day and said shes feeling a little tired !! Well you obviously need to come on board i said. She was very protective over the one item she had in her hands and that was duck tape. I asked her what that was for and she explained that she has a hole in her ring!! At this point i start to realise what im dealing with here and put the ladder down on the swim platform and hand her a rope to pull herself up. I had wondered if id get a 1000lb tuna through the shark door and im convinced it can now be achieved! After a brief discussion it was obvious that she was fuelled and she continued to jabber on looking through my fridge and helping herself to my mermaid gin i had won last month and my cigarettes. I bit my lip and met the rnli in the bay that were looking for her. I now believe that we really do live with some people that are just something else! From manchester and as big as they come! What a vile disgusting silly silly beast. She was handed over with her ring and roll of gaffer tape to the orange taxi service and i made my way to my birth!
 
Ill put a few pics below of some fish ive been playing with.  

Excellent weather and sea conditions were forecast, so it was to be a day at the Skerries.
With Kyle as crew we launched at 7:40am and after a decent steam of 20miles we arrived on the Skerries banks at 8:25am.
The conditions were perfect, flat calm and a mirror sea, not often you get those sort of conditions on the banks, however, with no wind and neap tides, our drift was quite slow, so I immediately knew that would be an issue for the Plaice. Looking on the bright side, a slow drift is good for Rays, and Mackerel can be caught at any time. I had already looked at the tidal stream graph and decided our best time for Plaice would be from 11:00am onwards, where we would drift along the banks at about 1kt, heading 227 degree's true.
Straight away I was into Mackerel, only small, but perfect for bait. Kyle was first in with a Plaice, which was a decent keeper, but then he followed with 4 postage stamp fish !
Interestingly, the first 2 Mackerel were followed to the surface by quite large Cuttlefish, but I didn’t have any jigs in the tackle box.
I felt a good bite and lifted into something heavy, which I assumed to be a Ray. Carefully I got it off the bottom and in typical big ray fashion it moved slowly off taking line. I tried to turn it, but I was using Plaice gear, and the line parted at the zip slider swivel knot.
Next Kyle was into a ray and slowly boated a 7 ½ lb small eyed, which was good going with a 20lb snood and a sakuma 510 Atlantic size 1 hook.
Now time was pushing on, and at 11:00am we repositioned for a drift along the banks. Perfect timing, as the drift was 0.8 – 1.2kts, and we were picking up a lot of decent keeper Plaice and Mackerel.
All too soon it was 2:00pm and time to make our way back to port, a quite fast trip on a flat calm sea.
We finished the day with 22 Plaice (11 keepers and 11 put back to grow bigger, so a 50/50 day 😃), 53 Mackerel, and the usual pack of Grey and Tub grunters, which all went back.
An excellent day in which we covered 46Nm …………….
 
Kyle with the Small Eyed

 
The average stamp of Plaice

 
Flat calm, which is unusual on the banks

 
Looking toward Dartmouth
 

 
The Plaice filleted

You lot are a bunch of blankers so i thought id share my recent (unusual) blank afloat! (spoiler alert)
was a lovely evening with light Westerleys - perfect for drifting east across weymouth bay straight out of the harbour - no time wasted - as i only had a couple of hours.
i rushed home from work, grabbed the free rag from Tuesdays pier session and some frozen squid, and "rushed" under the bridge and out - greeted to someone pulling a lovely looking bream or bass off the pier i was full of hope!

aim was to drag a blinged up ragworm off a boom across the sandy bottom for a plaice or other likely candidate, while simultaneously towing a float suspending a squid strip for a gar fish or other likely candidate, PLUS with a set of feathers over the side aiming for a scad or other likely candidate..... (species hunt) - with 8 hooks over the side i couldn't fail right? 

needless to say ronald provided the only fish that night - if you can even call it that!

 

Yeah it was quite impressive, the fish didn't even know it was hooked, and it's typical that it took the rod that was the least prepared for it. An ugly stick 20/30 with an Okuma slx10!! 
if it had taken my rod we may have had more chance of seeing it, or Andy's shark rod, but no...

Shame but to be fair excellent to get a take like that good luck next time ..

