Sunday 14th Trip out

[Coddy]

I was invited out with Allan, Frank & John on Fisheagle last Sunday.

The aim was to try the Rips/Brittle Star area as neither Alan, John or I had fished there and it seems now is a good time to try.

 

Having helped Alan top the tank up on Saturday we all meet down at Cobbs for some unearthly hour of about 6AM!!!  

I didn't know that this time still existed!

Anyway we soon all aboard and ready to cruise down to the bridges for the 6.30 lifts. It seemed there were a number of others who also got up early to get the bridge lift, mainly the rag & stick brigade (sorry Mike)

 

Once out of the harbour speed limits Alan opened her up a bit but there was a short chop which made us drop the speed to make things more comfortable at around 16kts.

Dave Lynes and others had given us quite a bit of advice about fishing this area and he said he would be out there, so when we nearly reached a suggested mark there was Wessex Lady with Dave on board. A quick chat and we headed onwards to check out the Rips firsts.

Going out we had a slight problem in that the fishfinder would not show any depth or contours   so we were fishing blind, not good.

We all agreed we needed to buddy up with Wessex Lady if we could to see if we come up any fish by following there drifts. So nipped back to where they were and explained our problem and would they mind if we followed, that seemed no problem and that's what we did for most of the day.

 

I was the first to catch a cod (well codling) which really pleased me as I have at last caught one after a 10 years of living down here.       They seemed so easy to catch when I fished on the East Coast but down here I always seemed to be unavailable when they were in and free when they had gone!

Frank was next to catch one unfortunately Alan seemed to keep loosing gear and John was having problems as well.

At the end of the day I managed 3 the biggest was 61/4lb not huge but fish at the end of the day.

 

While we were drifting I kept think why the sounder was not working as it worked fine on previous trips out, everything seemed to point to an electrical connection fault,  so I persuaded Alan to see if I could see have a look at the transducer position, which is a in the hull Airmar unit which had been moved from the original location as it was discovered there was a double skin at the back of the boat and moved to a more central location. I undid the fixing screw and undid the lid to find that there was no fluid in the mounting! I could see some light oil stain in the bilge so guessed it had leaked out over time. Alan had some oil on board so I topped it  up and screwed everything back, switched on the sounder and hurray we had depth and contours.     :lol:  

Alan could now see why he lost gear.

 

By this time we decided to head in a bit a try a couple of other marks to see if anything was about, we managed a few different fish to top up Alan's species list but nothing of special interest apart from a couple of mackerel, where have they all gone?

 

Soon it was time to head in to catch the 6.30pm bridges, in all we travelled almost 70 nMiles, caught some fish and learnt a lot about an area that we had never fished before. We also fixed the sounder, albeit a temporary fix until it can be sealed correctly but we did notice that it was missing a seal/O ring which Alan is now trying to source.

 

Thanks to all the crew and Alan for the trip out and to Dave Lynes & Wessex Lady in allowing us to follow your drifts.

 

 

 

 

[Reel Wizzard]

Glad you had a few fish,we went off to try for a bass when we had enough of the cod (codling) but never had or saw any.

[sparky]

Well done fella's, you've now earned your nickname Dave !!!!!  

 

 

Mick.

[Rob]

sounder not working - "can we follow you" - haha I'll remember that one, nice!

[Leicester Fisheagle]

Many thanks for the report Dave and well done on your first Cod. A good day out and all part of the learning curve. Nice to try something different for a change. Looking forward to fishing one of the other new areas we have talked about and thanks to the crew for their help and a nice clean boat. Sorry you didn't all get free drinks at the end of the day as we didn't quite get enough new species.

 

Allan.