Burnham Trail-away

[Adam F]

Well - I must say that that was one of the best days I have had out so far. All in all a wondeful day.

 

I think I speak for all of us when I say that we were a little aprehensive before we left - thoughts of launching from deep mud into a fast flowing sea, running the breakers back to the shore and massive tides didnt help!

 

The chaps from BBO SAA couldnt have been more helpful - they assisted in tactics, safety and launching and were a great friendly bunch.

 

....so to the day!

 

The trip there went without too much hastle, just a loose wheel nut on Neo, and after 2 hours we arrived at Burnham. After a quick spot of breakie in the Cafe, we headed to the beach to get the boats ready.

 

We were soon joined by a few Burnham boats, which increased to over 20 by 10am!!

 

All of the PBSBAC boats were launched very quickly by the tractor and at 10.30am we were off!

 

With depths no deeper than 30' and a coffee coloured water it was a little different to the conditions at home. Fish began to bite straight away. BW's final tally was just over a dozen Thornback Rays to 10lb a couple of congers and a few whiting - Ill let the others post theirs.

 

The day passed quickly, as it does when youre having fun, and we found ourselves saftey retraved by 5.30pm for the weigh in and presentation.

 

Ill be writing a thank you letter to BBO SAA and also doing a short article for the forum and BFM.

 

Thanks to all those who made the effort to come and to our navigator - Bob F.

 

....Im off to bed, Im shattered and I have a boat covered in brown mud to clean before work in the morning!!

 

Adam

[Adam F]

Ill post a load of pictures when we add the article, but here was the view at 10am....this was about a 1/4 of the total number of boats!

 

[Maverick Martin]

Yep I would agree with Adam an excellent day.

 

After rising from the pit at around 4.30am bleary eyed and a little (lot) tired Dean and I finished loading our bits into the van then made our way for the 6am rendezvous at the Blandford tescos car park. We were soon on our way and made an uneventful trip to Burnham stopping only once for Neo to adjust his nuts On the beach it was quite a sight to see all the boats congregate for launching which the Burnham tractor soon made short work of. Most of the Burnham boys have 4 by 4's and launched their own boat, we waited for the tractor which soon had us all in the coffee coloured water. All our boats were buddied up with a Burnham boat and our buddy soon had us on a mark. The fish came from the first drop and consistently throughout the day. We lost count of the number of Thornies landed on Maverick but it was in the region of 40, we also had one strap conger a whiting and a few dogfish. Out of the Thornies only one was weighable in the competition and this came in at 11lb 1oz caught by Dean. We whizzed bach to the beach where we were promptly hauled out. After the weigh in and niceties we made our way on an uneventful trip back to Poole.

 

I would like to also thank The Burnham club and also those boats and crew from PBSBAC who made the effort to support this comp. Thanks Also go to Bob for navigating us there and back and of course for Adams hard work arranging it.

 

The return match is i believe at the 29th May when the Burnham boys come to our patch. It would be nice to have a good turnout from our club so please if you can, support it..

 

Martin

 

 

[Paul J]

It was a fun day and quite a sight to see with all the ac tivity in the Beach. Looked like a circus was setting up on the beach with all the tractors etc..

 

We must have picked the short straw as we ended up with only a cod of 8oz

 

Still all good fun and a chance to experience something you normally only read about in Fishing mags- Beach launching

 

Thanks to all who worked so hard on organising it

 

Paul J

[Sam]

i agree with adam and martin, it was a great day goign fishing somewhere i had never fished and fishing somewhere were dad grew up fishing.

 

paul came round at half 5 and we loaded the stuff into the boat ready for a good days fishing.

 

you ever feel like your having one of those days were everything goes wrong well we had one of those days. dropped tackle box beads. swivels and hoooks went everywhere,wheel nuts coming loose on the trailer twice,engine pin breaking so could not reverse and could not lift engine out the water, paul slicing his finger open and chucking blood all over the steering wheel and the cherry on the cake getting the anchor stuck in the mud and spinning the boat everywhere.

 

after all this we got out and instead of following the crowd we decided to stop closer in and go for the cod, we anchored up an hour later no bites so we moved closer in with our buddie boat whos mate had caught five cod.

 

we sat here for the rest of the day with all the boats around us catching cod even cushdy, but we could not get one, i had plenty of bites but they were spitting out the hook.

after this i had a cracking bite and up came an 11lb 8oz thornback i was convinced it was a cod, but i put it back i didnt want to kill it when it could grow bigger for someone else, i cant stand the taste of them

 

it was a great day out thanks paul nice to be out again

 

sam

[Paul D]

Sam,

 

You forgot to mention my catch. One strap conger !! ( still at least it stopped me blanking )

 

Had day off work today as so tired it is unbelievable. Cleaning the boat at the moment - it is incredible how much sand is in it ( In fact that incredible I have taken some pictures to show others how lucky we are with our nice clean slipways. )

and how much blood I managed to lose from the cut on my finger - if we hadn't carried a first aid kit I would have been in real trouble.

