GPSguru

We took both boats out the water on thursday for a quick lick of paint Pugwash and Seadog - I discovered I need a new cutlass brearing so not great news - otherwise all the painting went ok and in fact Tims boat Seadog was back in the water Friday evening. so that meant console my worries with a trip out on saturday. 
Small tides and a clean hull saw us hatch a plan to round the bill and hunt the wrasse in the morning followed by anchoring on the Kidney banks in the afternoon - last time we went the kidney bank threw up blondes to 20lb, 8lb Turbot, Spurs and Tope - including my biggest ever fish (40lb Tope). this time nothing but Dogs.
Luckily we had success on the Wrasse just off the bill. 

 Tims all went to 4lb

 

 

 

 
I have received the new Cutlass bearing from ASAP supplies and will start re-assembling this week - hoping to get back in the water next weekend.
 

TBH…. Where we fish you don’t need it…
I’ve tried using it on Navioncs on my tablet. I’ve found it more a distraction when on the drift. Sonar charts works well. 
 
it’s also worth noting that it’s not an actual chart. It’s a computer rendered version of a chart, so the actual topography maybe different to what you see on the chart….
 
(ducks and runs for cover after throwing the grenade as I know most love it) 

Just taken photo of boat replacing Rib

I would say so. To be fair we didn't do much lure fishing to start with, but with SPJ's it's getting more consistent than with jellies or shads. Drop down until you hit the bottom then two turns up and start jigging.
What I like about SPJ is the variety of species you get. Across the boat SPJ sessions, we've had... pollack, cod, bass, coalfish and wrasse, and from the shore it's been mackerel, bass, wrasse, pollack and gurnard.

@Saintly Fish and I snuck out for a dangle today instead of working. Plan was SPJ's in Yarmouth Deeps and around the Needles, then drifting with squid baits over Dolphin Bank to see what was home.
A lovely morning with beautiful conditions greeted us.

The bass were at home at the Deeps. I lost a good fish at the surface while Neil was being slow with the net. He then lost another which made me feel better. Then I boated this beauty.

We tried the Needles Bridge next, but no bites, so on to the Dolphin Bank.
Neil bagged up on dogfish but also had a nice smoothound and a young tope.


I too managed a dogfish (phew!).
Back to the Deeps on the flood and as we drifted past Hurst Castle Neil hooked into a proper fish that snapped him off at the leader. Sadly we don't know what it was, probably either a bass or the Kraken.
Headed home after that as the tide picked up and made jigging too difficult. Thanks Neil for a great day on the water. Lots of giggles and hook-ups, and some decent fish to the boat.

Actually, it is better to take a short viid of a fish and then extract a decent still from the footage.

Videostudio from corel does pretty much everything. Get the trial version, and they then may send you a good offer, but it is cheap anyway. This package has been around for years and was highly regarded before corel bought it. 
Also the free version of DaVinci from Black Magic is very good, but being a professional editor it is harder to use.
I have gone away from GoPro as they are way too unreliable, with random turning off, overheating, and battery discharge issues. I now use a DJI Action 4 on the boat, and a cheap Wolfang for underwater stuff.
 
 

45cm, 2 fish per day, and no keepers during February and March.

Is it a self aligning swing beam trailer (do the roller beams swing ?) and it probably only has 2 keel rollers toward the front of the trailer, and the roller sets on the beams support the weight of the boat
You should be able to adjust the lateral position of the roller sets (usually 4 or 6 pairs), the rears should sit about half way along the dead rise.
With a self aligning roller coaster trailer you can winch the boat on with the trailer wheels at the waters edge, but it is hard work, tough on the winch eye, and you need a good depth on the stern for when the bow rises.
Generally I reverse in the water, so the water is about level/ just below the hubs. This works best for me and I launch and recover the 5.85m (19ft) RIbcraft solo (it weighs a little over 1T, 1.6T all up weight on the trailer).
You can also sink the trailer and drive / float the boat on, but not easy to get right if you are in a tide flow.
I would be surprised if the aux was the issue, as you are only talking probably less than 40kg (my tackle box weigh more than that)
If it is a trailer with keel rollers and roller bunks, then the rollers sit 1/3 to 1/2 up the hull. The trailer should be in the water to at least hub depth, and the boat pulled onto the first keel roller using the painter, and then steady winch pressure applied. More care is needed with a bunked trailer as slipping off the keel rollers makes a mess of the gel coat 🙄

Joker lures is Matt Forrester, who skippers Silver Halo out of Torquay. Matt used to launch his worrier 175 from Polly Steps before he got his commercial ticket. 
Him and I have both been fishing SPJ since about 2016. If you ever get the chance, take a trip out to the wrecks with him, you will learn a lot.
TBH spj with a mangle is not ideal, much better with a palm sized multi.
I was hoping to get out tomorrow but it is a short sea, so mega uncomfortable, but I might get out Saturday.
 
