Josh

managed 2 days this week, Tuesday weather looked good, I still havnt grasped the idea of letting the sea a few days to settle down, couldn't get out of the Haven but managed to fish the entrance, where we found plenty of pollack seemingly feeding midwater on herring, it was a fish a chuck, though my daughter was getting more than the lions share, bloody pheromones! 1🤣
as the sea state worsened we headed inwards to shelter only to find dog city.
Thursday morning was looking good in the sheltered waters if the Haven, I did try to venture to where we found the pollack in abundance Tuesday but the swells were huge for my little boat so backed up to more sheltered waters. Tried several areas in search of rays but was again plagued by dogfish until last knockings I managed a golden grey mullet on size 16 sabikis tipped with bits of ragworm. 
weather horrendous for sometime but looking forward to getting out again soon, enjoying the learning curve that i0s the Pembrokeshire coast and beyond 🙂
 

A decent weather window today, so I made the effort to go out, as due to the weather the boat hasn't moved for 3 months.
A solo trip and launched at 07:00 into a very flat sea. First stop was a bunch of 3  wrecks off berry head which in the past were always netted, but in view of the pollock ban, I assumed correctly that the nets would be gone. Well, I was right, but there are a significant amount of crab pots on the wrecks. A couple of drifts on each produced nothing, so I headed inshore to the Orestone.
several drifts on the Orestone produced a few Mackerel and one Herring. As I brought it up I couldn't decide between a large sardine or small herring, but with the dorsal fin well past the half way mark, it had the be a herring.
Having had a good shakedown the boat is running well, and I came back in at lunchtime.
So 27nm and rewarded with a few bait fish, so not too bad for mid April.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Weather looked good all weekend - but my fishing buddy was in Benidorm until Saturday night - so plans were made for Sunday - however the wind was freshening and turning more easterly - so not ideal. 
After a failed attempt to get mackerel in Portlands entrance we opted to seek shelter under White Nothe - East of the Bay. New ground for us - but worth a go!
It was slow - i only managed 4 doggies, Tim managed doggies, Smoothounds, Bream and a thornie, his son had dogs and a blonde ray. wind was fresh all day - but the sun was out and we were afloat - so all good!
 

 

 

 
 

Oh Danny Vokins assumably u mean.
well sounds like they’ll be a next time great stuff 

They'll be back again, one most likely again later this year and both next year again. Both have travelled pretty well and caught hundreds of sharks in UK waters. I believe Danny has had over 60 threshers from his boat now and 200+ porbeagles. We used to work and fish together back in the UK, just felt bad not being able to get them a mako to the boat.

Forecast wasn't great - but it was the 1st Boat comp of the league with Weymouth Angling society. 
all week it was discussed do we go ahead or not, as the forecast kept changing - we decided to give it a go as Portland can offer shelter from the wind if SW as forecast. 
 
Its a points based competition by species - you get 30 points for the 1st of a species and then 15, 15 and 40 to a total of 100 points for 4 fish of the same species. 
its then done on most fish, most points, most species and there's also a nominated species on the day (thornback ray) - largest wins. 
boats leave the harbour at 8am and fishing commenced at 8.30, fishing to stop at 3pm and back tot he club for 4pm. 
 
it was a very lumpy day - with 18-20mph winds form the south in the morning moving to SW - but we persevered - on our 5 mile mark we had a huge amount of Bream - couldn't get past them - even taking the big fish baits on the size 10 hooks- we also had dogs, pout, rays, whiting, eels, Scad, wrasse
we struggled to get 4 pout, eels, even dogs - at one point i was hoping for a doggie and getting frustrated by all the bream. 
we moved closer inshore onto the mud in the hope of bigger thornies and more pout - and did manage a few more fish. 
I ended on 240 and something - Tim ended on 491 and came 2nd in the points, but won the most species with 9. 
My 18" Ray and Tims 19" ray were dwarfed by the winner!
so Tim won £40 something quid - and we all had a good day afloat. 
im feeling to today though! 
i didnt get any points for my Scallop - but it was tasty!
 



not many pics as too busy holding on and trying to stay upright!

Just had some old sharking friends stay with me from the UK targeting mako's. Just before their arrival I was feeling confident of ticking the species off their list, with mako just about everywhere from inshore reefs to offshore, even the day they arrived a 264kg mako was landed. However the weather turned to pretty much to 2m swell on 1.5-2m seas for the entire period they were here, not to mention a couple of boats I had lined up falling through due to a split fuel tank on our first day and other issues.

