suzook12

6/10, but 5 of those points are for bravery. Geoff.

Did you know the Norwegians and Swedes have put bar codes on the side of their naval ships? 
 
it’s so they can ScanDaNavyIn 🫣

Apart from a snatched couple of hours out 6/8 weeks ago, I hadn't took the boat through the locks in what felt like 6 months or more
Made a few phone calls, fulfilled a few promises and 5 of us boarded at 7am this morning, ready for the 7.30 outbound lock
Forecast had changed overnight from next to no winds all day, to gusts of up to 20 odd mph North Easterlies until 10 ish
On an ebbing tide in the Bristol Channel this is doable, so wasn't particularly worried as low water coincided with the winds dropping and a 3-4mph wind against a floodiing tide wouldn't present much of an issue (even on a small tide of around 10m)
Plan was to go straight out to a large sand bank a mile or so out of the locks and fish the remaining ebb until low water which was  around 11, the gusty winds would have been directly with the tide and should have been comfortable enough. It wasn't
Got somewhere near the mark and it was clear that mother nature was menopausal and was being a bit of a twat
Plan B implemented and we headed East for calmer waters just off Sully Island and after dragging anchor (very slowly) for half an hour or so, pulled it back in to find a rock the size of an odd shaped basket ball wedged between the flukes and the stem (?) so no surprised it didn't hold
We did pick up a few strap congers and ray or 2 here
Plan C next, so we moved into Sully Bay hoping for some bigger Blondes and while we didn't boat any monsters, we had a steady stream over the gunwales through slack low until mid dayish, just the one small dog, a dozen or more eels to 10-12lb, 5/6 Blondes to low single figures, a couple of Thornies of around the same stamp, a Smoothy of 7/8lb and a small whiting
This was my mates fathers first fish in 25 plus yrs, also his first boat trip in 25 yrs as well
 
 
And he only chucked up once
Final move of the day was back up to Cardiff to have a go tight in to the Foreshore looking for a lost Codling or 2
They may have been lost, but we didn't find them
A bit more of the same, fish wise up here, but the wind was slewing us back and forth tangling lines etc, so we pulled the pick and made the 5 min steam into the 2.15pm inbound lock and was back on the mooring by 2.45
Would have been quicker, but I drop the oldies off (and everyone else) at the fuel pontoon with the all the gear, so it isn't so far to carry (pull the trolley) to the van
Not a red letter day and only the one photo, but still enjoyable none the less
 
 
 
 
 

Late to the party I am.... 
Great days fishing aboard odyssey, making the most of poor conditions. 
Leos PB was a cracking 5lb Ballan Wrasse.. easily fish if the day! 
 

 

What was noticeable was that jigs out fished “normal” feathers by a wide margin….
Its certainly got me thinking about SPJ and running dedicated SPJ trips next year….

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 👍.

a guy walks into a bar one day and he can’t believe his eyes. There, in the corner, there’s this one-foot-tall man, in a little tuxedo, playing a tiny grand piano.
So the guy asks the bartender, “Where’d he come from?”
And the bartender’s, like, “There’s a genie in the corner of the bar who grants wishes.”
So the guy runs into the corner of the bar and, sure enough, there’s this genie. And the genie’s, like, “Your wish is my command.” So the guy’s, like, “O.K., I wish for lots of cash. Suddenly there is big puff of smoke and the bar is full of cats.
 
The guy goes and complains to the bartender and says what’s wrong with the genie. The bartender replies, he’s a bit hard of hearing, I didn’t wish for a 12inch pianist….
 

we get plagued with 30lb cod this time of year. They make a nice shark bait
 

Took my twin son from Cheltenham out Sunday for his first trip in over a year. He’s had a tough time this summer with a medical issue but he’s making a great recovery and he’s still working on it. With that in mind I decided a trip out to the last place I went on the reefs by the Ore Stone would be best.
we were out early and shot over at full tilt and were there and fishing in no time. Feathers and jigs deployed we were soon into mackerel and scad. The mackerel were nice and chunky and we loaded up the cool box with them and a load of the scad for bait.

