Scotch_Egg2012

Alternatively there is a slip at the GAFIRS car park in Stokes Bay. It's not a bad slip and adjoining car park is pretty good. Only issue is it is directly open to a SW

Not always, quite often in the last throws of life

If you are motoring around spring time and you see a couple of gulls sat on the surface pecking at something, motor over with the net ready 99% they are pecking a cuttle, I used to get quite a few that way

Bang on. I buy mine direct from a commercial boat, see if you can source it. No 1 Unicorn bait round here

Really wasn't expecting it from that spot a pleasant suprise and put up a good scrap. I feel your pain with the fine weather, they guy who usually comes out on my boat works every other weekend as you can imagine weather is usually pants when he's not working and fine when he is

Ended with 162 mackerel, all nicely vac packed now ready for the Whiting / Conger onslaught this coming winter

The photo doesn't show it but it looked like I'd murdered someone with the amount of blood splatters from the mackies on it. Cleaned out well though

I was fishing a light fluorocarbon paternoster, trotting round in the tide in the vain hope of a Gilthead, didn't realise the stinger was on it as it showed no bite, obviously just sat on the bait at the end of the trot. I picked the rod up to reel in and it just shot off

Was hoping for either a Plaice or Wrecking trip given the forecast last weekend but ended up doing neither as the forecast completely changed. We decided to stay local and fish a couple of spots in the hope of a Triggerfish or Gilthead Bream, neither of which turned up. A few black Bream, congers and wrasse were what kept the rod tips busy on the bottom gear. The outer solent however was alive with mackerel, we feathered up enough to stock our freezers for winter before I swapped over to a sliding float set up to have some fun with the mackerel. The shoals just kept passing around the boat all day. Our final spot which we anchored for Gilthead threw up something a little unexpected on my lure rod in the shape of a 10lb 4oz Stingray, put up a great scrap on the light setup and was the last fish of the day.

Surprisingly you can get a good amount of time in there, it's the currents that hinder you along with the proximity of boats etc just makes it hard to get a bait exactly where you want it and to stay there long enough for a fish to go for it. Lots of accurate casting required

It's a very good spot but not easy to fish

It is indeed, fished from the public slipway as they don't let you fish in the yard

This fish 5lb 11oz came at the head of the pontoon circled in yellow, I had no idea it was that size. The only way I landed that was to lean on it from the moment I set the hook and get down off the end of the slip where there was more room. Once it got there it proper woke up and did its best to get back under the pontoons

That's pretty common, they almost don't realise what's going on for a couple of minutes then seem to wake up, it can work in your favour if fishing a tight swim, get them out of danger at the very beginning

Well done Neil, did you get much of a scrap from it

Seriously though Kingsmill 50/50 makes the best mash, easy to get the right consistency. plain white can be a bugger if you under or over water it

Kingsmill white medium 😂😂

@Andy135 @Saintly Fish let me know when you guys are free and we can organise something, September is a good month round here, if it stays mild October can produce but numbers start tailling off noticably.