 

Our buddy boat were really friendly and it is a shame that we didn't get into the fish to the same degree as the others, but as they said "that's fishing for you".

( and as I said, when you come down we can show you where not to catch as well ). On another day though it could have been a different story.

 

Despite tipping tackle box over / 4:30 start for me / nearly losing wheel of trailer / broken engine tilt / gashed finger - it was still a nice day out and I would do it again for sure.

 

 

 

 

[Paul D]

Try this for a dirty boat ! ( note the nice blood streak by steering wheel ).

[Paul D]

and the waders

[Sam]

wow i did'nt realise it was that muddy mind you i could not see under all the gear.

 

i've got loads of worms left so will hopefully get out in the week with someone before i go back to school.

 

sam

[great white]

Hi All,

 

What a great day, it brought back so many memories not only as I was born and learnt to fish just a little further up the Channel

 

but also to be back on a trailered boat for the first time in years with all of the banter, hard work and busyness that is involved while preparing for any competition let alone one so far from home.

 

Thanks to Martin for inviting me on such a wonderfull boat, 36 knots is a little [???] faster than I am now used to. especially in 4ft of water.

Needless to say that Martin may fill in more details on that one. But the mudflats and the sea are the same colour up at Burnham.

 

It was nice to fish with Martin and Dean for the first time, we had more than our share of Thornbacks its a shame that most were in the 6lb to 7lb size.

My personal tally was 14 and I am sure Martin and Dean had as many so where we were there was no shortage of bites.

Well done Dean for Christening your new rod, and with the heaviest fish on the boat yesterday.

I can not get over standing on your rod but it will go in for a new eye today

 

Thanks to Paul for picking Sam and I up at the house at 0530 and not only taking one very keen teenager fishing all day but also doing all the driving up and back.

If you were tired on Friday I expect you are well knacked today.

 

It was a well organised trip that I am sure would appeal to other Members when it is repeated in the future.

Thanks to Adam and the Club at Burnham for the organisation and lets make them as welcome when they return to us in May.

 

Charlie

latest [occasional] member of trailer section

[Deep Sea Dean]

I personally had a craking day.

 

Makes a change to be pulling in Thornbacks as quickly as we pick up dogs back home. Shame we couldnt connect with a cod or two but an excellent days fishing and nice to try something new.

 

Charlie, dont worry about the rod. Accidents do happen. It performed well throughout the day and did not spoil the fishing at all. Appolagies for biting your head off in the morning. My patience/temper isn't what it should be after certain events that I wont go in to.

 

Thanks to those that organised it all and I will look forward to seeing the Burnham boys down here.

 

 

[Sam]

dad you may have caught more than me but mine was bigger than yours

 

im glad i put it back because i would not have one anything after dad calling me a nugget for putting it back, what a great fighting fish.

 

sam

[Adam F]

If anyone took any photos yesterday could they email them to me? I have just finished the write-up of the trip yesterday, but I need a few more photos before I send it off to BFM.

 

Paul is going to add this to the reports section on the main site also.

 

Adam

[JIMBOB]

Sounds like you all had a good day, would love to go on the next visit.

I couldnt make it due to a revoked fishing pass due to me forgeting it was my outher halfs birthday on sunday

sounds like the fishing's pretty good up there, when rays are as abundant as dogfish down here!

I was hopeing to get out this week but the weather seems horrible,

fingers crossed for the shambles on the 17th

 

Tight lines

 

James

[Maverick Martin]

Adam

 

Nicely written article, perhaps you could forward it to all the mags, including SAN

 

 

Cheers

Martin

[Adam F]

Just had a quick chat with Dick at Burnham - he has given us this link....it seems we are now famous (infamous??!!)

 

http://www.burnham-on-sea.com/boat-fishing-competition.shtml

[Paul D]

6 AM at Tescos ( photo by Charlie Chapman )

[Sam]

wow were famous

 

i had a great time and cant wait to show them how to catch the tope

 

sam

[Bob F]

Yep, what a day!!!

 

Splash-Out's buddy boat "Amanda" took us to a different mark than the others. We went to a deeper mid-channel mark called the Gore(??) Bouy, in 40ft of water.

 

It's a deep channel with a bank to the north side of the bouy.

 

Rob, the skipper of Amanda, told us to anchor up in the channel and tackle up for cod with big squid and rag baits to get plenty of scent in the merky water.

 

It wasn't long before the first bite came, a strap conger of 6lb to me.

