GPSguru

Yawn.... 😴

We normally find Ling in the deeper water, mainly on wrecks that are over 180 ft deep ...............
They put up an excellent fight, but rarely can you return them as they 'blow' (barotrauma) easily.
You can fish those wrecks all day with lures and never see a Ling (but get plenty of Pollock).......... put on some baited feathers or even just a baited hook (fillet of Mack) on a simple running ledger  and you will soon find the Ling, they are always the first fish to the bait, even quicker than pout ...............  you need a heavy trace as they have some serious teeth ...........an average fish is 15lb - 20lb, my biggest is 34lb ...............
 

Couldn't make our first day out of lockdown (work keeps getting in the way) so plumped for the Tuesday instead, as the forecast for the rest of the week was shite
My mate (and one of the usual crew) was out on a charter on the Monday fishing up near Clevedon (my intended area on Tues)
After the picture of his 3rd codling, I rang him and spoke for all of 5 secs before he said "got to go, got a bite"
He rang me back after 10 mins or so just after his picture message pinged on my phone showing a plump 6.5 pounder, seems like it's carpeted with them says I
"Well", says he, "I've had 4 and there's one other on the boat"
I went back to my work wondering if I should take the big cooler box, instead of the smaller one for all the cod we were going to get Tuesday
And after receiving another 2 pics showing his total for the day (6 to around 7lb) I genuinely considered the larger one
Anyway, back to our report (can you tell I'm trying to pad it out a bit)
We took the 7.30 lock and headed straight up/over to Clevedon, on a steep bank/reef which is usually a good spot
Plenty of conger, couple of dogs and a few thornies were all we had for the first 2 hrs of the flood, so opted to move a bit closer in to Ladye Bay
We found a parking spot in between the flotilla and dropped anchor, much the same here with one small (8lb ish) ray doing a very good impression of a double figure cod and really got the blood pumping
A phone call from the charter skipper that my mate had been on the day before revealed he hadn't even had a bite on his boat (he opted to go further up channel)
Another move across the channel to just inside Newport deeps resulted in more of the same, so by about 2.45 I miserably pulled the pin and trundled off down the channel to get the 3.45 lock in........Codless
Speaking to the others in the lock, there were 2 codling between 20 odd anglers, although I did hear of a few doubles that had came out (including 2 from Clevedon the previous day) and the charter we spoke to ended up with 6
Shit weather for the foreseeable, but I will return
They can't hide forever
Can they?
 

No, it’s not. Hopefully when the weather moves off we can get out and try again though. Let’s face it the trying is the main enjoyment. 

For those of us on the south coast, then real time wave info is a real help ............ it has about a 30min lag .............run by Plymouth marine university ...........
https://www.channelcoast.org/
It can be a bit diffcut to navigate, but select realtime data and then select a site off the map............
Here is the realtime data in table format for Sandown Bay (IOW) and it will autoupdate about every 30mins ............
Here ...... https://www.channelcoast.org/realtimedata/?chart=80&tab=waves&range=day&disp_option=1&user_indate=&datum=chart
 
 

That is exactly what I am thinking of doing for next season, using a MinnKota with i-pilot ............ I have used one on a quicksilver 590 and its station keeping over a wreck in 200ft was pretty impressive, with a max of about 1m drift ............... to deploy and hit the 'spot' was about 50 times quicker than dropping the pin ............
The rolls royce would be the auto deploy Ulterra model, but that is the thick end of £4k ................ the  manual deploy models with I-pilot come out at about £1k -£1.5k
All it needs is a battery stowed in the anchor locker and judging by a boat that has one her, you can get about 7 hours battery life in a modest wind and tide, which is plenty for most of us ...............

Give it a go Neil ...... apart from the initial cost profile you have got nothing to lose. If it doesn't work out like you hoped then it is pretty easy to reverse back to where you are now with just a small dent in your wallet. 
However, it does damage easily so you will need to be mega careful when berthing an also when any boats pull along side.