So it was down to my 15ft boat to get us offshore each day. Seals were a menace soon finding our burley trails each day, then thieving us out of baits. We had mako's just 5m from the boat very reluctant to take baits and those that did simply grabbed and dropped baits, even live bonito's weren't enough to keep their interest. Whalers sharks on the other hand weren't so fussy and took baits without issue, however it wasn't those we were targeting. Plenty of hammerheads also checked out the baits but typical to hammerheads, none would take a bait with wire. A thresher smashed a bait on the surface but only stayed connected for about 30 seconds before pulling the hook. 
 
There was a fair amount of tackle failure, with 14/o hooks straightening and specially bought from the USA mako wire traces getting bitten through. I think a serious tackle review will need to be considered before heading out again. One day we had 9 runs to just one shark staying connected (which happened to be the only bait I rigged).

We worked hard at it but just didn't manage the target, one mako even decided to jump cartwheels in front of the boat just to tease us!!! We flogged awful conditions, I even got seasick and took waves both over the bow and stern of the boat but it just wasn't to be. However one of the guests managed to top up 47 species and some 250lb+ stingrays the local bearded greenpeace warriors wanted to string us up for. 

Weather is still terrible.

Cheers Josh! 

Nice job @Saintly Fish being out there is 90% of it 🙏

The young lad who fishes with me much of the time jumped ship to fish with my daughter. Ive tried numerous was to post the short video on here without luck, so given up and just grabbed a few screen shots. Its hard to tell from these though its size, which they estimated to be around the 60-70kg which is about average on them. They are considered a pest, as like many of the ray family, put up very little action in a fight. They were chasing hounds which we eat here and managed a few of these smaller ones, however the target was to get one over 25kg.

Out searching for marlin tomorrow if the weather allows.
 


 

 

 

It was cold, it was a lovely sunny calm day, I got a new speed record of 25.4kts. I caught 3 dogs and a small huss. The end. 
 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally a very short window in the weather allowed a few hours out on boxing day.
Had the in laws down for xmas and managed to get a pass for boxing day. Didn't get up early doors as didn't want to curtail any festivities - so it was down the boat for 11am armed with turkey sandwiches and a flask of coffee
Phil had a new rod and reel for his birthday back in Sept that he still hadn't christened so that was the plan - get phil a fish - any fish - he now has a very nice 8-12lb Ugly stick GX2 paired with a Penn Rival 15LW. for the inshore lighter stuff (his 30lb Penn Squadron is like a broomstick)
Plan was to drift Portlands entrances and inshore reefs with baited feathers and chuck some squid jigs over in case they were still about. 
target mackerel, Gurnards, Pollock, whiting
Rigged up Phils new rod with brand new feathers - for the best possible luck. 

 
Headed out into what was pretty much flat calm. 
was treated to flat seas and fantastic cloud patterns


but sadly not many fish and no squid. Even tried baited feathers to no avail.
Phil did manage 2 mackerel and therefore christened the rod. so that part was a sucess

 
Come 3.30pm we were losing light and headed back to the harbour - not the best fishing, but we were just glad to be out, and good to give the boat a good run
got to the pub just before dark

 
not sure when the next weather window will be - Easter maybe........

A short weather window on a big tide, so it had to be worth a go.
Launched in the dark at 07:00 with brother in law as crew. Went out to 4 different wrecks between 10 and 15 miles out and there was nobody at home, not even a Pout !
However, we did mange to lose 6 sets of gear between us, I lost 3 slow jigs, and James lost 3 sets of running booms. The sea was a tad lumpy past 10 miles, but still doable.
As we had to be back on the slip for 12:30 to catch the tide, I decided to head inshore for the last hour, at our usual bait mark near the Orestone.
On the way back in I noticed 5 boats fishing an inshore wreck (the coal boat) at 5 miles out, which is unusual, so I guessed either a) all the other wrecks were netted, or b) the fish were showing inshore.
Once on the inside of the Orestone we decided on Maccy rigs, looking for decent Mack or Whiting. The sounder was full of activity, mostly on the bottom, so we dropped the rigs. Straight away I was into a fish that was definitely not a Mack or a whiting, it was, however, a 50cm Bass. This is pretty much the way it continued for the next hour with Bass, Pollock, and Channel Mackerel. I tried small slow jigs, and also 115mm Redgills, but the only thing that would catch was the 3 string tinsel Hokkai's. I assume the Mack, Bass, and Pollock were chasing some sort of white bait, but using the livescope I couldn't identify what they were chasing.
We ended up with 12 Bass from 48 - 52cm (we kept 4), 9 Pollock of about 3 - 5 lb, and I lost count of the Mackerel, but some were very large.
After this episode I have started tying my own feathers (Tinsels) as the 'ready mades' are unreliable, we lost a good half a dozen decent fish to bad dropper knots, and snood breakage.
Sorry, but no pics this time. My GoPro has bitten the dust (they are notoriously unreliable, but give good footage), and I will replace it with a DJI Osmo Action 4, but they are like rocking horse poo at the moment, so I invested in a cheaper Wolfang GA460, and need a couple of sessions to get the hang of how to operate it efficiently. I got some footage, but it was just us going uptide on a wreck for another drift.
So, almost 45Nm, but it came good in the end. The sea was flat inshore so I fished until the last minutes then gave it beans to get back (40kts).
I am hoping to get out over the Christmas, weather permitting, and make a trip the the Skerries for some winter Turbot as there are less Plaice around to steal the baits.
Hope you all have a good Christmas.
 
