What A Wonderful Skipper

[Bob F]

What a wonderful skipper Adam is.

 

He made the major contribution to catching the bait, and then did the honourable thing and allowed his crew (me) to catch all the Bass.

 

We went out this morning on BW to fish for Bass off the IOW. My objective was to catch my first bass using live Mackerel.

 

The mackerel played hard to get, and after 1 hr we had only caught two. We eventually found a shoal 3 miles south of the Needles, and reeled up enough to last us 3hrs of the flood tide.

 

Back on the bass mark things started off slow with no takes, but after the tide reach 2 knts we had a short session that brought 3 bass to the boat for yours truely. Biggest was 5lb, which was returned. Adam declined to let any of the bass steal his hard caught mackerel. Quite right! I think he was also trying to make Gordon feel a little better after his blank.

 

Neo was also out and struggled to catch any mackerel, so they resorted to Storm Shads, and perhaps surprisingly, they did the trick. Neo had 3 bass by the time we left at noon.

 

Wonderful style of fishing.

 

Thanks Adam for being a sport!!!

 

Bob F

[Adam F]

What a difference a few days make....

 

Saturday, we fished the same state of tide (albeit a little bigger) and the mackerel were aplenty and the bass were crawling up the rods.

 

Today - a complete reversal.

 

As Bob said the mackerel were hard to find - I have never known them that bad - 2 hours without a single fish, and then when we did find them we only had a couple of full strings - then they went again.

 

The bassing was also hard, but Bob came through with a splendid effort of 3 fish.

 

I had to be content with just netting and skippering - I'm sticking with my line that I only took Bob out to catch fish!!

 

Anyway - I suppose thats what keeps us coming back!

[Paul D]

Took a day off work to see what all this talk of bass was all about

 

Bought some fluorocarbon line, plenty of weights and swivels and booms then proceeded to leave them in the car at the slipway

 

Steamed out of Wick to catch Adam and Bob up - we were doing 13-14 knots out which is not bad for Neo. Tried for some mackeral off the end of the ledge - nothing apart from a large horse mackeral.

 

Decided to steam over to the bridge and drift around there for some mackeral - at last.... we found mackeral but supersized ones !

 

Tried some drifts using one of the large mackeral whilst Steve ( my crew ) was fishing using a white storm shad. After 5 or so drifts, Steve hooked into a bass but lost it as I was messing around getting the net

 

Next drift and Steve caught another bass and this time netted it and we at last knew the stormies would actually work ( as Shytalk mentioned in an earlier post )

 

I decided that the mackeral I had was far too big and now as we know stormies were catching, switched to fishing a stormy. Straight into the ledge and lost it

 

Tackled up again ( whilst steaming the boat inbetween for another drift to keep Steve fishing ). This time it was my turn and a bass of around 2-3 lbs took the stormy ( This was after having around 3 fish take the lure and swim upwards at a rate of knots so that by the time I reeled in the fish had spat the lure out ).

 

Another few drifts and I was in again. This time a bigger fish of 4 lb 2 oz ( weighed on dry land ) - my best of the day.

 

A few more drifts and the last bass of the day hit the lure like an express train ( I was convinced it was a bigger fish - but still a reasonable 2-3 lbs again ).

 

Wind was picking up again by now, so we tried a quick fish in Totland but the weed was horrendous, so steamed back to Christchurch.

 

Overall a great day and hopefully next time will be able to find some joeys, but stormies were pretty effective.

 

Oh and I forgot the fluororcarbon but amnesia did the trick

[duncan]

Paul,

are you retriving the stormy's quickly through the water or trying to keep them near the bottom by going a bit slower and constantly dropping back?

[Paul J]

Nice one guys, those smaller Bass do hit above their weight, I had a 2/12 lber take my rod overboard recently, luckily i retrieved rod and fish but it was close!

 

Paul J

[Newboy]

Where about is the mark? Is it just the Needle bridge? How far from the lighthouse is regarded safe?

 

I am taking Sweet Honey out tomorrow, cos I want to test the new tranducer, making sure it works ok.

[Paul D]

Duncan,

 

We were fishing the stormies just off the bottom but you have to be careful to keep the weight just off the bottom as it is well snaggy.

 

I used the technique that Martin ( Maverick ) showed me, where drop to bottom and then wind up a turn or so. Used a long leader but kept failing to hook fish so shortened the leader to around 4ft.

 

I fished mine using a slow lift and then a slow drop etc. The bass hit the lure hard when they decide to take it. I was using a simple sliding ledger ( flying collar would be better I think ) and my friend was using a Portland rig ( I tied a Portland rig and then promptly lost it first drift ! )

 

The white stormy my forend was fishing seemed effective when it was brighter but as it got cloudier my white and black striped stormy seemed more effective ( cant say how the mackeral/bluish stormy owuld have faired as it was lost first drift !)

 

Good fun however and good to actually succeed using lures - bring on the next big tides