30lb braid

Hey Josh. Line parted at the spool. @Saintly Fish can confirm the b/s of the braid.

Well done on getting out after it, sounds thresher-esq What hit the rod , did the line just part at the spool or ? Was it braid how heavy 
it’s all chaos when that rachet goes ,,, but we live for it 

Friday's plan was a morning session with @Saintly Fish and Leo chasing tope across the Spoils/Utopia/Pullar - the spring flood tide would give us a long drift across all three of these fishing areas, before dropping anchor at Utopia as slack water approached.
The early start had clearly befuddled Neil however as he arrived at the marina looking sheepish and bashfully confessed that he'd left his tackle box at home 🤦‍♂️. He's been angling for close to forty years so should really have had a better excuse up his sleeve than "I forgot it". Luckily I had just enough tope traces for us all.
We set off into lovely flat conditions at the very bottom of the tide, with only just enough water underneath us as we left the marina and went round to the fuel pontoon. They say a picture paints a thousand words, so I'll just leave it here with this.

Moving swiftly on, we left the harbour and feathered for a short while around the Forts but sadly the mackerel were mostly absent, with just one falling to Neil's rod. It would have to be frozen baits for us today then.
Off to the start of the drift and the conditions were great. I'd heard of some bigger species being seen and caught in this area recently so I'd brought along a shark rod, which was let out to see what was about...

After a short while Leo's rod has a storming take, stripping line at a rate of knots! He winds down into it and just couldn't slow it. In less than 30 seconds his reel was half empty so his father, in his (not so) infinite wisdom turns up the drag until we hear a "ping!". 😬😬
We were all gutted for Leo, and to be fair there was no stopping this take. We reflected afterwards that if the line hadn't snapped, his reel would be empty with still no fish and no more fishing either.
We fished on the drift fruitlessly for another few hours until the tide dropped, then anchored up over the deepest part of Utopia. Bites began to show, and a series of eels made their way to the boat. Neil even managed two fish on one hook!

We then saw a small pod of dolphins come past, only two or three animals but still lovely to hear and see them.
Shortly after, I connected with a nice bass of 48cm/1.47kg that I swapped with my fishmonger today for jumbo squid and scallops for the barbecue tonight.

And finally, I was back in the game with my favourite species - my first this season!

As the tide turned the wind picked up, so with white caps starting to show we headed home before the conditions got too lumpy.
No tope but a monster run and some fun fishing nonetheless. And even better, we all escaped the sun burn - slip, slap and all that. Better safe than sorry 👍

I thought yesterday was a bank holiday so I kept the diary free and planned to go fishing. Then I found out it was just a normal day and you all had to work. So in the spirit of kinship and kindness, I went fishing for you all. 
The plan was to go after a new species, the stingray. I'd heard of a couple of spots that were capable of producing the odd one or two. 
So Sunday I went to the bait shop to see Bill the owner, I needed some weights and rag worm. 
We got talking and it came up that he was at a loose end Monday. So, I did what any decent guy would do and invited him to jump onboard Tarlach Too. I would have normally had Leo with me, but school was calling him... (much to his annoyance). The good thing about having a tackle and bait shop owner come fishing with you is that they have loads of the best freshest bait. Bill didn't disappoint. He bought along 4lb of large kind rag and about (from what I could see 40 peeler crab). We used none of the crab btw, didn't need to. 
We met at 06.30 and left Mercurys by 06.50. Headed to the mark and dropped anchor in 7ft of water right on the turn of the low tide. As it was a rising tide I let out a couple more meters of rope to soak up the extra depth as the day ticked on. The deepest we were in at the end was 3m. 
Bill started proceedings with a first drop bass of around 5lb, it quickly went back. 
Then I pulled in an LSD (oh fuck here we go was my initial thought), that was just 1 of 3 that we saw all day. 
My next bite was an impressive pull down and line started to exit my reel. I was convinced that it was a decent hound, but no. It was better than that...
A 13lb stingray was on the deck, my first ever, and what a fish. It doesn't look very pretty due to the fact that the tail had been docked and a large tope mouth shaped chunk was missing from his left wing. Either the tail and added meat he would have pushed 14lb. 
Not to be out done, Bill landed a stinger too, smaller thank good at 6.5lb but spirited it was. 

