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Thursday 16 th Dec.


Leicester Fisheagle
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Well I finally managed to get out on a beautiful calm sea. I got the 07.30 bridges and managed to arrive at the Spoil ground at around 08.30.

 

The slack water was just ending and it was action from the off. Congers, doggies, pout and small whiting. But, the strong tide soon ended that and I made a hasty retreat to the Sadler Banks. it looked liked everybody else did too.

 

It was then very slow with only doggies for the next 4 hours !!!!

 

I went in further to a slower tide, but that did not show anything either.

 

At 13.30pm I made a last minute decision to go back out the the outer Sadler Banks as the tide slackened.

 

Got the rods back down at 14.00 and then all hell let loose.

 

Once the whiting had got the sent, then bites were coming thick and thin along with the whiting on board. Only a couple were keepers so I have posted a photo of it's size. Being on my own I did not want to stay out too long so I lifted the hook at 14.45 and headed back to Cobbs.

 

As I was on my own I called up the Hengisbury Head NCI and they plotted my positions every time when I called them. Very reassuring.

 

Note to Self, do a bit of homework on the tides before planning a trip. However, it was a great day to be out. 

 

 

 

 

 

The Spoil Grounds 16 12 21.jpg

Whiting Caught 16 12 21.jpg

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Went to the 50's area with Yan and Frank Morris. Arrived around 10 am. And left about 2 pm.

 

Four rays including a 9 lb Small Eyed. Good number of Whiting with the majority of fish between 1.25 lbs and 1.75 lbs. Three over 2 lbs and a single clunker at 3.5 lbs. Other bits and bobs included Dogs and Congers

 

Saw quite a few boats including Bobblin who joined us for a short while. A successful short session. It was nice to be able to see clearly through one eye again. Looking forward to the next one being done. Will try and put up a few photos that Yan took.

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Similar story here. I was near the Spoils and had blondes, conger, whiting pout and one mackerel. The fish were mostly at the start and end of the ebb but it went dead in the middle. Interestingly nearly everything took frozen mackerel and the expensive californian calamari I paid a small fortune for hardly got touched.

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 Ditto. I only use frozen Mackerel when fishing for Whiting. Whiting will take squid, but if Mackerel is on offer I believe it is their preferred bait.

 

However, when fishing for Cod, then I have only caught Cod on Squid. I even caught a Cod on an actual frozen whole squid once!!!

 

 

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I generally judge a Whiting keeper on it's size and what fillet size I would get out of it. The fish I caught illustrated above was just shy of 450mm. I got two reasonable size fillets off of it. Out of curiosity I searched the Southern IFCA minimum conservation reference size for a Whiting and it is 270mm. 

 

I think this is quite small and I, personally, would not go for anything less than 380mm.

 

Just my opinion !!

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For whiting size to take home, I put any possible takers in the livewell and then decide which ones to keep at the end of day. That way if I get quite a lot of big ones the smaller ones which on another day I might have kept get returned. There is only so many whiting you need IMO.

 

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I try to be good regarding sizes, only keeping some from about 1.5lb plus, Six is probably the absolute limit for me

 

That said I have put a few of that size back at the start of a day for them to go off the feed later and only have a couple of smaller deep hooked ones to take home.

 

Or have six in the box, then start catching much bigger ones at the end of a day.

I should really keep the live bait tank onboard all year, and do as Steve does.

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