Josh

So I arrived home from Turkey last night
with an incredible forecast Sunday questioning do I ? don’t I ?… I should stay at home prepare for the week ahead ect…
so anyway
1am came and I was on the road by 25past
heading for itchneor slip

lauched by 3.55 and heading through the harbour I was gunning for the slack at the Outer Owers to try for some bass and I was up against it time wise with a 15mile run from the harbour. So I stopped once and was lucky enough to pick up a small scad and one mackerel great some live baits. Then was disciplined enough not to stop again untill arriving at the mark.
I actually got there before the slack had started so time wise I got more than I needed.
fish wise not so good .. live bait down and feeding the float back on one rod and Dexter wedge off the bottom with another.
no takes first drift
second drift the floats gone down great! Wer on !
nope Wer off !
so I dropped the float back without checking the bait and bang I just picked the other rod up and the float was down again! Okay yes fish is ON….
well all went light float came up the bass even had the audacity to follow the the mackerel to the boat.assuming it was the same fish..
i forgot to say when I arrived and set up I put the tiny scad on which would of been perfect and as I threw it over it came off so that’s why the mackerel went on… heinsight I recon I should of sized my hook up a bit..
anyway back round and seeing a few more individual surface splashes now casting at them
rubbers and dexters but no joy.
by this point the mackerel was stiff so I flapped it set it out then & float went down again and I was properly on … however it wasn’t a bass it was a conger of about 8lb . So I was heart pounding for the net untill I saw it. 
after than I started following the birds and there were fish with them but no joy for me. A lot of baitfish under boat in areas. Not sure what it was I couldn’t pick them up maybe very mini sandeels.


with a short day planned I shot into a tope mark  that Iv had some incredible action in the past that’s pretty reliable and that was very quiet too. A small black bream  and a few dogs .
Amazing forecast saw some monster mullet in the harbour biggest Iv ever seen. So just sunsets & sounders today 
not even a poorly cooked sausage 

Thanks @Saintly FishYeah that’s right  flying I don’t find unerving it’s just a i find uncomfortable tiring experience .  Poor us having to go on holiday 🤣

Ah, bad luck Josh. Sounds like a frustrating session, but top marks for making the effort to get out there. You must be knackered!

Nice report and photos. I admire your dedication but lovely looking sea so I can see why you made the effort!
 

Unlucky Josh. Looked mint out there though. A good way to unwind from a travel home from Turkey. Done that trip a few times myself and it's always knackering! 

We were fishing on the skerries today, and the weather was quite the opposite. Although warm, the visibility was variable from 1/4 mile to 1 mile, it was supposed to burn off, but stayed all day. At lunchtime, I even had the Nav lights on !
AIS seems to work well in the fog / mist as we were called by a tug who was towing, in order we could identify our vessel type and take an agreed action (we stayed on his staboard side).
Also we heard the CG calling a continual Pan Pan, for assistance to a 6.3m cabin cruiser that was dead in the water and anchored somewhere off Selsey Bill, so I guess you kept hearing that as well.

So I arrived home from Turkey last night
with an incredible forecast Sunday questioning do I ? don’t I ?… I should stay at home prepare for the week ahead ect…
so anyway
1am came and I was on the road by 25past
heading for itchneor slip

lauched by 3.55 and heading through the harbour I was gunning for the slack at the Outer Owers to try for some bass and I was up against it time wise with a 15mile run from the harbour. So I stopped once and was lucky enough to pick up a small scad and one mackerel great some live baits. Then was disciplined enough not to stop again untill arriving at the mark.
I actually got there before the slack had started so time wise I got more than I needed.
fish wise not so good .. live bait down and feeding the float back on one rod and Dexter wedge off the bottom with another.
no takes first drift
second drift the floats gone down great! Wer on !
nope Wer off !
so I dropped the float back without checking the bait and bang I just picked the other rod up and the float was down again! Okay yes fish is ON….
well all went light float came up the bass even had the audacity to follow the the mackerel to the boat.assuming it was the same fish..
i forgot to say when I arrived and set up I put the tiny scad on which would of been perfect and as I threw it over it came off so that’s why the mackerel went on… heinsight I recon I should of sized my hook up a bit..
anyway back round and seeing a few more individual surface splashes now casting at them
rubbers and dexters but no joy.
by this point the mackerel was stiff so I flapped it set it out then & float went down again and I was properly on … however it wasn’t a bass it was a conger of about 8lb . So I was heart pounding for the net untill I saw it. 
after than I started following the birds and there were fish with them but no joy for me. A lot of baitfish under boat in areas. Not sure what it was I couldn’t pick them up maybe very mini sandeels.