And that's how the day continued. In total we had 7 stingray (me 3, but the biggest), we had more hounds than I remember, again the biggest went to me at 13lb also. All were double figures, and in 7-8 feet of water they went ballistic, so much fun. 
As the high tide eased so did the bites, we upped anchor and set for home at 3.30pm. Both quite knackered and full of high spirits. We hoped to get 1 or 2 stingers, but 7 was a red letter day. 
I'll be back.

 

 

When I got home and told Leo all about it......... you can guess!! 

Forgot to put a report up from last weekend. We had a junior comp on Sunday, just a short one over high water. 4 boats with 8 juniors took part. Plenty of fish caught for all. Lots of rays, straps, dogs and hounds. We managed 6 hounds on our boat and my daughter took 3rd with her biggest of around 13lb. It was great to have them out on the boat again and a nice bbq and pint afterwards at the clubhouse. Happy days 

If you’re in the stalls or hats and barrels it’ll prob be Andy, should be plenty about for you 🙂 I’m off on summer hols Weds Am so no reports for 10 days from me… hopefully back at it soon 

Locked out at 08:30 for an inshore trip (reefing and a crack at the tope). 
 
Loveky to start but wind got up. Had pollack, cod, wrasse on feathers and…. ahem… dogfish…. They must be about in plague proportions to take artificial lures 😬😬😬😬
Anchored up and used the pollack as bait. Quite a few doggies, 3 dropped tope (was using circles not again!). 
 
Quite a few huss, best was 19lb 11oz so a nice PB. Had another at 18lb+ quite a few doubles…. 
 
Fished until 2, then went and sat in sunshine and ate a late lunch. (Freshly made pizza, no pot noodles here!) 
lock in at 16:00 as back to work tomorrow 😭

good report mate 

Whilst away in Turkey joining on any free wifi connections I was watching Sundays forecast holding nice on the iow grounds. so a day at home to turn the boat around Saturday and by 2am Sunday I was on the road towing to Chichester harbour (from Kent takes me about 2hr) so semi local …as all of us boat anglers know you don’t turn down good weather windows, they don’t come that often .. I could of done with the extra rest on the back of the delayed flights ect but the fishing instinct got the better of me. Blasting out the harbour  I noticed my tell tail wasn’t overly strong so I stopped and fiddled around with the hood off (as it was so calm I actually climbed in the transom area ) but couldn’t get to the hose clips.. ended up putting the hood back on then manually sliding a bit of 400lb mono up from the outside jiggled it and then it was clear and pushing out strong . Super pleased as I hate problems or potential problems as I’m sure we all do ha.  
Saw a big garfish swimming round the back of boat .
Anyway Carried on blasting to the overfalls to try drifting with dead launce (big bastads from the previous Cornwall trips ) for bass. First time for the overfalls for me always heard of horror stories so picking exceptional weather and a mid size tide I thought would be ideal for a first go. All be it not a single bass as a result quite a few pack tope biting us off some managing to come in I did lose a better tope (assumably)which gave me a great fight on my spinning rod .. but ultimately pulled the hook.Once drifting off of the overfalls I stuck the chum in and set up a shark rod on the hope of a early thresher but not to be and another tope hit those live baits. So nice to have plenty of mackerel especially this time of year good signs for coming months. After a few more hrs we shot in dropped anchor to see if we could nick a blonde ray but only managed a couple of small spotteds. All in all a very pleasant day on the water. Can’t wait to get back out 
 

 

 

 
 

