GPSguru

Next time, if you are drifting, one crew starts getting the other lines in and the skipper immediately starts chasing down the fish to keep line on the reel. We have all been there, and it is easy with hind sight, but next time guarantee you will ‘chase it down’. 😉

Yes Geoff I entirely agree, however, his protests are often ill conceived and only serve to demonstrate a clear lack of knowledge. 👍😉

Yes, all the gear is legal and was marked with the commercial boat ID numbers. At the moment moving onto the next wreck will just paint a similar picture. I will wait for the commercial fleet maffia to sort it out, because I know that the commercial under 10m line caught boats are very unhappy about it.

Hmmm, I seem to remember that you cried miserably about some humour that could have been construed as homophobic, but was meant as jue de mots, however, here you are being clearly racist against another race, which is completely unacceptable and not welcome here. It was obvious that your vocabulary understanding did not extend to 'jue de mots', however it is clear to see that it also does not extend to 'hypocrisy', and 'double standards'. Perhaps you need to consult the Oxford English Dictionary to acquaint yourself with the full meaning of these words, but I need to warn you that the Oxford English Dictionary does not have pictures, and they don't do a retard version 🙄🤣😇

Today was going to be just be a morning trip as it is spring tides, so we needed to be back on the slipway by 12:30, also I had to do the afternoon school run. The slip we use is pretty good, but on springs there is a 2 hour window when the water is just not deep enough to have a safe passage to the slip off the main channel. Kyle and myself launched at 07:45, and we were undecided as where to go. We had already made a decision to give the 9 -12 mile inshore wrecks a miss due to the amount of netting that is going on at the moment. Once out the navigation channel, we headed for the Orestone in search of Mackerel, as we had heard that there were no too many around at the moment. Our usual mark produced on the first drift, with Kyle hitting a couple of whoppers with hokkai’s. However, he cheats, as he sits in front the panoptix screen and drops the hokkai’s right on their nose! We stayed in that area picking up Mackerel and Scad (full strings sometimes) for most of the morning in the pleasant morning sun. At about 11:00am we decided to make a 7 mile steam to the Parson & Clerk rocks, which was a quick trip as the sea was mirror flat. Here we found a few joey,s and not much else. A quick run to the Galicia wreck (about 2 miles) and I was dismayed to find 7 pot buoys and 2 nets ! Whilst at the Galicia another boat came to fish it, and he told us they had come all the way up from Dartmouth and found 12 out of 14 wrecks netted ! Time was now pressing, so we made our way back to the slipway for 12:30. Total for the day was 48 Mackerel (all keepers) and probably a dozen Scad (they went back). A few of the Mack were monsters and therefore reserved for eating, the rest are in the chest freezer as bait. A nice morning to be out, and we covered 24Nm ……………….. Kyle looking smug, using Panoptix to hit the Mackerel, Net dhan's and pot buoys on an inshore wreck, and there was more behind the wreck !

I dont ! 🤣😇 but it is a play on words 👍

Yes, I know, but I’ll let the local maffia sort it out amongst themselves, believe me, it won't take long 🙄😇😂

Yes they would, but these nets are legal, so it pays to be careful.

I might go out with Kyle for a couple of hours in the morning. I think the inshore wrecks are still netted, so maybe we will try for mackerel or visit some rough ground. wreck netting seriously annoys me, utter greed for the bass ☹️, even the line caught commercials are peed off with it.

Obviously jeu de mots is beyond your comprehension ............... think about it 🙄

How do you know you’re at a gay picnic? The hotdogs taste like shit.

🤣🤣🤣 Unfortunately, Andy, I won't be available.

I have an LVS32 and GLS10. For a long time we ran the transducer in forward scan mode, which was great for finding and drifting wrecks, but now I have it set in down scan mode and that is generally a much better option. We have used it in 300ft, but the spec for this transducer is 200ft. Here, 200ft is fine as that is about the max depth that we get in Lyme bay. Mostly we are fishing in 100 - 150ft.

It is a strange one, but that is often the way with juvenile fish. To me the markings are way more spotted than blond, but yes, the spots going to the edge of the wings is a significant fact. However, over the years I have caught many blonds, but never one marked like yours. 🤷‍♂️

Using panoptix we can see the lures and the fish taking the lures. It gets really addictive !