 I decided to drop a rig down with squid jigs on and within ten minutes was into my first of the day, result! We tried drifting all over the reef with varying results and on one drift a cuttlefish came up but by the time we sorted out the net he’d dropped off. I made up for it later by bagging a bigger one 👌


with the tides being so small we had to wait ages for some run to anchor in and even then it was pitiful. We persevered and dropped some big baits down in exactly the same spot where I’d done well two weeks ago but the bites were mainly from doggies ripping off the baits. I did manage a small huss and Tom hooked into a much bigger fish, only to lose it 3/4 of the way up….😕 I reeled up a massive spider which Tom wanted to keep but the reality of dealing with it later on would have been too much so we gave it a squid bait and sent him back 😅

when we packed up I used the advice given about the Alderney ring retrieval with the buoy way up front and it worked a treat, no dramas at all and confidence restored 😊
Tom had an absolute blast, a real boost for him although I could tell he was cream crackered bless him. Got home safely and dealt with all the fish in good time, couple of beers, shower and bed! Great day out, no big fish this time but we weren’t bothered 😊

37cd13e4-7987-4518-9f8d-36720ce3b922.mp4

Short weather window yesterday so managed to get a trip in. 
 
Nice conditions on the way out and to start…. Then the rain came and stayed…. Visibility down to 0.5-1NM meant was hard to spot tuna so the guys focused on sharks. 
 
15 to the boat to just under 100lb. Not bad for the 2 of them. 
 
I did some fishing on the bottom, loads of whiting and spurs…. There was a low point to the day…. 4 dogfish on baited feathers at the same time…. Not much fun to drag up from 350ft of water 🤣🤣🤣🤣
long ride home, didn’t see land until I was half mile from the entrance to the haven, crew were relieved to see land as I think they were starting to worry to I was going in the wrong direction….
Hopefully back at on the weekend and maybe early next week (Monday looks mint for a tuna trip!) 
 
 

heard reports of squid showing up so thought we would do a dawn raid.....
5am alarm and down on Tims boat for 5.30 - His new spot lights were great for lighting up his foredeck and rails - not so good for spotting pot bouys (😜)  - so we used the plotter to take a wide berth out of the harbour - no issues and we were on the mark before first light  - glowing squid jigs went down and after an hour we only managed the one - still target acquired - guessing the water is still very dirty from the storms earlier in the week.
off out to anchor up and due to the massive tides and strong SSW wind we opted for an inshore mark - 3Nm off on mixed ground known to show up allsorts. we weren't disappointed!
between us we had a steady stream of fish all day.... 
Mackerel, Loads of red gurnards, loads of black bream, conger, dogfish, smoothounds, Scad, Tope, 

I do love a red gurnard!

Feisty tope was a surprise!
brought home one squid and 2x black bream for the table, plus a couple of mackerel for the bait freezer. 
a long but cracking day - and still in shorts in Oct!
 

Took the opportunity to go out yesterday as there was a small weather window which couldn’t be ignored. Beautiful calm morning and with fresh anti fouling on the hull it was hammer down time to get over to the Ore Stone for a jigging session. 21kts achieved, got there nice and quick so thought I’d try ‘mackerel corner’ at Hope’s Nose first. 3 drifts, a suicidal tiny pollack and 2 joey macks later I headed off to Tucker Rock reef and was in straightaway with some nice sized fat mackerel 👌
I continued to do repeat drifts along the edge of the reef and bagged up with about 15kg of mackerel and scad with a solitary sardine in the mix. I really wanted a red gurnard for my species hunt group as I already had tubs and greys so fished hard on the bottom every drift and was overjoyed to get one after about an hour of trying 😅
I really wanted to anchor up on the northward flow at the back of the reef and foolishly decided to go for it knowing that the wind was going to get up a bit. Got some nice fresh baits down on 12lb class gear, 3 oz leads and away we go, dogfish🤣
It got rough very quickly and the yachties were now out in force using me as a bloody target🤷‍♂️ carried on and got a ratchet whizzing bite which gave me a hell of a fight. Took about ten minutes to get it up and wasn’t surprised to see a 20lb plus conger which I had to gaff as I was struggling to stand up let alone net the bugger 🤣
Another fresh bait sent down saw a lovely Huss of around 12lb come up, chuffed with that. Next bait saw a really gentle bite so I left it a couple of minutes then pulled into it only to get another epic battle which saw a 24lb conger come up (I weighed it best I could in the by now awful conditions).
This is where my day went downhill. I could not for the life of me use the Alderney ring technique to retrieve my anchor…. every time I tried I lost sight of the rope, couldn’t keep direction in the snotty sea and completely lost confidence in what I was doing. I even went over the bloody thing once so engine off and tilt up….. no choice but to pull by hand which was like riding a bucking bronco and I very nearly decided to cut and run. The nose of my boat nearly went under at one point and I seriously questioned my sanity. Anyway, once it finally broke free I managed to get it up and stowed it through the front hatch. I made for quieter waters and then sorted it all out.
Got back to the mooring with a sense of relief and was treated to the spectacle of about 10 mullet messing around under my tender alongside the boat in a foot or so of water and they were pretty big, 3 or 4 lbs apiece 👌
So for the first trip out on my own in 18 months it was probably the best trip I’ve had since I started boat fishing which was only tainted by the anchor incident. I’m here to tell the tale and that’s all that matters, lesson learnt 👍
8 species, mackerel, scad, sardine, pollack, red gurnard, dogfish, conger and Huss….. I very nearly landed a huge spider crab but he let go at the last minute 🤣