 

45cm, 2 fish per day, and no keepers during February and March.

Fishing from a boat is still a bit of a novelty for me, but watching youtube people slow pitch jigging and reading reports here and elsewhere it look like good fun. I only lure fish and we won't be going miles out on our little boat but I thought I would scratch together a budget set up for light SPJ up to 20m. Only lure fishing means I only have small fixed spool reels and I dont want to invest in a multiplier as I have no idea about them whatsoever. So finding a SPJ rod rung for this had been holding me back but one surfaced on the Veals website https://www.veals.co.uk/product/rapture-deep-fall-slow-pitch-spinning-100gm/. It looks OK for a fraction of the price of the more heavy duty tools.

I have some multicolour j-Braid on order.
I also bought a few jigs, and some smaller casting and or pitching jigs which arrived today from Joker who are local to me and I am hoping work on the local fish! I think they look pretty good. I did email the guy that sells them asking for advice on which ones for more inshore areas but never got a response 😒 so did a bit of guessing on colours 😕.

Anyway I don't suppose we will hit the water until June, but when we do I will update the thread if they work or not, and whether a fixed spool reel just generated wind knots! Might throw the casting ones about a bit before that though.
Anybody else try SPJ in shallower water?
Cheers
Roger
 

Is it a self aligning swing beam trailer (do the roller beams swing ?) and it probably only has 2 keel rollers toward the front of the trailer, and the roller sets on the beams support the weight of the boat
You should be able to adjust the lateral position of the roller sets (usually 4 or 6 pairs), the rears should sit about half way along the dead rise.
With a self aligning roller coaster trailer you can winch the boat on with the trailer wheels at the waters edge, but it is hard work, tough on the winch eye, and you need a good depth on the stern for when the bow rises.
Generally I reverse in the water, so the water is about level/ just below the hubs. This works best for me and I launch and recover the 5.85m (19ft) RIbcraft solo (it weighs a little over 1T, 1.6T all up weight on the trailer).
You can also sink the trailer and drive / float the boat on, but not easy to get right if you are in a tide flow.
I would be surprised if the aux was the issue, as you are only talking probably less than 40kg (my tackle box weigh more than that)
If it is a trailer with keel rollers and roller bunks, then the rollers sit 1/3 to 1/2 up the hull. The trailer should be in the water to at least hub depth, and the boat pulled onto the first keel roller using the painter, and then steady winch pressure applied. More care is needed with a bunked trailer as slipping off the keel rollers makes a mess of the gel coat 🙄

Is it a self aligning swing beam trailer (do the roller beams swing ?) and it probably only has 2 keel rollers toward the front of the trailer, and the roller sets on the beams support the weight of the boat
You should be able to adjust the lateral position of the roller sets (usually 4 or 6 pairs), the rears should sit about half way along the dead rise.
With a self aligning roller coaster trailer you can winch the boat on with the trailer wheels at the waters edge, but it is hard work, tough on the winch eye, and you need a good depth on the stern for when the bow rises.
Generally I reverse in the water, so the water is about level/ just below the hubs. This works best for me and I launch and recover the 5.85m (19ft) RIbcraft solo (it weighs a little over 1T, 1.6T all up weight on the trailer).
You can also sink the trailer and drive / float the boat on, but not easy to get right if you are in a tide flow.
I would be surprised if the aux was the issue, as you are only talking probably less than 40kg (my tackle box weigh more than that)
If it is a trailer with keel rollers and roller bunks, then the rollers sit 1/3 to 1/2 up the hull. The trailer should be in the water to at least hub depth, and the boat pulled onto the first keel roller using the painter, and then steady winch pressure applied. More care is needed with a bunked trailer as slipping off the keel rollers makes a mess of the gel coat 🙄

Just a quick report as the fishing wasn't great - Weymouth boat league comp number 3. 
We went to our usual mark and i got off to a good start - but it dropped off once the tide slackened. 
Loads of bloom in the water made the fishing really hard - I managed 5 dogfish, 4 bream, and an Eel. 
Tim had 4x bream, 4x doggies, a Red gurnard, a Cuckoo Wrasse, a mackerel and an eel.
Mid afternoon we moved spots - coming closer in to search out Wrasse, Pout and pollock on the reefs/wrecks inshore to up our tally
But only Tim managed to find one Ballan wrasse
Neither of us placed anywhere near the top.  
 
the last bream i had was a feisty one of +2lb with some awesome colours - i had already kept an earlier one for tea so he went back to help the stocks!