with a short day planned I shot into a tope mark  that Iv had some incredible action in the past that’s pretty reliable and that was very quiet too. A small black bream  and a few dogs .
Amazing forecast saw some monster mullet in the harbour biggest Iv ever seen. So just sunsets & sounders today 
not even a poorly cooked sausage 

Great job guys 🎣 

So I arrived home from Turkey last night
with an incredible forecast Sunday questioning do I ? don’t I ?… I should stay at home prepare for the week ahead ect…
so anyway
1am came and I was on the road by 25past
heading for itchneor slip

lauched by 3.55 and heading through the harbour I was gunning for the slack at the Outer Owers to try for some bass and I was up against it time wise with a 15mile run from the harbour. So I stopped once and was lucky enough to pick up a small scad and one mackerel great some live baits. Then was disciplined enough not to stop again untill arriving at the mark.
I actually got there before the slack had started so time wise I got more than I needed.
fish wise not so good .. live bait down and feeding the float back on one rod and Dexter wedge off the bottom with another.
no takes first drift
second drift the floats gone down great! Wer on !
nope Wer off !
so I dropped the float back without checking the bait and bang I just picked the other rod up and the float was down again! Okay yes fish is ON….
well all went light float came up the bass even had the audacity to follow the the mackerel to the boat.assuming it was the same fish..
i forgot to say when I arrived and set up I put the tiny scad on which would of been perfect and as I threw it over it came off so that’s why the mackerel went on… heinsight I recon I should of sized my hook up a bit..
anyway back round and seeing a few more individual surface splashes now casting at them
rubbers and dexters but no joy.
by this point the mackerel was stiff so I flapped it set it out then & float went down again and I was properly on … however it wasn’t a bass it was a conger of about 8lb . So I was heart pounding for the net untill I saw it. 
after than I started following the birds and there were fish with them but no joy for me. A lot of baitfish under boat in areas. Not sure what it was I couldn’t pick them up maybe very mini sandeels.


with a short day planned I shot into a tope mark  that Iv had some incredible action in the past that’s pretty reliable and that was very quiet too. A small black bream  and a few dogs .
Amazing forecast saw some monster mullet in the harbour biggest Iv ever seen. So just sunsets & sounders today 
not even a poorly cooked sausage 

Unfortunately I had changed some settings and inadvertently gone into loop mode, so the Cod footage was recorded over, however, here is a vid of one of the smaller pout (but still large), that tried to take a whole mack flapper and was cleanly hooked on an O'Shaughnessy 9/0
 

Another morning solo trip as I had to do the school run in the afternoon.
Launched at 7:45 into a flat sea, so I decided to head out to the same bunch of wrecks as my last trip.
At 15 - 20 miles out it was mirror flat, I decided to stay on one largish wreck, and my drift was along the wreck which is unusual.
It was pout city on both spj and lures, but I did manage 2 small Cod of about 4lb each. 

Some of the pout were huge. I had some frozen mack to use up, so I quickly tied a blood loop wrecking rig from 150lb mono, and a 9/0 hook. I loaded the 9/0 with a mack flapper hoping for Ling, but the monster pout were shredding it, and I hooked 4 of them, bloody monsters, probably close to 3lb fish !
I will look at the camera later to see if there are any pics worth using.
Just cleaned the boat and I noted the AIS stopped working on the way back in. The AIS 800 has the ‘ready’ and ‘receive only’ lights on, which suggests it has lost its GPS signal, so I suspect the Garmin puck. I will order a new one tonight.
Total trip of 38miles and a cracking day to be out there.