Sorry guys thought I put this one up had a busy few weeks since this trip.
we did 2 full days and half day 
day one we headed out 
struggled a bit for mackerel but had some in most places … 
didn’t see signs of life no birds dolphins which was off putting but ultimately needed to start a drift somewhere so picked a spot and nothingness for a few hours and I just felt like we needed to move.
So in comes the rods headed southwest and soon enough started seeing
birds yes 
dolphins yes
then washing machines of BFT which was incredible and very heart pounding.
even amongst them all we didn’t fool one .not that we were trying to ;
but lots of excitement wen had an amazing forecast after a long day we headed in for food and sleep.
Pic below tunas as they wer going thru under boat during frenzy 

 
day two was a horrible easterly that had randomly come through the night and was hanging on so we went in the harbour and tossed the lures around . 
 
we had a couple bass 
actually I had this bass pictured on day 1 on a live joey at the end of the day . But still.

 
so after some lunch we jumped back on the boat and pushed out for the afternoon with no joy . 
 

 
obscene amounts of these crest jelly fish I mean there was more of them than there was water 

 
day 3 half day to make it happen.
started about 1mile off . The worst fog Iv ever experienced. Clarity about 15m

 
Then a weird weird encounter of a pup blue shark at only 1.3mile off in about 100ft of water .

 
an achievement for the location but not what we were after .
 
be down again soon as come on weather !

Update on todays pollacking trip with the local fella.
we struggled we had a lovely forecast I think I caught 3 pollack small /and he had couple whiting and pouting. I really wanted to give him a good days sport. But it’s not always as you want it. I did stop on the exact same tracks that I had those bass yesterday too but  no joy.
Check this pic though we stopped and a ball of bait went through and Tuna sitting right under the ball on the sounder.
 
we had tuna jumping sporadically in the distance and close to the boat throughout the day which was nice to show Ian, some really small ones too .
nice day and company hope I can take him again soon

Last couple days left of the holiday 
using up all my brownie points 
forecast today was 
gusting 17mph dropping all day so I was on the boat at daylight.
but I held back a bit threw a lure around in harbour just to let the wind die a little.
out and steaming by 7.45am about 4 miles on some mixed open ground I was dropping blue and white shad to the bottom winding up a few turns and just put the rod in the holder it and wait for it to fold over.
an incredible stamp of bass 6 fish all chunky well fed . Best went 7.something
to be fair the fights were strange almost nothing like. I’m not sure what that was about.
anyway I didn’t want to take all these fish well one you only allowed 2.
And two I didn’t want the agrovation of storing them whilst on holiday.
so I was struggling to revive some of these fish but did keep two that didn’t go. And managed to pop the lure out in the net with the others .
I opened up the stomach to find aload of crabs in there .
 
out again tomorrow incredible forecast I’m taking a local out who used to take me out when I was young. He’s 92 I hope can put him on the fish he loves pollacking. Not the biggest tides but we will see what the days brings
 





 

 

Thought I’d better test the electrics after fitting a lithium battery to the boat to run the electric motor. Ended up forgetting the remote for the minn kota so didn’t get to test that offshore. 
 
The dcdc charger worked fine from the starter battery but the interference on the new plotter sonar was very bad for some reason. 
 