 
 
Classic bit of Bream juggling......

 
lovely day afloat despite the disappointing result - 
 
 

well    ive Finally got my boat   sorted  now its to get it all ready to start the fishing season  now the weather  as picked up a little    engine  is running great   but the engine   Data     was not working    so  i took the  interface cable  off to check for a split wire  or dry  joint     (  Corrosion )     nothing found    put the cable  back  onto the engine  then threaded it back upto the   lowrance units     started the engine    nothing    Bugga   was scratching my head for a while     then thought   maybe i need to reboot   the  the  unit  through the settings     Auto data   reset        turned on both units & the radar    rebooted   and bingo    all working as it should      one very happy man      now to get  the  boat washed    service the trailer   then track down the toothy critters        Ive  3      toothy critter  quick change     ( Guzunder )   release floats  for sale in anyone is interested    made for a fishing trip last september  but never used     £35  inc P+P    for all  3    tight lines  Alain 
 

I use alderney, but with a RIB it is quite a bit more complex than a hard boat as pulling from the bow roller mounted on the bow tube has limited strength. That means I need the lightest anchor (3.75kg bruce) and then 8m of 6m chain to just counter balance the pick. Even then, we often pull from the stern A frame, as I have a load more buoyancy than a hard boat. So even simple is still not without its issues, just like gypsy.
Yes octoplait would be better, but it is a huge amount more expensive  than welding on a lump of stainless ! Also, the rag and stick brigade tend to anchor in shallow water, whereas I often anchor in 200ft and have 200m of 12mm 3 strand warp out.
I would stick with what you have, and carefully refine the mod until you get it perfect.
 

A decent weather window today, so I made the effort to go out, as due to the weather the boat hasn't moved for 3 months.
A solo trip and launched at 07:00 into a very flat sea. First stop was a bunch of 3  wrecks off berry head which in the past were always netted, but in view of the pollock ban, I assumed correctly that the nets would be gone. Well, I was right, but there are a significant amount of crab pots on the wrecks. A couple of drifts on each produced nothing, so I headed inshore to the Orestone.
several drifts on the Orestone produced a few Mackerel and one Herring. As I brought it up I couldn't decide between a large sardine or small herring, but with the dorsal fin well past the half way mark, it had the be a herring.
Having had a good shakedown the boat is running well, and I came back in at lunchtime.
So 27nm and rewarded with a few bait fish, so not too bad for mid April.
 
 
 
 
 
 

The ones that care the most are the first to comment, I will be doing shirt signings and giveaways outside your house Saturday morning while you scrub slime off Ol Smokey🤣🤣

Why would you think such a thing 🤔🫣

Targa came out Monday for a bit of TLC and an arse wipe, surprisingly just a bit of slime underneath
A few jobs on the list (apart from the usual clean, polish and antifoul)
When I fitted a replacement radome, as well as running a new power cable to it, I ran a new cable to the horns (that didn't work) in readiness for lift out time, all tinned cable I'll have you know too
Connected at both ends and gave it a try, you'd have thought a freight train was in the yard, success, then 1 horn failed and sounded more like Brum
All connections good, so must be the horn, I'm claiming a 50% success rate for this
Then fitted the new temp gauge, turned on ignition and needle went straight to zero, which I would expect
Haven't got a decent enough water supply to run engine up to temp, so will claim 50% on this as well for the time being
Have to resplice the warp to the anchor rode, so dropped it all on the concrete ready for when it dries (the rope) a bit
Thought this would also be a good time to remove the gypsy and give the shaft etc a good clean and regrease
All went well until I tried to remove the stainless steel prong thing that is supposed to stop the rope from staying on the gypsy and divert it into the anchor locker (it never does on it's own, always needs someone pulling into the anchor locker)
First stainless screw just spun in it's threads (aluminium, never a good idea) the second was pretty much welded in and I rounded the Phillips head
No problem for an engineer like myself, I simply swore loudly and drilled the bastard thing out, I have now bought some new 6mm bolts (or screws as I called them earlier) and will tap out the base to suit. I've called this a fail for now, but is completely fixable
Next was the prop, no dings or hairline cracks that I could see and popped right off on the first request
All boxed up tonight and will be winging it's way to Castle marine by end of play tomorrow, 95% on this exercise just incase it wants more than a polish
Also what seemed like a few areas of osmosis, were nothing more than water between the antifoul and the gel coat, as the gel was solid and not blistered or raised underneath it
Cleaned the grime off her ready for some chine shine tomorrow and a good mopping when the weather allows
As we had the jetwash out I thought I'd try and get the lichen/algae off the wood bits on the gunwhales, not easy when the water pressure isn't great and next door is trying to antifoul his sailing boat
He was pretty good about it though
Anyway, I'm rambling again
TBC
Chine shine = Oxylic acid
 
 
 
 
 

Slow pitch jigging trip hosted by @Odyssey, with @jonnyswamp , @daio web, @Saintly Fish, @JonC and I.
TLDR: Weather good, banter good, fishing good, propeller not so good (it broke).
Species tally: pollack, cod, coalfish, cuckoo wrasse, launce, greater weever and a massive starfish, all taken on jigs.

If anyone can catch them on lures it'll be me... 🐶