GPSguru

Same here ........... For me, it has to be Century for shore and coarse rods ......... Daiwa for boat rods. Although Julian Shambrook (who lives quite close to me) does do some excellent rods (AFAW)

A little old lady is late for church and settles into a pew at the back just as the priest is saying, "And anyone who has recently committed adultery should stand up." Being somewhat hard of hearing, she asks the boy next to her to repeat what the priest just said. "He asked everyone who wants a mint to stand up." The boy replied mischievously. The old lady unsteadily gets to her feet, much to the priest's horror. "At your age?" He exclaims, "You should be ashamed!" The old lady swiftly retorts, "Just because I don't have any teeth left doesn't mean I can't suck on something from time to time!"

I was minding my own business driving down the road the other day when the car in front of me suddenly stopped, and I went right up the back of it. Then a dwarf got out of the driver's side and tapped on my window. As I lowered my window, he said, "I am not happy." I said, "Which one are you then?"

I thought that I would keep a tally this year as I have been fishing alongside other crew who were using traditional Shads / Eels and the difference is very obvious. Even that small Corkwing ( well, average for a corky as they don't grow very big) was lip hooked on a 150g jig !

Crew today was Kyle, and the plan was to visit some wrecks that are almost 30 miles out. I had managed to get some intel that indicated a good number of the inshore wrecks have been netted, which usually indicates that there are a few Bass around. Neap tides and a slight NW wind usually means a flat (ish) sea. We launched at 8:00am, and I set the course on the plotter for the first wreck at about 28 miles. Sea state was flat, but at 10 miles or so, once we had lost the lee of the land, I was expecting a little wind over tide, which would improve once the tide changed at 10:30 ish. As predicted we started to get the wind chop at about 15 miles, but staying at 24knts was reasonably comfortable and we made good progress. The trip took an hour, and the panoptix down scan was soon showing the wreck, in 185ft. Over the next hour we made several drifts and unfortunately only had 4 Pout each and I also had a Corkwing wrasse on the SPJ gear, which was pretty unusual considering the depth. Kyle was fishing flying collar with cotton candy shads and I was fishing SPJ. Once the sea had flattened, we made a move to a 20 mile wreck., where we got a few knocks, but no hook ups. We were also joined by a commercial, who was fishing live bait rigs and was saying the fishing was dire at the moment. Finally we decided to move to an 8 mile wreck that I have not fished for quite a while, the sea was now very flat and we made good progress at 35kts. This wreck is not in the position as mrked on the charts, at that position are 2 pot buoys, but the bulk of the wreck is about 75m inshore from that position. Here I was straight into a keeper Bass of about 3lb or so (I didn’t weigh it). We stayed on the wreck for a short while making several drifts. All too soon it was time to head back in as I had promised to be back at lunch time. A total trip of 67Nm, which produced 8 pout, one corkwing wrasse, and a keeper Bass for Kyle’s evening meal. However, the great thing was just to be out there again. And I would have still enjoyed it, had I caught nothing. Kyle lost 4 rigs to the wrecks, but this time I didn’t lose any jigs. Interestingly the SPJ is producing quite a range of species, and this year the species count is, Pollock, Cod, Bass, Whiting, Mackerel, Pout, Gurnard, Coalfish, and Corkwing wrasse. A jolly little Corkwing............ The Pout were of reasonable size Bass ...........

Well, hopefully I will be out tomorrow with grandson Kyle as crew. He has finished exams so off school now until 6th form in sept. unfortunately, I had left Battery 1 turned on (1st time I have ever done that) so after almost 4 weeks of sending my AIS, it is flat, but the smart charger is not detecting any ill will from the battery, so it should be fully charged by the morning. No plans yet as to where we are going, I don't really want to be out of mobile coverage at the moment, but if the sea is good, then I might just sneak out to the 30 mile wrecks for an hour, but I lose vodafone at 12miles.

In my experience it is about 25%. Bass, Pout, and smaller Pollock usually. Decent Pollock doubles, and Cod are nearly always gob hooked.

We use a lot of 5 hook strings of size 6 snowbiki’s (tinsel flashers). Last year I was able to preorder from the wholesalers at a very preferential rate, which worked out at 600 packs for £150, so 25p a string ! I doubt I will see that deal again in a hurry, but we have enough to last us a year or three 👍

I suspect it was the change in temperature rather than the WD40 that did the trick.

Yes, but I still prefer boat fishing, all this wading and casting wears me out 🤣🙄

Yes, remember just gently tap the joint ferrule, sometime they break free very quickly, other times it takes a few mins. My Century NG's tend to stick when they have been in use for a few days, I was told by Century it is due to temperature and humidity variation, nothing actually wrong with the rod, however, they always come apart with a few taps on the joint ferrule.