Whilst away in Turkey joining on any free wifi connections I was watching Sundays forecast holding nice on the iow grounds. so a day at home to turn the boat around Saturday and by 2am Sunday I was on the road towing to Chichester harbour (from Kent takes me about 2hr) so semi local …as all of us boat anglers know you don’t turn down good weather windows, they don’t come that often .. I could of done with the extra rest on the back of the delayed flights ect but the fishing instinct got the better of me. Blasting out the harbour  I noticed my tell tail wasn’t overly strong so I stopped and fiddled around with the hood off (as it was so calm I actually climbed in the transom area ) but couldn’t get to the hose clips.. ended up putting the hood back on then manually sliding a bit of 400lb mono up from the outside jiggled it and then it was clear and pushing out strong . Super pleased as I hate problems or potential problems as I’m sure we all do ha.  
Saw a big garfish swimming round the back of boat .
Anyway Carried on blasting to the overfalls to try drifting with dead launce (big bastads from the previous Cornwall trips ) for bass. First time for the overfalls for me always heard of horror stories so picking exceptional weather and a mid size tide I thought would be ideal for a first go. All be it not a single bass as a result quite a few pack tope biting us off some managing to come in I did lose a better tope (assumably)which gave me a great fight on my spinning rod .. but ultimately pulled the hook.Once drifting off of the overfalls I stuck the chum in and set up a shark rod on the hope of a early thresher but not to be and another tope hit those live baits. So nice to have plenty of mackerel especially this time of year good signs for coming months. After a few more hrs we shot in dropped anchor to see if we could nick a blonde ray but only managed a couple of small spotteds. All in all a very pleasant day on the water. Can’t wait to get back out 
 

 

 

 
 

Bream, and plenty of them. 👍
 

Nice one Josh. I did consider the Overfalls for Sunday's weather, which incidentally turned out even better than the forecast predicted it would be, but in the end we stayed relatively local and went to Sandown Bay instead.
Did you get caught in the sea fog that came down around 8.30am, or were you already far enough out to avoid it?

Good effort Josh and great to hear the macky are showing.

There are more Mack around at the moment than at the same period over the last couple of years, but they can still be elusive at times, but once you find them they are there in numbers and all sizes.

Whilst away in Turkey joining on any free wifi connections I was watching Sundays forecast holding nice on the iow grounds. so a day at home to turn the boat around Saturday and by 2am Sunday I was on the road towing to Chichester harbour (from Kent takes me about 2hr) so semi local …as all of us boat anglers know you don’t turn down good weather windows, they don’t come that often .. I could of done with the extra rest on the back of the delayed flights ect but the fishing instinct got the better of me. Blasting out the harbour  I noticed my tell tail wasn’t overly strong so I stopped and fiddled around with the hood off (as it was so calm I actually climbed in the transom area ) but couldn’t get to the hose clips.. ended up putting the hood back on then manually sliding a bit of 400lb mono up from the outside jiggled it and then it was clear and pushing out strong . Super pleased as I hate problems or potential problems as I’m sure we all do ha.  
Saw a big garfish swimming round the back of boat .
Anyway Carried on blasting to the overfalls to try drifting with dead launce (big bastads from the previous Cornwall trips ) for bass. First time for the overfalls for me always heard of horror stories so picking exceptional weather and a mid size tide I thought would be ideal for a first go. All be it not a single bass as a result quite a few pack tope biting us off some managing to come in I did lose a better tope (assumably)which gave me a great fight on my spinning rod .. but ultimately pulled the hook.Once drifting off of the overfalls I stuck the chum in and set up a shark rod on the hope of a early thresher but not to be and another tope hit those live baits. So nice to have plenty of mackerel especially this time of year good signs for coming months. After a few more hrs we shot in dropped anchor to see if we could nick a blonde ray but only managed a couple of small spotteds. All in all a very pleasant day on the water. Can’t wait to get back out 
 

 

 

 
 

Whilst away in Turkey joining on any free wifi connections I was watching Sundays forecast holding nice on the iow grounds. so a day at home to turn the boat around Saturday and by 2am Sunday I was on the road towing to Chichester harbour (from Kent takes me about 2hr) so semi local …as all of us boat anglers know you don’t turn down good weather windows, they don’t come that often .. I could of done with the extra rest on the back of the delayed flights ect but the fishing instinct got the better of me. Blasting out the harbour  I noticed my tell tail wasn’t overly strong so I stopped and fiddled around with the hood off (as it was so calm I actually climbed in the transom area ) but couldn’t get to the hose clips.. ended up putting the hood back on then manually sliding a bit of 400lb mono up from the outside jiggled it and then it was clear and pushing out strong . Super pleased as I hate problems or potential problems as I’m sure we all do ha.  
Saw a big garfish swimming round the back of boat .
Anyway Carried on blasting to the overfalls to try drifting with dead launce (big bastads from the previous Cornwall trips ) for bass. First time for the overfalls for me always heard of horror stories so picking exceptional weather and a mid size tide I thought would be ideal for a first go. All be it not a single bass as a result quite a few pack tope biting us off some managing to come in I did lose a better tope (assumably)which gave me a great fight on my spinning rod .. but ultimately pulled the hook.Once drifting off of the overfalls I stuck the chum in and set up a shark rod on the hope of a early thresher but not to be and another tope hit those live baits. So nice to have plenty of mackerel especially this time of year good signs for coming months. After a few more hrs we shot in dropped anchor to see if we could nick a blonde ray but only managed a couple of small spotteds. All in all a very pleasant day on the water. Can’t wait to get back out 
 

