Sunday bream outing

[Death Trap II]

Finally managed to get out this year on sunday. Got out on the water from Rockley at 9:30 after traffic was light. 

 

Was a bit choppy getting out, the forecast was for a north wind, but it was firmly from the east and was a bit rolly in the bay, but we headed for the middle patch. Tried to employ my limited anchoring skills to get over the mount on the western edge of the patch as it was marking lots of fish, but some inconsiderate lobster potter had laid his string right across where my anchor was dragging, so we gave up and moved closer to the other boats.

 

Started seeing something really encouraging, huge schools of tiny bait fish swimming about 1 or 2 meters under the boat, and they just kept coming. The water was so clear that you could actually see them. I have never seen that in the bay before in that much water. We managed to pick up some mackerel when we finally saw them chasing the fry on the sonar. But i was surprised at the relative lack of bigger fish chasing them. 

 

But we were after bream. just after we arrived most of the other boats started leaving, tried not to take it personally. But minutes after they left, about 2pm, it started going crazy. We started with a big female, but we let her go given the season, but it went nuts. the second your bait hit the bottom, they started attacking it. Sadly we didnt get any more keeper size males, but it was good sport. There were lots of tiny pout, and the hard part was keeping them off the squid long enough for a bream to find it.

 

any advice on keeping those pout off your bait would be gratefully received as i didnt know what to do. Keeping a small hook and bait for the bream was making life difficult.