Sat 22nd

[duncan]

Having replanned this weekend more times than I ate a hot dinner last week it was with some trepedation that we headed out of the harbour and thick fog......

 

Meeting up with AWOL we agreed to give Dean's inshore bass mark a go - although we expected to be fishing strips rather than live joey's is was apparantly a bank, and stuffed with flatties etc etc etc

 

A short motor later we get to the mark...........

 

 

as you see we quickly settled down to anchoring in the slight and AWOL was instantly into fish - I will leave them to their report.

 

we started slighty slower but got into our stride pretty solidly after a quick cuppa!

 

Dave had an early blonde at 14 and later moved ontl tope, dog's, conger and huss. Having landed this huss on a redwolf spinning rod and small fixed spool even I was impressed!

 

 

more next post

[duncan]

meanwhile I've managed a few tope to 20, a matching blonde at 14lb and some smaller rays.

 

I thought I would post these 2 pictures as an illustration of the difficulty of identification!

 

Firstly, at about 4lbs

 

 

and then this at 3 1/2lbs

 

 

interesting eh?

 

overall we had a great day out and throughly enjoyed the fishing. as a bass mark we thought it sucked - but dean continues to maintain a different perspective! in any event we have agreed to name it 'Y-ray' for obvious reasons!

Edited September 22, 2007 by duncan

[Maverick Martin]

Dean and I decided to get up early (for us) at 6am. Headed down to the boat at Rockley and found the thick fog as Duncan describes. This carried on right until we got to the fuel barge where it cleared. How disorienting fog is, I was sure I had travelled further Any how the rest of the day was fine weather wise with just a residual swell with a slight chop over later.

 

We went to the 50/50 banks first to feather up some mackerel. They were there but not in abundance. After an hour of feathering we had enough for Duncan and ourselves who by then had joined us. At this point we decided not to go with our original plan of go west but try a mark we had acquired but had not tried yet. We had been told it was a Bass mark but with the small tides only pushing us over at about 1.3 knots we gave up after a couple of drifts and anchored it instead.

 

I dropped my mackerel strip down and within a minute or two had a fish on. It was obviously a large ray and in even the small tide took what seemed like an age to get to the surface. It turned out to be a Blonde Ray of 20lb 8oz.

 

 

The fishing was steady after this with some quality specimens thrown in. Best fish of the day for us where: Dean 9lb 9oz (so we no the mark holds Bass) Me with a 20lb 8oz blonde, 15lb 1oz blonde and two cracking Bullhuss one of 12lb 8oz and one of 12lb 10oz

 

Deans Bass

 

 

Don't you dare bite me

 

 

12lb 10oz Bullhuss

 

 

All in all (Bream fishing aside) one of the best days we have had this year. We will definitely be going back

 

Martin

 

[daz]

nice catch lads some day ill catch a bass that size

 

duncan are those both spotted rays??

[Paul D]

Is the first one Spotted and the second one Blonde.

 

Spotted the spots go right to the wing tip. Blonde the spots dont reach the wing tips ?

 

Is this correct ?

 

[duncan]

my view is that the first is a blonde and the second a spotted. In this Ihad the advantage of a 14lb fish being unhooked to compare - and unless dave then returned a britich record spotted this is how they 'matched.

 

I understood blondes have spots to the edge

The spotted spots are generally darker and better defined

However the spotted usually have 4 darker whirls which aren't present here.

The kicker is the wing shape, especially trailing edge and towards the tail.

But then again I am no expert and could be wrong here.

 

Great bass Dean -

 

A new pb I understand so if you want to email me the full size file I can arrange a print for you.........this from the image posted

 

[Paul D]

Or its the other way around - Spotted spots dont reach the tips and Blonde they do.

( The wonders of internet searching )

[Paul D]

Also in searching I found there is another clue in the mouth shape.

 

See Fish ID

 

Apparently Blondes have a more square shaped mouth and Spotted have a more rounded mouth.

 

I confir with your view Duncan.

 

Goes to show how easy it is to mix up spotteds with blondes.

 

Somewhere on here is a picture of the first ray I ever caught on Neo and this started a "is it Spotted or is it a Blonde" discussion. I will dig it out and take a look as if it was a blonde it is the first known example from X-Ray

 

[Fugazi]

Fugazi

[Paul D]

Gordon,

 

Yes - you have a problem with your radio. Called you as you waved ( Fugazi can be spotted from miles off with that flag on the front )

 

[great white]

Well done Guys

 

Both on the excellent fish and the searching out and finding a productive new Mark

 

It looks as if Y ray may give you some good sport in the future

 

Nice one

Charlie

[mw]

Dean and I decided to get up early (for us) at 6am. Headed down to the boat at Rockley and found the thick fog as Duncan describes. This carried on right until we got to the fuel barge where it cleared. How disorienting fog is, I was sure I had travelled further Any how the rest of the day was fine weather wise with just a residual swell with a slight chop over later.

 

We went to the 50/50 banks first to feather up some mackerel. They were there but not in abundance. After an hour of feathering we had enough for Duncan and ourselves who by then had joined us. At this point we decided not to go with our original plan of go west but try a mark we had acquired but had not tried yet. We had been told it was a Bass mark but with the small tides only pushing us over at about 1.3 knots we gave up after a couple of drifts and anchored it instead.

 

I dropped my mackerel strip down and within a minute or two had a fish on. It was obviously a large ray and in even the small tide took what seemed like an age to get to the surface. It turned out to be a Blonde Ray of 20lb 8oz.

 

 

The fishing was steady after this with some quality specimens thrown in. Best fish of the day for us where: Dean 9lb 9oz (so we no the mark holds Bass) Me with a 20lb 8oz blonde, 15lb 1oz blonde and two cracking Bullhuss one of 12lb 8oz and one of 12lb 10oz

 

Deans Bass

 

 

Don't you dare bite me

 

 

12lb 10oz Bullhuss

 

 

All in all (Bream fishing aside) one of the best days we have had this year. We will definitely be going back

 

Martin

 

Nice to see there are still some fish out there what a good day you had .

Good fishing lads

[Neal]

 

Well fished guys - looks like saturday was the day to go.

 

Fishing on Sunday not quite so productive or anywhwere near as pleasant.

 

Neal

[Paul J]

Fabulous Bass Dean.

 

Well done mate

 

PJ

[Deep Sea Dean]

Cheers Paul,

 

I was well chuffed when I landed it, felt sure it was a double but still a PB for me so no complaints.

 

Looking forward to giving that mark another go, a very good days sport.

[Paul D]

Just realised that I forgot to congratulate you on your fish Dean ( and Martin ), got sidetracked on the recognition of blondes and Fugazi's radio.

 

Cracking fish and sounds like a really good day out.

 

[Mike Fox]

Looks like a brilliant trip all.

 

Well done on some cracking fish.

 

Mike