 

 

 
 

Whilst away in Turkey joining on any free wifi connections I was watching Sundays forecast holding nice on the iow grounds. so a day at home to turn the boat around Saturday and by 2am Sunday I was on the road towing to Chichester harbour (from Kent takes me about 2hr) so semi local …as all of us boat anglers know you don’t turn down good weather windows, they don’t come that often .. I could of done with the extra rest on the back of the delayed flights ect but the fishing instinct got the better of me. Blasting out the harbour  I noticed my tell tail wasn’t overly strong so I stopped and fiddled around with the hood off (as it was so calm I actually climbed in the transom area ) but couldn’t get to the hose clips.. ended up putting the hood back on then manually sliding a bit of 400lb mono up from the outside jiggled it and then it was clear and pushing out strong . Super pleased as I hate problems or potential problems as I’m sure we all do ha.  
Saw a big garfish swimming round the back of boat .
Anyway Carried on blasting to the overfalls to try drifting with dead launce (big bastads from the previous Cornwall trips ) for bass. First time for the overfalls for me always heard of horror stories so picking exceptional weather and a mid size tide I thought would be ideal for a first go. All be it not a single bass as a result quite a few pack tope biting us off some managing to come in I did lose a better tope (assumably)which gave me a great fight on my spinning rod .. but ultimately pulled the hook.Once drifting off of the overfalls I stuck the chum in and set up a shark rod on the hope of a early thresher but not to be and another tope hit those live baits. So nice to have plenty of mackerel especially this time of year good signs for coming months. After a few more hrs we shot in dropped anchor to see if we could nick a blonde ray but only managed a couple of small spotteds. All in all a very pleasant day on the water. Can’t wait to get back out 
 

 

 

 
 

Whilst away in Turkey joining on any free wifi connections I was watching Sundays forecast holding nice on the iow grounds. so a day at home to turn the boat around Saturday and by 2am Sunday I was on the road towing to Chichester harbour (from Kent takes me about 2hr) so semi local …as all of us boat anglers know you don’t turn down good weather windows, they don’t come that often .. I could of done with the extra rest on the back of the delayed flights ect but the fishing instinct got the better of me. Blasting out the harbour  I noticed my tell tail wasn’t overly strong so I stopped and fiddled around with the hood off (as it was so calm I actually climbed in the transom area ) but couldn’t get to the hose clips.. ended up putting the hood back on then manually sliding a bit of 400lb mono up from the outside jiggled it and then it was clear and pushing out strong . Super pleased as I hate problems or potential problems as I’m sure we all do ha.  
Saw a big garfish swimming round the back of boat .
Anyway Carried on blasting to the overfalls to try drifting with dead launce (big bastads from the previous Cornwall trips ) for bass. First time for the overfalls for me always heard of horror stories so picking exceptional weather and a mid size tide I thought would be ideal for a first go. All be it not a single bass as a result quite a few pack tope biting us off some managing to come in I did lose a better tope (assumably)which gave me a great fight on my spinning rod .. but ultimately pulled the hook.Once drifting off of the overfalls I stuck the chum in and set up a shark rod on the hope of a early thresher but not to be and another tope hit those live baits. So nice to have plenty of mackerel especially this time of year good signs for coming months. After a few more hrs we shot in dropped anchor to see if we could nick a blonde ray but only managed a couple of small spotteds. All in all a very pleasant day on the water. Can’t wait to get back out