Plaicehunter

A very smart outfit and a good compromise between trailability and usability I should think. I see you have an auxiliary bracket. Do you carry a second engine? The only things I would want would be some lockers and grab rails. Maybe lockers are not so important as unlike me, your boat is not left on a mooring with equipment on board. But safety rails are a feature I would not want to be without, especially when standing to fish or moving about the boat in any kind of sea. The seat forward of the console is a great feature, giving you a backrest. I often think smaller boats like ours get more use than bigger ones. Yours certainly does! PH

What a handsome boat, and she should be very economical to run! It's good that you have a relationship with the previous owner and are taking the time to do things properly. Having fished the Shambles in a charter boat and a private boat and experienced the formidable tides and rips, I think you are very wise to steer clear until you have more experience. Local anglers who have fished the area for years seem to use the 'buddy boat' system so they can help each other out in case of a problem or to find the fish. I also live very close to my boat, and it's a great advantage knowing what the local weather actually is rather than what the forecasters say it should be. Weymouth has a lot of fishing options in all but the worst weather. Unlike you, I am on a drying trot mooring, so am a bit more restricted by tides - although it's only £200 a year! I'm sure a lot of people will envy your boat and situation and you will have no problem finding a crew if you want one. Happy boating and fishing! PH

Bass 8lb 6oz on a topwater lure in 2020, returned. PH

Just now, Saintly Fish said:

Is changing up to a 115 on the to do list? Or are you happy with the 60?

No, I would have to update the steering for one thing, and I don't do much long-range fishing where speed is essential. Most of the time I am pottering about, but local tides can be fierce and it's good to have a bit of oomph. When I bought the boat it had a Mercury 60 which seemed to go all right, but when it was serviced it was found to have bad internal corrosion. I couldn't find a decent second-hand engine so finally bit the bullet and bought new. Just after that I stumbled across a Yamaha 90 in mint condition at a really good price! Sod's Law, but the Mariner EFi has been very good so far. PH

3 minutes ago, Andy135 said:

Very nice rig PH. Just right for lure fishing for bass. 👍

 

And bait fishing for gilts - I had 54 to 6lb in 2020, but enjoy bass luring more. PH

3 minutes ago, Saintly Fish said:

Looks like a nice setup . 👍🏻

If it had a clean bottom and a 115 it would do 50mph on flat water - I've seen the video. I have a Mariner 60 which gets it up on the plane OK but most of my time is spent in the Tamar doing economical displacement speeds as the limit is 10 knots. PH

Yamarin 5400! Spellcheck DOESN'T know best! PH

Pictured in Stonehouse Pool, Plymouth, with the Royal William Yard in the background. PH

Dear Outlaws, I have posted my pathetic attempt at videoing on YouTube. Obviously I haven't got to grips with editing yet, but at least you get to see one of the eels. The whole thing lasts just over a minute, including the blank bit in the middle. I enjoyed the bit where the fish dived and I'm clearly heard to cry "Oh sh*t!" It's called Conger battle on the Tamar. Enjoy! PH

My best advice about fishing Lanzarote is to contact Pete Berry - blumeeni on another popular sea fishing forum. Pete is an expat Welshman who lives near Playa Blanca and is the local expert. He has helped literally dozens of visitors to catch memorable fish from the shore, thankfully including me. The result is a WhatsApp group called Lanza Louts, guys from all over Europe with one thing in common: they have all fished with Pete. While he enjoys lure fishing from the shore (Pete doesn't do boats, though he has friends in Lanzarote who do), he catches most of his big fish on boga livebait. They include bluefish, bonito and barracuda, as well as predatory bream and dorado. I spent a week shore fishing in PB last February/March and caught lots of fish, including bonito of 11lb and 9lb on livebait. I hope to go again once Covid permits. And yes, do get a licence - best to buy online to save a lot of hassle! Hope this helps. PH

These are pretty special! Hard to catch, hard-fighting and apparently delicious (I don't eat fish) PH

No, but I am on WhatsApp. PH

On 1/17/2021 at 4:00 PM, Saintly Fish said:

Well done again that man. Why no photos of the eels though?

