A Week Of Ups Downs And Sideways

[bootlegger]

Myself and Dan have been all over the place this week. On Monday we fished Christchurch Ledge for the first time proper and I really enjoyed it. (PS Thanks Bob for the PM really helpful and we'll fish the bridge next time).

 

We set out from the blocks at 1pm and stopped off at Hengistbury to feather. I got one joey, Dan thankfully was hitting strings of them. Apparrently the reason was, I was using silver feathers and Dan was using the white paper feathers from Castaways (who according to Tim and Alan there outperform all other feathers that they stock).

 

After filling the fish bucket with Mackeral (PS We hit on the idea of putting water in the bucket and aerating it from time to time (a sort of live tank, only it's a bucket)). Good Idea, but dont, all that happened was that both of us and the cockpit got damp.

 

We then fished along the length of the ledge starting at the end toards the needles and worked back.

 

I was downtiding with sandeels, and whereas before I couldn't catch a single mackeral I went through about two hours catching nothing else.

 

After about 6 hours we had boated four different species including Wrasse and pollack and Dan caught a rather nice 3lb Bass, which is not bad when, in the case of Dan has only till recently done most of his fishing from the shore, he was v pleased with himself.

 

We noted when we boated it the bass chucked up a peeler (although it was caught on mackeral) and when Dan took it home and fillted it it's stomach was full of crabs.

 

Then after having an enjoyable pleasant day time for home, only to discover the leg wouldn't raise (subsequently found out due to a knackered solenoide). So unable to trim the engine properly we limped home at 16 knotts.

 

 

Yesterday at 10.30am, a bit blowy, but we'll be alright once around Old Harry and into Swanage Bay. Yeah Right.

 

We feathered for Mackeral about 1 mile from the end of the pier parrallel with the Peveril Buoy, as usual didn't catch squat, but did catch a pollack (out of sympathy no doubt).

 

Dan managed to boat a single sorry specimen and we then spent the afternoon drifting along Ballards into Swanage Bay, there were a couple of other boats fishing nearby but they appeared to blank as well.

 

We ended up right at the last we some rattling good bites but struck out each time, probably due to the fact by 5pm we were too busy hanging on to the gunwales.

 

At 5.30pm we called it a day and returned in increasingly snotty seas, and that's that for another two weeks.

[Maverick Martin]

Tim

 

Sounds like you had a good week with a few fish, can't be bad

 

Martin