Whatever you feel most comfortable with, you can leger for them and try to draw them down with groundbait, in that case a simple running leger will work I stick a float stop about 3 inches up so the fish can only run so far before it picks the weight up. Stick with around a 6 inch snood. I always use fluorocarbon in 4-6lb depending if it's snaggy. I like to fish a popped up crust on the leger and it often results in a slam over bite. The crucial part is groundbait, make up a firm bread mash and mould it round the lead, method feeders work but I have lost a few good fish due to them snagging in weed. Keep the groundbait going in about a satsuma sized ball every 5 mins on top of what you are moulding around the lead. Your aim is to build a visual patch that the mullet will investigate with your crust wafting over the top, they don't usually mess about with a pop up but hit it on the move and wolf it down. Be near your rod. My personal favourite is the float, again keep it very simple. I like the drennan loaded wagglers or puddle chucker (although the puddle chucker are fragile if you hit a pontoon) mainline down to a tiny swivel I use float stops to set my depth, after the swivel 10-12 inches of 4-6lb flouro again depending on structure. You can tackle them in a variety of ways, you can set the float very deep but gently pinch the flake on so it floats on the surface away from the float or pinch the air out and set it as a slow sinking bait to whatever depth you want. Groundbait again is crucial, if on the surface just bits of bread thrown out, if fishing down then a loose mash that creates a nice cloud works well, keep the bait going in with the mash about a walnut size every 20 or so seconds, surface flakes less often depending what else is hammering it (swans, Bass, gulls etc) if any tide and you are fishing around boats quite often drifting the float to a boat and letting the float stay on the Hull whilst the bait wafts underneath quite often results in a take. Set your drag before casting out. Sorry its a bit of an essay, there is much more to it than I am able to write here but this is a good start. Watch how they are hitting your ground bait, I had a video which I can't upload of a shoal I was feeding in port solent, I just threw some bits of a bread roll in and watched, first impression looked like they were nailing the surface flakes but the video shows they were not actually eating them, they were trying to sink them, it wasn't easy to spot but in that situation if I was getting loads of hits on the top with no firm takes I change to a shallow slow sinker, what they do is try and sink the flakes then circle round and mop up the ones sinking down, crafty buggers Anyone wants to do a trip for them give me a shout more than happy to show a few tips and tricks

Mike, do you want to fish on the bottom or up in the water for them?

Firstly apologies for no photos, it helps if you remember to take your phone off charge from the car and bring it on the boat. Anyways on to the report, out with Ray again after the Bass, motored out at 06:45 first target was to try and get some live baits. Headed towards Dean Tail but came across a huge amount of birds working before we got there, spent an hour hitting the macks with plenty for live baits then headed out to the French Bank. Got there a little early as not a lot of tide running, I was starting on the plastics and Ray would try the live baits and we'd see which was working. I dropped a shad down stuck the rod in the holder and was looking to feather some more live baits. Not 30 secs after I'd dropped the feathers and the shad rod slammed over, strange as the shad was just bouncing along and wasn't expecting a hit until the tide increased. A plump Bass of around 3lb soon started the tally. I was continuing to feather and happened onto a good Shoal 9f small mackies, perfect livebaits. Shortly after Ray had his first on the lives. I decided to swap over and use the joeys, what followed was a bit of a Red letter day, final boat tally was 23 Bass ranging from 2-6lb with the biggest going to me. It worked out perfectly as the take zone was very precise, we'd get the Bass hit, fought and landed. I'd then drop straight onto the feathers and hit the mackerel shoaled up on the back of the bank so keeping a constant stream before the drift. Decided halfway through to swap back onto the shads to get some practice in, every drift for the next 2 hrs resulted in a Bass. Very nice as we were the only boat there for a while before a charter turned up. Few more boats showed around lunchtime by which time the Bass had started to go off the feed. End result 23 Bass and more Mackerel than you could shake a stick at which will be perfect for winter baits

Neil, they have a nasty habit of doing that, sometimes helps to scale the flake size down to encourage them to take it in one go. I took 3 mullet in the marina last weekend from my boat with them p*ssing around with the bait, constant fettling with size and presentation got them to take in the end. Don't go too light with the hook size, I use 10's. Lots of people swear by Kamasan B983, I can't stand them and would advise anyone mulleting to steer clear of them. I have had fish bend them out, there was a very lengthy discussion about them in the mullet club, with nearly everyone experiencing a bend out with them and very strangely some people continuing to use them. Andy, Bass are a very very common bycatch on bread, my biggest Bass was a 5.7lber caught on a surface flake in the margins. They are normally a proper pest if you fish with bread down in the water with bread mash going in. Mullet won't compete with them so you end up with Bass after Bass if they move in. I hate the feckers 😁 Bass and Swans public enemy no 1 for mulletting.

2016 the last decent year round here

Was wondering if you managed to get out, I was at the marina for lunch with the family and saw Jersey Girl back in her rack

Normally on bottom baits, I wouldn't write off drifting with shads in the deeper spots. Pete who usually comes out on my boat did quite well a few years ago on the brittle star bank drifting with shads.