Steve S

Jerry, the S/S cable alongside the anchor, does it work ok?

Turbot of 6lb and 7lb caught on the Shambles bank.

Those images you googled are very impressive, note however the sonar operating frequency 1.1 to 1.2mHz. I don't know of any normally available sonar equipment that work at that frequency, please correct me if you do. The higher the frequency the higher the image resolution and generally the less depth they will work to. Also tarpon are big fish, they are going to show up well even on a 50khz outfit as a large inverted U.

Well that's a good use of side scan, well done

I don't get it, Lymington Yacht Haven let you pay on account, it does cost a couple of pence more per litre that way.

The Mack's are still thin on the ground, I tried repeatedly on Monday in various places and didn't get one. The May rot is somewhat patchy, nowhere I saw was clear, some places quite dense. Lures are still working but not as well as in clearer water. It will be interesting to get a report from someone who has been fishing somewhat offshore. There are a few bass around now. A trawler has been working off Southborne for plaice. A charter tried for them on Monday had 10, all small.

Well done Jerry, sounds great. With so few females around (I didn't have any on the Ledge) and full of spawn it suggests they haven't started or at least not completed spawning (some spawn more than once) so I see no problem taking males.

What is it with your steering rams Charlie, you so often seem to get trouble with them, maybe another problem in the system causing it, like particles from the pump and/or dirty ATF. I replaced mine more than 6 years ago and never touched them since. See you on the water guys, I'll be trying for bream initially, don't want to put too much of a damper on things but Alun has just told me the water is pretty dirty with the May rot.

Thanks for all your suggestions guys. Hopefully relaunching the Friday.

My mate Boz bought one of these for not very much, it had a De Villiers 250cc engine. He bought it in Winton, drove it down the hill at the end of Moordown followed the road round to the left, proceeded to roll it right across the road onto the grass! got out, left it and walked home. He drove it for all of a mile then wrote it off on the first bend he came to. A couple of days later at night he retrieved the engine, god knows why. It had an electric start which didn't work but there was kick start you could use if you opened the bonnet clambered on top and shove your leg in the innards. That was how he got it started to drive home, quite how someone disabled was supposed to do that wasn't clear... A death trap of the first order.

I had a Ford Cortina mk IV as a company car which featured an automatic choke, wow. It was useless, a starting preventer, if the engine was half warm like after visiting a customer it was 50/50 if it was going to start. I had a set of tools and sprays all ready to get it going again! Gave such a good impression [emoji2957]. It wasn't that great from cold either! Repeated visits to the garage got nowhere, and being a company car I was stuck with it. Finally it did it's 60,000 and got shot of it. And then there was...

I've never had diesel bug on Tigerfish and the filters have always been pretty clean when changing them during the annual service, however, the boat went onto the hard in early Feb and due to the lock down it's still there, that over 3 months and counting and it pretty warm at present. So I'm starting to get concerned about the possibility of diesel bug brewing away, any recommendations?

Likewise Charlie, well they are lucky they are out working, if not enough money is being made then furlough everyone. I have furloughed all my staff, only the 2 directors are working on a very minimal salary, we have applied for a bank loan. I'm not asking for sympathy, that's the way it is I'm just getting on with it as best I can. I'm pretty sure that many restaurants will not survive this and if that means there are less commercials around I for one will be glad, it's overfishing that pushed up the price of fish in the first place and if this reduces the pressure on the fish, good.

The leader of the most powerful nation on earth speaks, so we should listen, shouldn't we...

Well possibly Terry but it would also have to take account bringing on board the business of the anchor, you might swap one problem for another. Another way to reduce the problem is a much large diameter roller, this could be made from bolting together rough cut kitchen cutting board blocks then turning ideally in lath or at a pinch on a pillar drill. The problem is there must be enough clearance to accommodate the increased radius of the roller. On the whole I think we await the results of the S/S cable, clearly it works on some boats and as solutions go it is pretty simple to implement.

Well I have about 4ft of thin floating rope attached to the end of the anchor shank with a loop on the end. When tripped (I usually know when it's popped the trip) with the anchor still in the sea (saves it banging again the hull) I use a boat hook to hook the loop and raise the rope up to the boat, then with the thin rope in hand I pass it over the bow roller. Using the windlass to recover the chain and me pulling on the rope I can ensure the shank comes over the roller. With the anchor now resting on the boat a new trip can be tied. Doing this with a 15kg is no problem as the windlass takes most of the weight. When I first started using this method I thought the thin rope might tangle with everything but it never has. When it's rough it adds to the fun hooking the rope [emoji3].

Some sort of cheap metal clips might work Jerry like a low quality s/s one would need to check the breaking spec and test it out [emoji3]. Would be a bit of a faff to fit but then would not often trip. That 10mm stainless wire you have must be pretty flexible, I have some about 10mm off Mike Fox's old mast rigging I use as a mouse, there is no way that it will bend round that eye. We just need to wait god knows how many weeks before you can try it out.

Thinking about the steel cable idea, the cable will be able to run closer to the anchor arm so there will be less distance ( leverage) for the roller to work on to break the cable ties so might be enough to do the trick. BTW, For the trip I use a few turns of thin rope knotted, the winch can break it but only with effort, I only want it to trip as a last resort. It's a 15kg anchor and a heavy boat, cable ties just won't cut it.

I have the exact same problem Jerry. I now have the chain painted at the stop point and hand haul the last 0.5m. Something of a minor nuisance and need to keep an eye in the waves so not ideal. I tried a few different means of fixing but nothing worked, the chain always is above the anchor as it comes over the roller. Very interested to find a solution, do let us know how you get on. Yes use nylock nuts to hold the cable ends, I would add loctite as well to be sure.

Tarpon of 170lb, caught on a swimmer crab on the ocean side of Islamorada May 1999. It was my first tarpon and a whopper. I first knew something was up when I saw a huge tarpon leap high into the air about 50m away making a big arc against the sky... then my line started running off the reel, after 5 days of trying over two trips to the keys I was starting to lose hope, to say I was slow on the update is an understatement! Forty minutes later I was knackered but so was the tarpon, as it was my first one and huge specimen to boot, I was super keen to get a photo of the fish and me with it so jumped off the boat. I wouldn't do it again as I only thought about the sharks later!

Great skills Jim, well done

6th April 2008 (exactly 12 years ago today), Bream fishing the ledge in a snow storm on John Skeggs old charter boat. Most of the guys were just drinking tea in the cabin! When we came back in the land was white and the kids in the road had built snowmen! As I recall we caught 3 bream of no great size.

I've worked from home for 22 years, I go to the office in Basingstoke 1 or 2 days a week, I run the company with another director. Like Andy I can be up early and also working late as most of our business is international. When I'm working I'm very much working so Diane often complains she doesn't see me much even though I'm in the same house! I quickly found that if working at home all the time it gets depressing, problems seem worse, there is no banter, phone calls and video calls help but there is nothing like going into the office regularly. If I lived near the office I would work there almost all the time but as it stands it's 1 hour each way so that 2 hours less work done a day. Some people are unsuited to home working, they get distracted too easily.

The Shambles beckons, I may overnight in Portland, sleep and eat on the boat.

The islanders will have it totally to themselves, just how they like it!