Annual trip was written off due to weather conditions but my friends kindly twisted my arm into going over the weekend on the proviso that they got me to the airport or home before my flight to Spain. 
First day was choppy at times and finished flat, but we managed to get some mackerel, scad and launce to bolster our few frozen baits and ended up with a topelet, a similar size smooth, a mid sized huss and a mid sized TBR.
Day two and we headed off for tide and depth. First off was a huss of around 90cm but as the tide strengthened we headed to another spot just to the side of a drop off, the anchor kept pulling out and then stopping us, so a slow drift really. 
On one of the stops my friend had a knock and a slow run so we thought Huss, but on striking it went bananas! It was great to see a good bend in the rod and eventually the fish obliged and headed to the boat and then towards the warp!!!! It was expertly handled back towards us and netted and tailed in one swift move. 

151cm iirc.
Short while later I had a couple of sharp pulls and then a run, I gave it a count of 3 and tightened and she was off! I thought I would lose her as the tide was raging and she was using it to good effect, however I managed to get some line back before a couple of short runs, and started to pump her back in towards the boat but she wasn't heading up just keeping deep until under the boat and then she headed up...
Then well before we saw the leader she saw the boat and I just held on as she shot off downtide, when she slowed I turned her and started again. She surfaced 15m downtide and managed to turn and run a few yards and then wrap herself on the leader! However after really testing the tackle she came alongside and unwound and was lifted in by my friends!

mid 150's in French inches. 
I was cream crackered on the plane after 2 eight hour days in choppy conditions and just 2 hours kip but I have recovered sufficiently and am off to the pool to wallow and slumber! 
HAPPY DAYS!

Great job guys 🎣 

Midweek I get a sneaky message from. @Saintly Fish sending me an XC forecast and asking if I could be available on Friday. With my work schedule looking relatively clear I move a couple of meetings and get the ok to skip off work for the day.
A 4.45am wake-up wasn't the nicest but boy was it worth it. Out of the marina by just after 6am. Mint conditions as soon as we hit the water, and we were on our mark by 7.30am.

The target was stingrays. By 7.37am Neil nails a thumping bite to boat a beautiful 10lb smoothound, taken on ragworm.

20 minutes later he does the same with another lovely smoothie, this one nudging 12lb.

Feeling the pressure a little at this point I'm glad to see my rod tip give a good rattle then bend nicely. After a lively scrap we see our target coming to the surface.

My first ever stingray, about 4lb and very welcome. I also managed a couple of out-of-season congers too, on both my rods at the same time. Very surprised to see them in summer.
The next 30 mins or so were quiet, with nothing bothering our baits. Neil rustled up a stingray of his own as the top of the tide neared.

Slack water arrived and with the wind building a little we settle in for the start of the next tide. All of a sudden our rods go nuts! With bending rods and drags singing we each have decent fish on. After a bit of Laurel & Hardy shenanigans with the net we boat two lovely smoothies.

Really chunky ones at 14lb and 12lb and a new PB for me.
Another few fish follow, sending the rods over in typical smoothound smash & grab style.


At this point we'd lost count of the number of hounds to the boat, but we're fairly certain we had 7 double-figure hounds by the time we ran out of bait and headed in, plus two stingrays, two congers and two PB's for me. We ended the day with a well-earned beer in glorious sunshine back at the marina.
Big, big thanks to @Saintly Fish for hosting, skippering and putting us on the fish 💪👍.

Caught today 7lb 7oz Silver Bar on Ragworm, gut hooked unfortunately and faffed and about too much unhooking it to put it back which was a shame, will be eaten in honour🎣

Really good. Just wish it was on my drive so I could get jobs done. Only really see it when we’re going out fishing  and it needs a bit of tlc 

Just realised I haven’t put any reports up lately 
5/5 we had our first comp of the year, a short notice one in a break in the weather so only 3 boats turned up. We all started on a local bank looking for a bass but only 2 were caught on the same boat, not ours unfortunately. We all moved off to try for something different buffing ding fish insize was proving difficult. Loads of dogs, straps and thornbacks. We seem to have loads of small thornies in the bay up to around 7lb but we have a minimum size of 8lb and every year it seems the average size is dropping. We then pushed another 6 miles or so down channel looking for something different. Dogs were a pest again but my uncle had a hound and I found a spotted ray for our year long species hunt. A couple more moves then back on the beach but only 2 fish weighed in, none for us. Match was won with a doggie and a hound took second. 
 
