What a day

[Maverick Martin]

Dean and I decided to take advantage of the small tides last weekend and make for the offshore bass marks & wrecks

First stop was at Brownsea Castle to stock up on livelies, after half an hour we decided that wasn't going to work so off we went to see if we could get some mackerel.  First drift at our chosen banker mark off Swanage saw us getting as many joey's as we needed in quick order.

Bait sorted we then sped off to our bass mark some 18 miles offshore.  Half a dozen drifts and zilch, nobody at home other than Tope which bit off our light lines and cuttlefish that ate the head off of every other bait we sent down (kept one cuttle for home)

Moving on we went to several wrecks non of which gave up anything to write home about.

 

Our tally for the day was several jumbo pout, red gurnard, one solitary 6/8lb pollock a couple of tope and cuttlefish.

We ended up closer to Portland than Poole and some 20 odd miles offshore covering around 80 or so miles in total for not a lot.

 

Lessons learned are that wrecks don't fish that well on mean neaps and that we need to invest in new rods as our current line up of aging equipment no longer seem to work......................well at least that's our excuse to go shopping

 

[great white]

Sorry to hear that the trip was slow, well done on the joeys, may have to find out where they came from

 

Tides seemed to be moving on the ebb, but very little flood.

 

Its a real bummer when the tope and cuttles get to the baits before the target fish. Dan and I thought you would be rounding them up on the 18 mile banks

[Tarlach.]

Unlucky Martin. Shame it was little reward for a big effort. Still, better than being at work though eh


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[Steve S]

Good effort Martin, offshore bass on a small tide are always seem to be a challenge and yes wrecking on very neap tides seem to be more often poor than not given the cost of getting out there I avoid it unless putting the hook down for ling and conger. I don't do that a lot, not that I've had a ling for years! It's ok having a pop for them on an Alderney trip as we are out there anyway.

 

There has been a bit of a resurgence of macks, I was out on Sunday and had some everywhere i fished, some pushing a pound and others joeys, I heard other boats had no trouble finding them either. There seems to be no rhyme or reason for their comings and goings.

 

I fished a bank about 5 miles south of the light, not where I intended as that spot had a couple of charters on it already, the joy of radar I was able to see they were on it before i could see them so switched mark without wasting fuel. A decent double figure blonde ray and a couple of tope was the result then I moved to some rougher ground at the change of the tide, that produced a conger probably just shy of 20 and a near double thornback, later got a fair bass to a livebait. Just for a change the weather got better and better as the day moved on. So good to be out after a week working indoors.