 

The tide wasn't strong, so we went down to 4oz leads and bounced them off the back of the boat. Dave M was soon rewarded with a nice bite and started winding in. The fight wasn't much to write home about, so we were calling a small ray or purhaps an LSD. We got a real surprise when a decent Bass appeared on the surface. Dave got pretty excited because it looked to be a PB for him. It was soon in the net and then weighted in at just under 6lb on the boat. Yep, a new PB for Dave.

 

ps - for future buddies of Dave, pleased be warned that Dave gets equally excited about bass, as I do about Cod.

 

Dave got the Bass on a sliver of Mackerel using not much more than a 2oz lead. I'm not even sure it was on the bottom.

 

A couple more strap conger appeared but no rays, yet. Rob advised us to up anchor and move closer to the bank for the rays, so we dutifully reachored.

 

What a good move! Dave was soon into a good fish and had got it halfway up when my downtider started nodding and I was into a fish too. I mangaged to get mine up before Dave's but the lines got into a bit of a tangle. My fish was in the boat (my first ever Thornie of 7lb 4oz), but Dave's fish was still in mid water. We sorted out the tangle and luckily Dave's fish stayed on. He had to out-do me with a 11lb 4oz Thornie!!!

 

Whilst we were sorting out our catches I noticed that my uptider was bent double and about to either snap or disappear over the side of the boat. I prized the rod out and lifted into the fish. All hell then broke loose!!!

 

My poor little Giller Thriller rod and fixed-spool reel didn't know what had hit them. We were into something very big, and for quite a while I was at the mercy of the very powerful runs. There were short bursts of real strength that made me think it was a conger, but I told Dave it couldn't be because it was much too big. Conger only go to around 20lb in the Bristol Channel, and I only had a 40lb leader on, so a big conger would have bitten through it. So, we were at a loss as to what it was, but after Dave's Bass, my bet was on even bigger Bass.

 

The fight went on for 10-15 mins with a terrific tustle of "gain a few yards and loose even more", but eventually the fish tired and started to come up.

 

With the merky water you can't see the fish until it actually breaks the surface. It was close to the surface when it made one last bid for the bottom and made an awesome swirl on the surface. We still couldn't see what it was, but after that kind of swirl my adrenalin was really pumping. This thing was massive!!

 

One last heave and the fish broke the surface and a huge thick grey head appeared from the murk. It was a huge conger!!!

 

"Bl@@dy h*ll", shouted Dave, "that's a bl@@dy competition winner. We'd better not loose this one!" Famous last words!!

 

To be honest, I wasn't even thinking about the competition, I was thicking about how we'd get the beast into the boat. It dwarfed the 38lber I got from the Ledge at Christchuch.

 

In our excitment we totally c@cked up. The only thing we had to hand was a landing net and Dave made an attempt to get the head in, but the net immediately got caught on the line the the hook came free from the corner of the mouth.

 

For a tantalizing few seconds the eel just lay there doing nothing. Dave tried to untangle the net but the fish agonizingly started to slowly drift away on the tide. We made other frantic attempt to grab it, but she was gone.

 

How big was it??? We will never know of course, but with the shear tickness of the head, a length of about 7ft, and comparing it to the 38lb I had caught and the pictures of James' 60lber, I would say 50-60lb, easily.

 

Had we managed to get the beast on board my intentions were to let it go, but after seeing all the prize money being handed out, I would have had a real dilema. The fish would of been worth over

[Newboy]

Hard luck Bob, I'm sure you will go and catch a even bigger one.

[Manic Moore]

 

 

Well I kind of enjoyed the day. Paul was excelent company and it was a new experience for Cushdy and she handled it all in stride except more mud and sand in every crook and cranny which the last of has just been washed down the drain.

 

Only one bite in the day despite plenty of changes and fresh bait going. It was on for a couple of pumps and then gone.

 

Lesson:

 

When you here people catching, go and poach!!

 

 

Thanks to everyone who helped organise a good day

 

 

Regards

 

 

Fishless Moore

[Paul D]

Still, might not have caught many fish over that way but Bournemouth beat Bristol City this evening, so I am well happy

 

 

[Paul J]

The Burnham guys were kind enough to give us sone Cod including a 9lber

 

A thick Fillet in a foil pouch with thin silces of choriso sausage, 2 slices of lemon, sea salt and a dollop of butter.

Put in in the oven and then when cooked put it under the grill and melt cheese on top.

 

Strangley, it was a bit gritty, not too bad but perhaps it's because its been hanging around in the brown stuff too long?

 

Paul J

[Paul D]

Iv'e seen the way you fillet whiting - not surprised it is gritty

[Sam]

proberly fillet it better than i can

 

sam