GPSguru

Well done Leo .............. cracking fish ............👍 Looks like you guys had a great day ..................🎣

Tomorrow is not looking too good offshore for me and i don't want to go Mackerel fishing again, but Monday and especially Wednesday looks to be good wrecking weather (if it holds)

TBH, I would not have sold that Tat ........... I would have binned it .............. The Torium is well known for its corrosion properties ! ...................but it was a strong reel in its day ..............

Yes, cracking boat Gary ............. and nice to see it back in after a long absence ........... I see it pretty much every day, as it is moored just up stream of the slip ...............

At 15knts, then a little less than 1.5hrs ........... that is about the same time as the chartes take going form Exmouth ..............

There are several areas where you can catch a Plaice or two, but for quality and quantity, then you need to make a trip to the Skerries, which is only about 45 mins ........

I think it was more the fact that they were like piranhas on the bait, and there was a huge amount considering it is late November ............ this time of the year it is normally the pin whiting that are the bait thieves ................ I guess we are lucky in that I can catch Mackerel pretty much all year round, in the area of the Orestone and Babbacombe bay, As an example, if I was out just to get bait then even in January / February, I would expect to catch probably 5 in an hour at one of the marks ............... 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I am posting this just the pee off Luke @Odyssey and Ian @headlight , because i know they struggle with bait fishing off the welch coast ! Yesterday, I launched out of Teignmouth at about 8:00am, twas a cold morning with the air temp of about 6C ................. The plan was go to a 9 mile wreck, then onto a 12 mile wreck, and then return just after lunch, as i had the school run in the afternoon ............. The sea forecast was good with 0.5m @ 15secs, flattening to 0.3m @12 secs ............... Once out of the Navigation channel , i was met with a very confused sea .......... the wind was F3/4 NE and the tidal stream was from the south, so we had a situation of wind over tide, that was further compounded by the wind chop from the NE (we are open to anything East). I put the boat on the correct heading of 0.91 degrees true and opened the throttle to about 20knts, slightly bumpy but OK, however, there was an unthought about issue ......... the wind chop was the major sea and coming from the NE on my port bow ........ the hull spray rails were doing a good job, in fact too good, and about every third wave the spray was being picked up by the wind and giving me a good shower .......... OK in the summer, but not good in the winter with a 9 mile steam to do, and something you have to 'manage' in an open boat when winter fishing ............ So ........plan B ......... a quick turn of almost 180 degrees would put the sea on my port quarter / following sea and I could then head towards Torquay and the Orestone for some rough ground fishing ........... that works, and I am now progressing at 26knts toward the Orestone. My route took me through the middle of the moored cruise ships in Babbacombe bay of which there are now 5 ............. Also, I had company for about 3 miles with a pod of 2 very young dolphins on my starboard bow, they were tiny, only about 2ft long and looking like mini Orca's with their white belly ........... OK ....... once at the Orestone there were about 4 other boats fishing, and I knew three of them from my home port............. I decided to drift and drop down a small squid on a 4/0 pennel .......... within a few minutes it was nodding and into the first fish, which was a medium sized bloody Mackerel 😲 ............ next drop produced the same, and so on ..................not even the whiting were getting on the baits, the Macks were like bloody piranha's . So ....... i set up a string of Snowbiki's , baited the bottom two, and dropped down, but I just couldn't get to the bottom (60ft) ......... each time a full string of Mack .......... all sizes. Eventually I did get a couple of decent Whiting of about 1.5lb each ................. Even when I had my coffee, I just dangled the snowbikis over the side and within a minute another full string of Mack, looking in the water I could see the mack coming up for them ! On the way back I decided to spend an hour on a patch of gravel and small reef about 300yards offshore where we get hounds, Plaice, Rays, Gurnards, all sorts of stuff ............... but yes, you guessed it ........... full of Mackerel again ............... So I ended up with a cool box and 2 buckets full of Mack for the bait freezer and another 15 Mack as eaters for the family .................I probably shook off as many as I kept, so possibly I had over 300 - 400 Mack in 3 hours or so ............ TBH, it was better than Mack fishing in July ! Not a great day, but nice to be out on the boat .............. a round trip of 22Nm ............. Another full string ! Here is a forward scanning sonar of a Mack shoal from when I stopped on the way back in less than 30ft of water ....... you can see the mack shoal 50 ft in front of the boat

Well yes, but it was funny the way you wrote it ............ made me chuckle, because it is exactly what my crew would do ...............

