GPSguru

I have moved away from porthcawl this year as they would only insure me to 12 miles and refuse to budge on it, but last year they insured me from the River Elbe to La Rochelle ! I moved back to CraftInsure who were happy the insure me for the all of the English channel, and it was cheaper, without a cost breakdown / a zillion stupid questions, so a win win. According to the manufacturer my boat is worth almost as much as I paid for it new in 2019, but I will be keeping this one as it ticks a lot of boxes for me.

The windscreen on the RIB has a slight tint which is great in good sunny weather, but in low light conditions I tend to stand up and look over the top to maximise visibility, but I only have one good eye at the moment !

LED lights are the way to go. My Ifor GP trailer has them together with LED marker lights and they terminate to 13pin socket on the front of the trailer chassis on the left hand side of the A frame. I then connect Jeep to trailer with a short sub cable with plugs at both ends. It works a treat and keeps the electrics dry snd secure.

I only give them 2 names .......... Kin A'hole and lobbit

To stop recreational fishing then commercial fishing would also have to cease, and that is never going to happen. However, I can see your point that the extreme bunny huggers like Packham et al will try and manipulate this sort of legislation to suit their own agenda, but generally I think any attempt in that arena will be largely unsuccessful.

Is this not do do with the Lisbon treaty that we pulled out of when we binned Brussels ? Right now I really don't think it will effect fishing. useless Eustice is a proper twat, but a dangerous one. Remember when he was fisheries minister, if the commercial said jump, he answered with ‘how high’

(all290nm of them) definitely more than the usual 3 grunts and a hernia 🤣

I will expand a bit on my last post. You don't need alarms as any target on the plotter that is a threat will turn from green to red and show an extended line from the triangle which is the perceived course. It is then up to you to make call on what to do. If you tap on the target it will give you course and speed of the target, plus the time to collision. when I am on the wrecks in the shipping lanes, I have one plotter split screen with a zoomed chart for the wreck waypoint ( 20ft resolution) and the other half of the screen on traditional sonar. The other plotter I switch between forward sonar ( for when I am setting up the drift) and full chart zoomed out to about 15miles ( for me , presets 1 and 2 ). When I see a target turn red, I also know that the bridge of that vessel also has the same info, so I call them on 16 and usually tell the bridge to maintain current course / speed and that I will move my position 2 cables ( 1/4 mile) to port / starboard as appropriate.

Hang a few old CD’s on there, the continual shining and flickering seems to deter the flying rats.

Yes, turn ALL AIS alarms off, including collision warning, and use the AIS info on the plotter as an aide-mémoire for YOU to make the decisions and take any necessary action. That alarm should have also come up on your radio, just hit the ignore button to stop the alarm and periodically clear the AIS log.

No, they just get lobbed back. Good pot bait because they are tough, but wrasse and school spikeys are also used as pot bait.

Oh, and they shit all over when being unhooked. on the positive side, they do make excellent pot bait.

It tends to be all or nothing here. We never get the odd one or two !

No, not really. Yes they are welcome to put a bend in the rod, but often swallow the hook. Once on deck they are an arse to unhook cleanly and unless held tail to head they then try to take the skin off the back of your hand and arms. one or two are ok but we seem to get them in batches of 20 or more !

Bait thieving vermin ….. 🙄

At the moment the weather next weekend is looking ok. If it holds, then I expect we will go to the skerries. Probably stopping in babbacombe bay / Orestone / hopes nose to get some fresh mackerel. I think I have been volunteered to lead a party of 3 boats.

Not unless you bait them with a good fillet of mack !

Well done Neil, that was a super gesture which will reignite Pete’s mojo. If I was closer i would be happy to take Pete out, I guess it would be right then 🤣

The weather forecast was looking Ok for a mornings fishing on the inshore wrecks. The wind was NW F2, veering to South and picking up to 20knts in the early afternoon. My original plan was to get out to the 30 mile wrecks, but with the wind forecast to veer south, I knew that would cause wind over tide and the sea state could potentially be quite rough, so a visit to the 12 mile wrecks seemed more in order. My crew was Brother in law James (who completely outfished me !), and we both had other commitments in the afternoon, so the plan was to be back at 1:00pm. We made an early start and launched at 7:45, and once out of the estuary it was flat calm, perfect for the 12 mile trip to the first wreck. The throttle was opened up to 4000rpm, and we were cruising nicely at a little over 32kns, which made the journey time quite reasonable. Once on the wreck, James went with a Blue White RedGill 115 evo and was soon into a Pollock of about 5lb. Over the course of the next hour or so we made several drifts and James ended up with 6 decent Pollock with the biggest probably going 6lb. I caught pout on every drift and dropped at least 3 Pollock. We then decided to head back to a 9 mile wreck and there was a charter already fishing it, so we moved on 4 miles to another wreck that has a reputation for some good Bass. On the first drift James was straight into a 4lb Bass, but despite several more drifts and lots of quite shy bites, it was the only fish from the wreck. By late morning the wind had veered to the South and was quite strong and blustery, my anemometer showed a steady 22knts, gusting to 28knts, and the sea was getting quite lively, which is what I had expected to happen. At midday we decided to go back in (a 9 mile steam) and by this time the waves were about a metre, with plenty of whitecaps all around us. I looked at the live wave buoy data and the sea was 1.6m @ 3 secs, so I took a very slight detour to keep the sea on the port quarter and kept the speed down to 18 – 20 knts. With a little throttle control on the biggest waves it was a decent and effortless ride back to the slipway. Well worth the effort and quite a good mornings fishing ……………. 33nm

Prick 🙄 Are you being a flid again 🤣🤣🤣 The knife is sheathed. Popping a tube is not important as there are 5 chambers. On my last boat I popped a stern port tube when I dropped a pointy fillet knife. We travelled 12 miles back to port in a snotty sea with no problems

You would be surprised just how many experienced boat owners who don't have a knife to hand. However, it is no big deal for me as I have a knife on my LJ.

Yes, on most outboards the hydraulics are plenty power full enough to just get the prop out of the water. You need to act fast as anchored from the stern will sink a boat very quickly. I keep a sharp serrated knife mounted on the transom 😉

Well done Graham, epic, a fish of dreams. It took me 30 years to get a boat double (10lb 2oz) , but have had loads off the wrecks just under that very magical 10lb. Very well done indeed 👍

I think if I go down that road again it will be an Accurate with the twin drag system. However, I will see how these Fin Nor reels perform over time. The charters that have used them over the last couple of years are giving good feedback.

Yes, I have fond memories of the Penn International 6/0. They were reliable big fish feels, built like a brick outhouse. I have often thought about getting an oldie to renovate.