A trip with a bit of everything!!!!!

[Mal Thomas]

Planning started on Friday, bait, invites and scheduling. Purchased bait now I must keep it alive, set fridge to 10 degrees, that should do it. A push off at 6.30am was planned due to a Springs and boy did it come in quickly. A Cuckoo decided he was going to make himself known at 6.30 am, it was beautiful listening for 15 minutes at very close quarters. The Plan was a trip across the Bay for some Plaice. Easy trip across the bay, nice a smooth. Then I saw a bank of fog coming over Old Harry, at it's worst 100 yards visibility, time to engage the radar and it worked well and I could understand what was being plotted, bonus. On our first drift we heard amongst fog horns a  channel 6 call from John on Kelly's Heroes, he had made a similar plan and had some early success, nice to hear a call out on Channel 6 for PBSBAC on the VHF. We had a few plaice and gave it a few hours till the weed got underway. Then I moved off and noticed my engine note changed and I hoped I was being a DQ. Dropped the Anchor on the secret ray mark, that had actually turned into a Secret Bream mark, no rays.

We had a busy time with double shots of Bream. Then lifted the Anchor for a slow trip back, good job we did because the engine started to run on 3 cylinders and vibrating. Not good and would we get home, the power dropped off and we were limping home with a developing problem. Managed to find a sweet spot in the miss firing mode to get us home. A Long wormy wash down and a look to see if we had a loose spark plug lead, nothing spotted, however the engine did seem to run better at the end, so I am hoping it was fuel contamination. The engine has just had a big service, so I am hoping for a good outcome. I will call the engineers Monday for a diagnostic check.

Btw my radio issues did not repeat, so SS on Tiger fish you may have an issue, please check your radio. It was a good weather day at Sea and sharing another day on board with my Bro and bestie doing the same drifts. Thanks Chris for all your support today and I hope you found a few more.

A day with a bit of everything.