25/5
Good weather on Saturday so out again. Stopped for a bass at the start and I managed one of 3-13 in amongst the rays, straps and dogs. Then a move around 10 miles down channel but this was dog city. After an hour or so of relentless dogging e moved back up to a coral bank looking for a hound. More of the same though we did find a couple of hounds and I had a tiny bull huss for our species hunt

First club away day of the year down at West Bay. 3 boats towed down but 1 had engine issues so never made it out. We spent the most part wrecking but it was hard work with a smalll tide and strong northerly wind pushing us across the tide rather than with it. I think this put the fish off as the lures weren’t working naturally ( that’s my excuse anyway). We managed 3 pollack on the wreck with the biggest going 9-11.
Back inshore for the last couple of hours but again the drift was all wrong and very slow fishing. We only found a wrasse and missed a couple of bites. Only mackerel we had was on the way out when we came across a huge flock of gulls on the water. They weren’t diving but picking up what looked like small sand eels off the surface. The mackerel under neath them were mainly small. 
Back on the slip and a guest on our boat took top spot wit( his pollack and second with his wrasse which we had kept alive and released after weighing. I took third with a pollack so not to bad after all 

Just a quick report as the fishing wasn't great - Weymouth boat league comp number 3. 
We went to our usual mark and i got off to a good start - but it dropped off once the tide slackened. 
Loads of bloom in the water made the fishing really hard - I managed 5 dogfish, 4 bream, and an Eel. 
Tim had 4x bream, 4x doggies, a Red gurnard, a Cuckoo Wrasse, a mackerel and an eel.
Mid afternoon we moved spots - coming closer in to search out Wrasse, Pout and pollock on the reefs/wrecks inshore to up our tally
But only Tim managed to find one Ballan wrasse
Neither of us placed anywhere near the top.  
 
the last bream i had was a feisty one of +2lb with some awesome colours - i had already kept an earlier one for tea so he went back to help the stocks!

 
 
Classic bit of Bream juggling......

 
lovely day afloat despite the disappointing result - 
 
 

Having spent the last weekends doing boat and trailer jobs, we made our first 2024 trip into the Solent.  Aiming to launch from Elmore I noticed the height restricting barrier in time and reversed back onto the road and onto GAFIRS.
Weather was damp, it was a Bank Holiday after all but the wind was light and the fish came out to play with hounds and rays to 12lb all on hardback crab.  Only saw one other boat fishing and a pleasant lack of yachties 
 

After the blank on Sunday I was focused and ready to go. Ling being caught, water clear-ish and hopeful as weather forecast was good. 
Nasty chop and a good breeze greeted us outside the piers but first drop over hard ground and two of us are in, both small keeper codling that were returned, mine after a quick picture for the species competition. Yes, it took until the 5th month of the year to catch a Cod UP HERE!!! Anyhoo I kept on with a flying collar rig as I needed a pollock and coalie too but just codling. Change to baited yellow/green muppets for a while just interested the small bait thieves. I noticed gulls wheeling and gannets diving in a couple of places, a certain sign of sandeel at this time of year, and eventually changed to a shrimp rig with a small 32gm on the point and had to cast downwind to get it down deep enough and eventually got a double hook up of lesser sandeel and a few casts later a very spirited coalie. 



Eventually we got to that point, *last hour so what do we do?*
I suggest that we try inshore over sand for flats, my friends had hit dabs but I hadn't had any flatfish at all. Fully blinged up and a half shrimp on the 1/0 hook we started the drift and I soon had a rattle, probably a dab but even leaving the line slack rather than dragging didn't get it to swallow the hook. Bait gone, rebait and back down, repeat, repeat and then I added a mackerel sliver and eventually I pulled gently and got the nod! Dab in the bag!

4 fish towards the species hunt and back home to bask in the sunshine, happy bunny. 
Nothing huge but played for and got some of the fish we were after. 

Amazing day out of Yarmouth, an early start but well worth it. My pb 54cm !! 

Looks like a great day out lads 
well done , fine weather for it too

Looks like a great day out lads 
well done , fine weather for it too

Looks like a great day out lads 
well done , fine weather for it too