For those of us on the south coast, then real time wave info is a real help ............ it has about a 30min lag .............run by Plymouth marine university ...........
https://www.channelcoast.org/
It can be a bit diffcut to navigate, but select realtime data and then select a site off the map............
Here is the realtime data in table format for Sandown Bay (IOW) and it will autoupdate about every 30mins ............
Here ...... https://www.channelcoast.org/realtimedata/?chart=80&tab=waves&range=day&disp_option=1&user_indate=&datum=chart
 
 

There is a possibility of some settled weather next week as we head into some HP on Sunday through to Thursday, however, the current projected position of the HP centre will make it a marginal window at best ...............I'm itching to get out for some wreck Pollock etc ............

Farecla G3 or G6 , followed by a good boat wax .......................
Electric polishing is quick ............ 2 or us did one side of a Bavaria 36 yacht  on a short tide window, then turned it on the high tide and did the other side on the next tide window ...........

Ah you know me to well.
I have had Garmin units, followed by Standard Horizon then I had Lowrance and Eagle (re-badged Lowrance) for over 10 years.
I switched to a Simrad main plotter about a year ago and just prefer the menu options and use.
Lowrance/Eagle were easy enough to use but I never liked the operation of Garmin, although my Garmin units were fairly old so maybe I would find the newer units easier.

Piss off, he’s far too masculine. 

It is the slow fluttering drop that does the trick ............. there isn't many fish that will turn their nose up at what looks like a free easy meal with no effort  ............

The only bad thing I have heard about is that 'wrap' is very easily damaged, nowhere near as tough as Gel coat ..............
Get stuck in there with an electric polisher, followed by a good quality wax ................ JonC will do it for you ..........🤣

It’s not just the angle of the hill that I live a third of the way up, it’s also the fact that I’m surrounded (back and sides) by mature trees. A satellite would have to point straight up. 
plus I’m not a fan of dishes slapped to the side of my home. 

So very much higher, went completely over my head 🤣

Good plan ................. the G3 charts are not compatible with your 5 series units, I think this is to with processor speed and screen resolution...............
Look here for compatibility ............ https://buy.garmin.com/en-GB/GB/p/662662#devices
 

I watch very little TV,  ............. quite like Master Chef professionals with that big mouth git Wallace ..............and watch the kids' cartoons with the grand children 🤣............ normally I am busy on the PC in my office or outside do'in stuff .................

Sired 3 daughters who still live at home

And I knew you'd back him up

Depends, on how you want to manage your data, but yes, you can create as many SD cards as you want ................
If you want to look at your charts on Homeport then you need to have them downloded form the plotter to a SD card, you can do that process onto as many SD cards as you like ............
I tend to download all my user data to the sd card at the end of each trip, and then analyse it on Homport ....................
My SD card is setup with a folder called Marks which is the master copy of all my waypoints (it is the same as 'my collection' on  Homeport), and another folder called 'transfer' to which all the waypoints and active tracks gets downloaded to at the end of each trip ............... using Homport you can also add some detail into your 'marks'  using the 'notes' tab which will also be available on the plotter. I store info about the wrecks, like length, width, height, orientation, and scour positions
It is always best to have a card in the plotter just in case you need to take a screen dump, just press 'Home' for 6 secs and it will dump the screen to the SD card (the plotter creates a folder called SCRN and the files are .BMP (bitmap) format ..............
 
 

Something not right there ....................... what operating system is the laptop running ?
If you can open homeport then click on the 'my collection, folder in the top left hand pane and it should populate the lower left hand pane with the contents of that folder which will be your marks .............
However, if you have saved them onto an SD card then you can check that your work is still there ................ open the SD card in Explorer and you should find a file with the extension .adm ............ probably within the Garmin folder ..............
You should have this ...............

The c☺️ream will always rise to the top. Geoff.