No, none of that. The answer is simple. hold a little bit of twisting pressure on the 2 halves and GENTLY tap the joint with a piece of wood, and they will part. I was told this trick by a rod builder (century) and it works every time👍

Fixed that, I blame the auto correct 🤣

Unusual to find me in here ! 🙄 I have been fishing an estuary in the South Hams for the past week. The estuary is one of only 2 in the country that are privately owned as part of an estate. I have known the estate owners and the water baliff all my life, and we are often asked if we want to stay at one particular waterside cottage when they have cancellations, so it usually costs me zilch. This time we stayed over for a couple of days, and travelled (35min drive) the remainder of the week as we had quite a bit of important stuff to do, but I did manage to catch at least one tide per day and the result was 83 Bass, with the biggest going 61cm (about 5.5lb), but at least 75% were over 42cm (2lb ish). I just usually keep the deep hooked fish, and this week we have lived mainly on Bass for our evening meals. Here, the only way is worm or sandeel, with just enough weight that it gets dragged along in the tide. I went through 5lb of freshly dug rag, so quite expensive on bait ! ........... great fun using a Greys prodigy 2.75lb carp rod and 3oz of lead. Usually we try to use this location in the Autumn when the Bass fishing is prolific and there are also a few Giltheads about, however, beggars cant be choosers, and I knew that lettuce weed would be an issue this time of the year. To try and combat the lettuce weed issue I was using 28lb braid with a very short 28lb Amnesia leader, which was tied to the braid using a PR boobin knot which is very slimline so as not to attract leader knot weed. The rigs were simple, a 3oz flat lead running on the line, stopped by a rubber buffer bead and size 4 swivel. The hook length was 20lb Sakuma FC and the hook a tiny Sakuma Size 1 560 Stinger (strong Aberdeen style). When you are wading, photos are difficult, and I tend not to wade with my phone ! However, my son took a video from his DJI drone, which shows both Kyle and me out on the centre sand bank on the ebbing tide. The fish were congregating on the far bank of the main channel, so it needed a 130yrd cast to be in the money.

Don't worry Malc, it is the norm for the wife to outfish you. My wife is always first onto the Mack, and has such a laid back approach to fishing, she often gets some very decent catches. I remember last year out wrecking, she can't be bothered with fishing shads and eels with all that winding and dropping etc, so I put on a string of 3 red lumi 6/0 gummi makks for her, and with in minutes she was struggling to hold the rod and shouting for help .............. she had hooked 3 Pollock of which the smallest was 6lb and the largest was 9lb ........

Well there is a surprise 🙄, as rods go, I find them pretty awful. Well done on getting out Luke, another month and the Blues will be there in numbers. It is a shame you couldn't get the big porgie to take a freelined bait, but TBF they can be very fussy eaters at times, and also quite wary of what they eat. We get more porgies than Blues here in Lyme Bay, mainly due to the water generally being 100 - 200ft max.

Nah, in my world you are just a bit of a 'grumble and grunt' 🤣

Poor sod, I don't envy you one little bit. I am glad those days have passed me by, listening to humourless accountants arguing about the budgets for stuff that they often don't understand 🙄😧

I read that wrong the first time around🤣

Has the tw@t from essex been training you ? 🤣

There is another consideration, if the boat has been moored for an while, even a small amount of barnacle growth can make it a nightmare to winch onto bunks, as you will always need to winch the last 2m, even with the trailer submerged and the tow vehicle rear wheels at the waterline. With rollers the winching is still sometimes difficult, but a damn sight easier than bunks. The last one I did on a bunked trailer was a 27ft Bayliner Classic (3.5T) that had been in for a season. I need to use the hand winch and a ratchet strap to pull it up to the bow snubber on the trailer.

I guess bunks are OK is you are only going to use the trailer a couple of times per year for boat maintenance, but yes, Andy is correct in that you have to float the boat on and off the bunks, however, you can drive the boat on and off the bunks to save some of the hard winch work For general launch and recover, then a roller trailer with front and rear swing beams makes life very easy indeed. I launch and recover my 5.85m rib (1.2T) single-handed, and that is on a slipway that has a 6kt cross tide running on full spring tides.

I was born in Mile End, then lived in Holland Park, then moved to Devon My Dad was born and lived his childhood in Islington, he went to the original Islington Green school, many years later, the Green school kids' choir featured in the massive hit for Pink Floyd, Another brick in the wall.

Coming here and bragging about your weekday fishing, tut, tut 🤣 Cracking fishing, with multiple stingers, excellent work, I bet Leo was well impressed 🤣 Unfortunately they don't grow too big here (60 - 70lb ?), but still an immensely powerful and impressive fish. In Oz I have seen them to well over 200lb. Brother in law hooked a monster at Maroochydore QLD and ended up cutting the line as it was towing the boat with no signs of surrender !

@JonC TBH London can be one of the loneliest places in the world, I have always thought that Ralph Mctell told it as it really is ........... in those lyrics I can see a lot of my relatives that I have known from the city........ 😢