 
 
 

Nothing better than getting out when it’s long over due well done 

Well, until today I haven’t been out at sea since the middle of August. The weather (mainly) and work (occasionally) had conspired to keep me landlocked with no chance of pestering, let alone catching, any fish.
At long last everything went to plan and I got out of Littlehampton on this mornings flooding tide.
By 8.45am I was four miles off in 16m of water with the pick down on some mixed ground.
Unfortunately no specimen fish took a liking to my lovely squid and lug baits though I did manage 15 nice (over 1.5lb) whiting a 4lb pollack and some straps. 
Most importantly the boat,engine and trailer all worked perfectly and I was able to enjoy a much needed day at sea.
Hopefully we will get a spell of settled weather soon so I can get out and play again.
 

Thanks mate, we still got a few little bits and pieces to add. Only got her out once so far but well impressed she will do well down in Cornwall next Autumn 

Wow 🤩 lovely setup

There was 4 of us onboard, will do close to 40 knots wot i reckon
 

Just a couple of piccys, will take some more next time we’re out. The helm one was taken at 27+ knots at 3600 revs. Well impressed so far but will take a few trips to get her how we want her. 

Most of Bristol Channel is now suffering from cod fever and the quest to find a unicorn but I had other plans…
Lovely little weather window yesterday so had to make the most of it. Plan was to try inshore for tuna and head out to reefs to see if any life about.
Sadly no tuna showing but the reefs were alive with fish. Mainly polllack in 4-5lb class with some bigger, best going just under double figures. Also a few coalfish to 5lb as well. 
 
Managed, scad, mackerel, Ballan and cuckcoo wrasse, pollack, coalfish and pouting for the day 🙂 great fun on light gear 🙂 
Now looking to get out on Saturday 🤔

@Josh the weather has put the kibosh on several planned big trips this year... strange one, it was reliably unreliable 😖

Sadly the weather window was shorter than planned…. It flattened off at lunchtime but it was bit of a washing machine when we first headed out. 
 
Fair dos they soldiered on and had some good sport 🙂 Final count was: Scad, dogs, poor cod, pout, coalfish, pollack and wrasse. So not too shabby given the circumstances and time of year. I managed to enjoy a lovely bit of pollack for tea last night and lot more in the freezer 🙂 
Was great to have the guys out, sadly not quite what we had planned but maybe next time can find something with big teeth for the guys 😁
2024 diary is open….. 
 

Be some nice fillets there @Andy135
well done
shame about not getting offshore but salvaged a decent session…
poxy-weather 🙄

So perhaps the title is a bit click-baity, but what was supposed to be a two day sharking trip on Odyssey, with @Odyssey to celebrate @Saintly Fish's birthday got blown out and turned into a Dad's & Lads reefing session, with Neil and I keen to get some proper use out of our SPJ gear.


We locked out at dawn but as we left the shelter of Milford Haven it became obvious that the conditions hadn't yet improved like they were supposed to... I blame Michael Fish for that 😖.
So plan B was quickly formulated to visit the inshore islands for some drifting for pollack followed by downtiding at anchor to see what was home while the weather settled. The short answer was... not a lot. Some small pollack and poor cod on the drift and at anchor just a solitary dogfish to the skipper (#welljell!) and an inquisitive squid that followed my baited feathers to the surface but didn't commit himself to the bait.
As the conditions eased we motored out to a series of reefs - the plan was to drift for some better pollack. Neil and I were to experiment with our SPJ gear over slack water and we didn't have to wait long for the fish. Lots of hits and lots of table sized pollack over the gunnels in short order. They were hitting the jigs consistently, just off the bottom. Any colour would do, as long as it was about two turns up from the sea floor.

Other species also fell to the jigs. Neil had a scad if I remember correctly, and Leo had a PB which I'll leave to Neil to share the details of 👍.
It didn't take long for the fish box to fill up and we called it a day after one of our crew nearly vomited himself overboard... #somepeoplearejustnotcutoutforboating

So, a great day's fishing snatched from the jaws of defeat. JAWS will have to wait until next season however.
A big thank you to @Odyssey for hosting and skippering 👍.