skips Blog
Hi all
I 'm terrible at keeping this up to date but the wife's badgered me to do this months update so here goes,well to be honest the fishing been pretty good overall with some lovely cod up 24lbs which, are lovely fish in any one's book ther's not masses of them around and you do have to be persistent and bare in mind if your competing against 10 other anglers lady luck may not smile on you but just to see such quality fish come aboard is a bonus! A few bass are starting to show our biggest so far around 6lb again not lots about yet, but there numbers will increase as the year goes on. I tend to start targeting the bream about now, again they will increase in numbers as the year goes on our biggest haul to date 5/7/11 is around 20 but most of them are 2lb/3lb plus over the next month we can hope to start catching 50/60+ per-session [but no promises] You really do have to fish for them this time of year trotting back in the tide if possible with the right rigs and keep the line tight if there biting and allow them to hook there selves, i've seen some customers look like there having electric shock treatment trying to strike into them,the most important tip i could give is make sure you don't cover the hook point. There's some nice smooth hounds around falling to crab baits i do struggle selling the idea of targeting something that the customers can't eat which is a great shame because on light spinning rods these little sharks are great fun ,i would encourage my customers not to fish with any rod heavier than 20lb max and 8lb/15lb will give you much more fun playing fish also lighter soft tip rods DO catch more fish as the hook is less likely to pull out last week i had a 17lb cod on my spinning rod whilst fishing for bream,set your drag ,take your time!
I should just mention i am quite passionate about marine conservation, fish and there habitats whilst we encourage every one to take there fish home to eat there are some species we like to see returned were possible i.e congers unless deep hooked/smooth hound/ rays as they are slow to reproduce and any thing near its minimum size, bass for example min legal size 36cm they don't breed until 45cm ! put the small one's back and the BASS GOD will reward you with a decent fish,i've seen it happen.
Take Care Tight Lines Matt
Well i'd like to say the fishing been been brilliant but to be honest its been a struggle especially with the bream our best haul last week was 35 the next day on the same mark it was a struggle to find half a dozen,this could be just because there were'nt so many in the area as bream are a Shoal fish and do move around combined with the fact they may just have not been feeding, the following day i spoke to Chris who runs Channel Warrior who said he had his best days on the bream on the same days as us which suggest its not location,location,location but just being lucky enough to have the little gits feeding on the day! Plenty off congers about at the moment a few ling and it shouldn't be long before the trigger fish turn up.The Tope are about which was made evident by a string of four and a half mackerel last week the half was still twitching when swung over the rail !
Take Care Tight Lines Matt
Dawn Mist is back fishing full time now that I can venture out of the wheel house with out getting frost bite. Channel whiting fishing has been the best I can remember for years, stacks of good fish up to 4lb. We were out yesterday {4th April} and most of my anglers managed a bucket full each, along with 7 good smoothounds to crab baits, must of been a" boys away day" as they where all male's and hit the baits at the same time chaos rained and with lines criss crossed every which way we looked like a floating spiders web, I even had to put down my tea and come out off the wheel house to sort out the mess, D’oh.
On the same mark we had Plaice,Skate, Herring and Mackerel interestingly the mackerel has been with us all year, on the 30m mark, it's in the summer we can struggle to find them!. On the last couple hours of the trip we moved to an inshore wreck to try for some Pollock having strapped on there rubbers, down they went into the crystal clear waters of Lyme Bay to have there tackle tugged by Pollock up to 10lb, all in all a good mixed bag for the day. The Pollock fishing’s been good, a fortnight ago out with the Gannets Sea Angling Club whilst fishing the open ground we hit a shoal of Pollock most into double figures the best running to 18lb these fish were caught on the open ground so next time your steaming off to a wreck at WARP SPEED remember one thing, your passing over the top of far more fish than your going too!
Take Care Tight Lines Matt