Humpbacks, dolphins and yellowfin tuna were smashing the surface. Several boats were getting into the tuna, which I’ll leave to the young and foolish!!!!!!
My son decided to join me been as it was just a quick run. We had 6 fish for 6 drops using one small soft plastic. Lost one fish to a little mako. 



 

 


 

 

Its more 'how' than 'where', also the cuttle window is relatively small compared to squid that hang around right into January. Fortunately, I live in cuttle central, and the Brixham commercials refer to the season as 'black gold'. A couple of years ago one of the local smaller trawlers broke the landing record for cuttle after just a mornings fishing, his landing fetched £250k at the Brixham fish market, not bad for a mornings work !
Almost 100% of the UK cuttle goes to Spain, Portugal, Italy, and France.
They make a superb bait, and many charter skippers will tell you that cuttle will outfish any other bait for Cod, Conger, Bass, and Rays, but anglers don't use them that much as they retail between £8 -£10 per kilo, especially for XL,and XXL cuttle. Most of what I caught would be XXL.
If you know of a mark where you can catch squid, that also has a soft sand or mud bottom, then it will most likely produce cuttle.
Whereas you tend to catch squid in the first third of the water column off the bottom, for cuttle your jigs need to be just a few inches off the bottom. Rigging a paternoster and flicking it a little way from the boat is the easiest method, but a flying collar (wrecking boom) with a short trace works just as well as long as to work the jig as you would with feathers (but slower). They are aggressive gits, so any jig will do.
Once you feel the rod 'load up' then give it some low tension line (not slack line) for a few seconds, then a steady slow reel to the surface. Often they let go before the surface, but you need to have the net ready as many will 'throw' the jig at the surface, or pull away quickly to break off their grabbing tentacle. TBH, the landing rate is poor, about 1 in 5 hits will get to the boat. Yesterday I was getting bites within a few minutes of hitting the bottom.
Cuttle are masters of cammo, and tend to lay in hollows on the bottom ready to attack any prey, they will quite happily eat stuff the size of a joey.
Once in the net, then dump it straight into a bucket, where it will blow out a ton of ink. If you keep your deck wet, any ink will clean up ok. The white gel coat (inside the boat) needs to be regularly wiped down with a sponge. When the dirty bastids grunt the ink, it often goes every feck'in where, so keep the bucket covered with a cloth that can be binned (it will be black !). Also, wear sunglasses, as the gits will shoot water and ink at your face, and it rarely misses.
Yesterday I had 4 buckets of cuttle, as you can only fill them 3 parts full, due to the volume of ink.
 

Generally speaking, any field will hold cattle. Be aware that the farmers don't tend to like it when you catch them though.

Sunday was a cracker of a day so an early start for the skerries, stopping on the way for fresh Mack.
We spent an hour on the Mack, and whilst kyle and the wife were busy with the feathers, I got the squid jigs out and found a couple of cuttle and 3 fresh squid.
Then a decent run to the skerries ( stopping to play with the Dolphins) where we drifted for plaice and soon bagged up, but only retained 6 decent keepers. Once the tide changed and started to pick up I dropped the pin and down went the big Ray baits.
We were soon into the Blonds and boated  11 with the biggest at 13lb. Also we had 2 dogs and a decent Grey that went almost 3lb. All too soon it was time to pull the anchor and head back. There was a shoal of BFT busting a bait ball just off the banks.

 
Monday was to be a bait gathering session, just the wife and I, as we had the school run in the afternoon.
The wife was on tinsel duty, and I set up a squid jig pat to target the cuttle. We were pretty successful with 20+ Mack and 17 cuttle. The biggest cuttle went almost 5lb and was taking line ! Cuttle are annoying as you only land about 1 in 5, as they grab and let go the jigs.
Also in the mix on the tinsels were Scad (lost count) and small tubs.
@thejollysinker is going to be fuming, as he fishes right over the cuttle, but unless you actively target them, you would never know they are there.

 

 
Cuttle are dirty bastids, so cleaning the boat was a jet wash job, but keeping the deck wet helps a lot. They probably emit 5 times more ink than squid. All in the freezer now as cuttle will out fish all other baits in the winter. The quantity and quality of the cuttle would cost about £250 -£300 to buy as frozen bait, so well pleased.
2 days and 120nm, tired but happy.