Windy Saturday.....

[alun j.]

Got out at last.....on what seemed a beautiful spring morn....with the sea warming quickly [ it's gone up 1.5 C in the past week] , it's now close to double figures [ surface water about 20 cms. down].

 

Stopped briefly on the Ledge and jigged a string of large Hokois whilst the tide was slack ...... and quicly found pollack....... masses of tiddlers in some spots... and a few larger , takeable ones in the deeper spots on the edge of the ledge...... a good start!

 

Wanted to try Poole Patch by coming from Mudeford....... just under 6 miles from Ledge...... about 20 mins on a gentle sea..... but [ sods law] , just as I get close, up comes the wind and out goes my Garmin [ fish finder / depth gauge] { i feel blinded!!}....... wind over tide / very uncomfortable !! but I stuck around longer than all those trip / charter boats and picked up a few nice [blue / boy ] bream before the increasingly freshening wind started pushing disconcerting waves into the side of my little boat!! So I retreated [ slowly] back into Christchurch Bay, with a bit of shelter from Hengistbury, I used up my juicy ragworms hooking loads of small bass..... alas nothing sizeable [ whatever that might be these days ??] but it is good to see healthy stocks of little ones for future sport ??

 

Had to wait for enough water ,as I was gaugeless, and will now spend Sunday sorting out my electrical prob.

 

Cheers, Alun.

[Paul J]

Alun,

 

good to hear from you

 

see you out there soon

[duncan]

Ah was that you drifting with Ron? Don't recognise all the boats yet I am afraid.

 

We too ran out early and decided to 'go west' because the conditions were so nice! A couple of hours on the area about half a mile short of St Albans delivered one feisty dog so we moved in to the cliffs, working aour way right back to Anvil stopping every so often, and had some fun with Wrasse. Some reasonably sized, and very pretty fish, but nothing over 2 1/2.

 

Back to plan A, which was ballard, but that just proved frustrating with the wind so strong that we were going East against the full ebb! One good sized Gar for our troubles.

 

Plan B was the outer patch, started a drift (on the wind against the tide again) from Middle Patch to North of Outer, then over Outer and off to the North East. One small Pollack.

 

Ran back in around 1530, washed off the tackle, put boat to bed and headed off home.

 

Nice to be out but not enough action to hang around in those conditions and claim to be enjoying it after the first 6 hours!

[alun j.]

Duncan,

 

No , not me!! I was on my own........... out in my little blue & white Orkney 4 40;

 

also trying to figure out the vectoring of wind and tide ....... and disliking the bumpiness of wind over water!!

 

Normally I anchor up or tie on to a buoy..... but yesterday had to drift.

 

Question : when drifting and you get a bite, do you strike straight away ..... and miss lots of bream ?? At anchor I usually let them 'develop' a bit and hook more.

 

Electrical problem solved...... blown fuses!!...... sea water getting into 'waterproof' fuse holder!!........ must have been all that bumping about.

 

Roll on next CALM weekend........ tight lines,

 

Alun.

[duncan]

makes me feel a little better - the only other craft I saw on the outer patches was about 23ft Colvic style, Ron and one other Charter a little S, maybe True Blue. This was 1330 - 1530 ish.

Assumed from your post that you were the colvic thingy.....now know better!

[Adam F]

True Blue is not the little Suffolk she once was - Steve now has a mother of a Cleopatra! - Beast of a boat!!