Well yes I agree, however one Plaice looks just like the other 24 plaice……. brown flat things with orange spots ! 🤣

A really nice day, so a decision was made to go to the Skerries after a few Plaice. Crew for the day was Kyle, and it is one of his favourite fishing marks. It also means he can take the helm whilst I get the traces ready and sort out the bait etc. Launched at 7:45am on to flat sea, and arrived at the Skerries banks at 08:30, a lovely flat sea all the way for the 20 mile steam. The wind was forecast was light F2/3 SE, and we were on an ebbing tide with slack water on the skerries at 10:37am, however, it is rare that you get no current on the banks even at slack water. Also flat calm conditions on the banks are an extreme rarity, as the banks are turbulent by nature, with the outside edge of the bank rising from 150ft to 30ft. Today was no exception with the dominant waves coming from the NE, the outside edge of the banks was very turbulent indeed, however, the RIB loves those sort of condition. The drift was diagonally across the banks and we started the first drift on the inner edge, drifting the outer edge. The average drift speed was 1.2kts, occasionally going up to 1.7kts. This is always a good drift to find the fish. Almost straight away we were into Mackerel and Gurnard, but then the Plaice soon followed. We found the Plaice in the shallowest parts of the Banks, right in the middle in less than 30ft. I was first in, but Kyle soon followed, and we had steady sport for the rest of the trip with Plaice, Mackerel, Grey Gurnard, Tub gurnard, and Streaky Gurnard. None of the grunters were of any size, with the biggest going about ½ to 3/4lb. I kept @Andy135 amused with text messages 🤣, and he was also following us on marine traffic. All too soon, at 1:30 it was time to return, as I needed to collect my wife from the hospital. The trip back was a wind over tide sea, but still comfortable at 24kts. Interestingly, a small pod of Dolphins wanted to play and stayed with us for 6 miles. I will sort out some video later. We have found that the dolphins will often latch onto one boat and stay with that boat. Closer to home, the sea was a lot choppier, with probably 0.5 – 0.7m every 1 -2 secs, however, maintaining 24kts was still comfortable. We passed a Warrior 175 that was down to displacement speed and rolling around quite a lot. Whilst I was strapping the boat down in the slipway carpark the guy from the warrior came over to speak to me, he couldn’t believe how we could maintain that speed without slamming !, I had to give him a quick lesson on hull design. He asked what we had caught, and when I opened the Igloo box, his eyes very nearly popped out of his head !, but he admitted that he wouldn’t have had the balls to go that far, I said ffs it is only 40 -45 mins So, the tally for the day was 11 keeper Plaice, with 14 returned to grow bigger, 39 Mackerel, and I lost count on the Gurnards. A total trip distance of 48Nm. Last night was mostly spent filleting ! This was the average stamp of the Plaice, not huge, but good eating size, and good sport on light tackle Here is a quick vid of the Dolphins from my phone, probably needs an edit, but I have more on the Gopro which takes time to edit

Well, if the weather and sea stay as forecast, then Kyle and myself will be fishing on the Skerries tomorrow. At the moment, time is a premium, so we probably won't be able to stay as long as we would like to.

Not many skippers with any sense are going out in a 35kt wind ! better luck on your next booking Steve. 👍

Did you fillet that with a knife or did you use a chainsaw ? 😲

By any standard, that is a stonking Bass. I wonder if you will be like me and have a long, long wait for a double. I have caught loads up to 9lb 14oz, but the double eludes me. I agree that is a juvenile spotted ray, blond markings are more random and less pronounced. In his defence, I can understand where @Andy135 is coming from, with authority comes responsibility, and often that responsibility cannot be shirked.

You fish them upside down and the hooks go on the slider for maximum movement. I cant be doing with fast jigs, way too much like hard work !

I have got a couple of these fast jigs on my desk, sent to me as samples. I guess it was lost in translation, but probably a good jig for @JonC

I never use much below 80g, usually 120 - 150g, and 200 -250 on the offshore wrecks. My goto jig is 'The Boss' from Catch fishing (NZ Company) in Ballistic Blue, these are available from Terry at Jigabite. TBF, this jig usually out fishes all the others in my armoury, especially for Bass and Pollock.

What jig did you try ?