GPSguru

I don't use a paravane, I adjust the amount of lead to control the troll depth. Around here, 3oz seems to work well.

Ideally 2kts ish, any faster than 3kts and the bass need a motorbike to catch you up !

I would hope so as I am fluent in Spanish. An aluminium lid, to stop evaporation, and for perfect cooking.

Happy Christmas Pete, and also to all the other offshore Outlaws.

The VIRB is sort of ‘top end’ at £600 ish, Gopro and DJI are £500 ish and then there are others like Wolfang, insta, Brave, Akaso etc, that vary from £150 to £350 ish.

Good choice Jon, I considered the VIRB, but you are limited to Garmin accessories which is a PITA, both in terms of cost and availability. You wont be able to upload to youtube in 5.7k, you will need to output the edit in 1080p, but the quality will be superb. Another one to look at would be the Insta360, which is popular with vloggers.

Funnily enough Neil, gopro are the market leaders by a long way. A lot of users are prepared to accept the foibles as the build quality and footage is exceptional. However, Gopro will need to smarten their act as others have caught up with equally as good video, and become more intuitive to use. The game changer for me is DJI magnetic mounting. I have had 3 Gopro’s, but now I am moving away from them, but still like the ‘package’.

Hmmm, very good action camera's with excellent footage quality, good build quality as well, however, they are notoriously unreliable from a firmware perspective, things to look out for are , overheating, freezing up whilst recording, crappy audio, audio that is not in sync with the footage, recording a split screen video, randomly turning off, turning off in temps below -3c, battery going flat when the camera is turned off (a major issue on all GoPro's), and poor battery life Be advised that they are very microSD card fussy, generally the Samsung Evo Plus seems to work in them fine. A lot of those issues go right back to the GoPro 3 and still haven't been fixed on the gopro 12 ! My GoPro hero 7 Black has bitten the dust, it won't turn on unless you remove and refit the battery, then it turns on and off perfect for about 30 mins before returning to its 'no turn on state', I have re-flashed the firmware numerous times, so in the bin it goes. I will now replace mine with a DJI Osmo Action 4, but they are hard to come by at the moment, so I have got a Wolfang GA460 as a temporary measure. You will probably be best in shooting at 4K30, and then outputting the final edit in 1080p, this will give you the best cropping and editing ability. Software wise I mostly use Corel Video Studio Ultimate, but I also have Black Magic DaVinci, which is harder to use, but the editing facilities are mind blowing.

It is easier to find the time when you are retired. Pretty much everyday I look at the weather for the next 7 days, and grab any small windows that look promising 👍

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.

It is going to mean a huge rethink for the commercials and their tactics. For what I have seen, the commercial rod / line guys catch more Pollock than Bass, so the by-catch quota will soon be eaten up. Also, the netting of wrecks, primarily for Bass during Oct - Dec, is indiscriminate gill nets so the dominating specie will probably be Pollock, (along with Ling, Gurnards, Cod, large Wrasse, etc, etc), and by the time the nets are pulled most of the fish will be dead or dying., so again, a huge chip into the by-catch quota. I can't really see it working, and of course the Devon and Cornwall IFCA will turn a blind eye anyway !

We troll using a Portland rig, with a 3 or 4oz cannon ball lead as they don't spin. The lure trace on the portland is about 5ft.

TBH I cant really see how that would work for recreational anglers, because if you fish a wreck or deep reef, then any caught pollock will be ‘blown’ by barotrauma and wont be going back. on Friday we took home more than our Bass quota due to blown and gill hooked fish 🙄, and I can see this would be a regular occurrence with any Pollock quota.

Some of the best boat fishing is in the winter months. We went out on Saturday, -3c when I left home and -1c at Polly Steps. We went to 5 wrecks, all off Berry Head, and all of them were netted, so a quick dangle inshore at the Mudstone Ledge produced some nice Pollock to 4lb, a Tub of 3lb, 20 Mackerel with 10 keepers, and a couple of decent sized squid. This weekend is shaping up quite well for a trip to the wrecks off Salcombe and the Skerries.

Deepest that I am going to find is almost 300ft, but that is 30 miles out. Mostly I fish in 150 - 20Oft. The absolute deepest we are likely to encounter is Hurd’s Deep, just off the channel islands where it is 550ft, however, that would be a 65 mile steam for me.

There is some confusion here over company names. Navico is owned by the Brunswick Group and have the Simrad and Lowrance brands. Navionics, who were the marine chart folk, is owned by Garmin, who also own the Fusion brand. Garmin bought Navionics in 2017.

Yes, I saw you down on the mooring with the new owner, and the next day it was gone, so I guessed you had sold it. Well done on the quick sale ........👍

Certainly, live scope helps, Kyle is an absolute master at reading that tech and making it work for us.

Similar here, I use 2 x 9 inch displays, with Livescope and twin transducers. Also, AIS800 (B+), all Garmin. I run the two plotters on their own internal GPS, but I feed the AIS with a GPS Puck mounted on top of the centre console. The whole system is networked via a GMS10 network Port Expander, so the 2 plotters can share charts, waypoints, transducers etc. Also networked into the Garmin setup is the Fusion BB100 audio / domestic radio, and the Mercury engine data, both of which appear on both plotters.

All the smaller reels use a sprag bearing (one way bearing), so yes, you can remove the safety pawl and spring. I also remove the brake sleeves as I like a fast thumb controlled drop from the boat. However, the 2 speed 2011 (also 3011 and 4011) has 2 of the pawls (which create more of a high pitched whine). I removed both and to my horror, the reel has a standard bearing, so then I had no anti reverse, I guess that is why they fitted 2 of them for safety. I gave both pawls a very good dose of CV grease (molybdenum disulphide grease) and it quietens them down a huge amount, making using the reel OK, not quite silent, but also not annoying.

I have 6 of the 12's, 2 of the 16's, and 2 of the 2 speed 2011's, which I pair with Kenzaki 30 - 50's for conger, shark, and Ray. The only issue I have had is the pinion bearing on one on the 12's, just a tiny spot of water got into the reel and whilst unused for 3 weeks the bearing locked up solid (just one tiny spot of rust on it). Once stripped it was easy to free off, but for your info, the bearing size is common to that which is used in skateboard wheels, so the standard bearing is cheap as chips (about £5 for 10 !), however, I went for the skateboarders upgrade and used a bearing with ceramic balls and a stainless (316) bearing case (£5 ish each), so hopefully it will never happen again. I stayed away from a fully ceramic as the case can shatter and removing all the bits from the reel would be a world of pain.

That surprises me 🤔 I find them very bland and almost tasteless. We normally chuck them straight back, or use as bait if we are short, however, live or flappered whiting do make an excellent shark bait. The only fish I eat are, Plaice, Turbot, Brill, Bass, Cod, Ling, Pollock, and Mackerel. Also the occasional Haddock or JD, but we rarely see them here.

I think mercury do it as an option on all their later engines that share the same platform (60 - 225). Above 225, it is standard. I thought about it with my 150, but was advised against it, unless it is tied into the joystick option, which was mega expensive back on 2019 ( about £3k).

Talk to Terry, but I would suggest a Temple Reef rod and a Maxel Rage reel. Both of mine have been faultless. My Hearty Rise rods are a tad too beefy for general SPJ, but fine for the larger pollock on the deeper wrecks (250 ft and more).

I carry about 30 on the boat, some days you lose none, other days you lose one almost every other drop.