Great for when you are back on the mooring etc, but you may need to fit some subdued lighting under the gunnels for when you are fishing etc .............

Well, the nearest wreck that is easy to anchor would be the Galicia, which is a wreck I rarely fish, other than to drift alongside it for Plaice in the summer ............ Also, you might have been to the Bretagne, but I doubt Peter would go that far in that direction ...............

That would be Peter ............ he lives in Exeter but moors in the Exe .................... so I am guessing you were on the Boma ..........

That was today's intention, but at first light I got out of the navigation channel to find the wind from the NE which is usually OK, but the sea was coming from due South, so the wind over tide made for a very choppy and confused head sea right on my port bow and @20 knts it was an uncomfortable and wet ride, so I turned south by 90 degrees and headed for the Orestone ..............which put the sea comfortably on my port quarter ...............

Hi Gary, are you out today ? .......... I saw your boat was back on its mooring........... I will probably launch at about 8:30 ...........

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Yeah your right, I was getting the boat ready and didn't explain myself very well 😇 ...... all of MY coarse rods are C curve ...... Greys specialist Avons and Century NG’s ....... I only fish for Carp , Barbel, Chub, and Tench ..... all on the French rivers....... my point about UK boat rods is UK rod designations, it seems to be unique to us and wide open to interpretation. However, a great % are J (ish) curve and any of those rods taken beyond that point will be ‘locked out’ and pretty useless ........ to really learn about what rods ‘do’, I always encourage my crew to fish with a light tackle setup a few times .

Yes, correct. Most boat rods are J curve. Most coarse rods are C curve. But yes, UK boat rods vary by a huge amount.

This is needed after reading the nice welcome banter here ..........https://www.offshoreoutlaws.co.uk/topic/344-hi-everyone-glad-to-be-joining-the-group/page/2/?tab=comments#comment-4358

Indeed, and anything of quality is mega expensive ............... however there is an alternative method Use a bucket solder eye and fill the bucket end with molten solder, then carefully tin the prepared end of cable ........... slide the end of the cable into the molten solder bucket and wait for it to cool down ............ when cooled carefully pull a length of RayChem (glued heatshrink) over the joint and allow enough to extend about 70 - 100mm along the cable sheath, then shrink it into place ...............

True, perhaps I shouldn't tell you this, but most fishing gear is based on a 45% Margin and that is before any quantity discounts are taken into account ........... it is not difficult to achieve a 60 - 70% Margin by careful buying and paying the bills on time .............

That is a bit greedy ............. the retail on that rod should have been 225 -250

Mine are from RS Components (used to be Radiospares) and are the best part of 40 years old ............. still going strong .............

In the past, I have always used Diawa Kenzaki braid rods ..............but .............. over the last 2 years I have been using Tronixpro 8.5 - 15lb Aphex rods. These rods are light and have a very sporting tip action, but also enough grunt in the butt to deal with big fish. A few of the local boats use them and all moaned at me when Tronix stopped making them earlier this year ............ the truth behind that is a brand name clash with the word Aphex ...........Tronixpro are having these rods made on the same blanks under a different name and will be available in the spring as an HTO product ............... For my heavy boat rods .......... 30-50 & 50-80 I use Shimano ......................and my new rods for next year's Tuna Shark fishing will be Shimano Tiagra ............ With boat rods it is more about personal preference and the feel of the rod ...................... as an example I find the Ugly stick to be more like pokers ..................

Yes, hopefully I will be out on Thursday morning ......... no crew so billy nomates will be on his own 🙄 Sea state forecast is marginal, but hope to get to the wrecks.

Well done Josh, some decent fish there , but congers are not fish .............. they are the spawn of satin !