I don't bring conger into my 18ft open boat. I T-bar them off at the side if possible and cut them off only if the hooks are deep. Three of the four were lip-hooked fortunately! I did try to film one of the bigger ones, but playing an angry 6ft conger with one hand in a fast tide while holding a phone in the other hand is not easy! The video clip was too big to load on here. PH

A hectic four hours of uptiding on the Tamar today yielded four conger and some good whiting to 1lb 11oz. The first eel was around 10lb, but was dwarfed by the next, a real 'anaconda' of around 6ft long and very thick-set. A 'cod' on the whiting rod mysteriously turned into a 5lb eel as it surfaced in the fast ebb tide. And the final fish of the day was another whopping eel, which fought hard with crash dives, vicious head-shakes and vigorous spinning. The big eels came to whole joey mackerel baits on a pulley pennell, the whiting to a two-hook flapper baited with squid and mackerel pieces. Great sport not far from home! PH

3 hours ago, Andy135 said:

Well done PH! Sounds like a good little session 👍

I know Beesands well, we walk the dogs on the beach when visiting my parents who live not far from there.

I hear that garfish make good eating. Have you tried them?

Beesands is a lovely spot, though a slow drive from Plymouth. Apparently gar make good eating, though their green bones put some people off. I don't eat fish at all and usually put gar back, but kept two today for whiting bait as the dog has eaten all my mackerel! PH

4 hours ago, Saintly Fish said:

Thanks for sharing Graham. I’ve yet to catch a gurnard. They look so cute, especially the red ones. 
 

This was a tub, the ones with a bright blue edge to the pectoral fins. Although they are apparently good eating, they are far too pretty to kill.

Although they live on the bottom, they are highly predatory and often take a small jig or dropper lure worked close to the sea bed. They are also frequently found on the same marks as plaice. I am always pleased to catch one. PH

With high winds forecast way ahead I ventured out on the Tamar yesterday in search of cod. Some have been caught, and all the local shore hotspots are rammed. No crowds for me though as I tied 'Piranha' to a handy mooring buoy just off the main channel to fish the last of the ebb and most of the flood. Three rods went out: an uptider with a two-hook flapper for whiting, another uptider with a large calamari on a pulley pennell and a downtider with a whiting livebait. Later on I switched the heavy uptider to a livebait slider rig baited with a 10" whiting and put a dead pout on the downtider. 

I can't report anything dramatic: lots of whiting to a pound on squid/mackerel cocktails, some hefty pout and several conger to 7-8lb. Conger are a nuisance in the Tamar when using squid or fish bait; ideally I would use peeler for the cod but at 80p a crab (when you can get it) it's too expensive for me. I work on the theory that a hungry cod will take almost any bait, and I have had codling, bass and rays on squid, so I stick to that.

That looks like my last boat trip for a few days till the wind calms down. Anyone else on here fish the Tamar? PH

On 10/14/2020 at 8:39 PM, Tadpole said:

An idea to get the ball rolling..

As with all aspects of fishing we all come across tackle we can't live without yet at the same time things we fish we should never have bothered with.

About as subjective as it gets, remember there are no right or wrongs in this. 🤪

Things I can't do without are my selection of surface lures, name the Patchinko 125 @ 100 in 500g.

The blank saver that is the Fiiish Black Minnow, no3 tail.. the weighted head depends on location.

Things I wish I never bothered with.. anything HTO, Yo-Zuri and Sidewinder are all in my opinion worse than pants.

 

Wouldn't be without my two HTO Nebulas - and a Patchinko 125. PH

Hi, everybody! I'm Graham Broach, aka Plaicehunter. I've been fishing for 60 years, which is strange as I feel only about 35...

I do all sorts of angling, but this year I have spent most of my time fishing the Tamar from my boat 'Piranha', a Yamarin 5400 with a 60EFi on the back. I managed to hit my season's target of 50 gilthead bream  with a bit to spare, and do a lot of bass luring from the boat - best this year 8lb 6oz on a Patchinko 125.

I also do a fair bit of plaice fishing from my pal AW's boat, based near Salcombe, plus the occasional reef trip with him.

In the winter I fish for cod and thornbacks in the Tamar from my boat, though I catch a lot more conger than cod! Last winter I had a nice 5lb bass on a 10" live whiting intended for cod, and am aiming to fish one rod with a livebait slider rig this winter. Cod are in the river already....

Most of my fishing is catch-and-release, with ALL bass being returned regardless of size.

Tight lines to you all! Graham 

You don't need to spend a fortune on spinning reels. I use a Quantum Drive 30, £29.99 from BobCo in Leeds. Smooth as silk, very light, loads of bearings, decent drag, perfect line lay, no wind knots (with 1.0 Sunline Siglon 8-strand). If you used it without knowing what it was, you'd swear it was a high-end Shimano or Daiwa. It's even better (and cheaper) than the Quantum Throttle it replaces. At that price, you could use it for a season and throw it away, or buy another one and keep it for spares, but I just don't seem to be able to wear mine out...