Steve S

Sorry to hear that Charlie, what on earth happened?

In China.

Alun suggest you eat anything that's going to go off in the hamper before it does . A silver lining.

Surely the southern part of Holes Bay won't be dangerous, it might not be pleasant though, it's all around moored boats anyway.

The tides on the weekend around the 2nd May look ok and also over the weekend of the 15th May (slightly smaller tides) so for the second year running the early May bank holiday is on a big tide. Fairly small tides is what we prefer in general to avoid drifting across the banks too fast for the turbot's liking and then resorting to dragging metalwork to slow us down. Personally I've noticed the very smallest tides have not resulted in too many fish biting and that goes to for the wrecking too, even more so. I'll probably plump for going on around the weekend of the 2nd May with 15th May as a reserve. Some of the banks around Guernsey have been fishing quite well for turbot in recent weeks. Last year I thought we did 'ok' for the flatties, I'm certainly looking forward to going again, but I don't want to think about it too much before Christmas.

Haha, Alun has finally caught up with the 21st Century Rob, he has a smartphone!!! , one of the last holdouts succumbed, just on a bit of a learning curve... it's posted on photo of the month. I'm just so pleased there was actually some cod caught on the day, good to see plenty of entrants.

11lb, yay, we got one

Plenty of fish on Tigerfish today, mostly of the long slippery variety, also rays, bass, pout, whiting and.... 1 cod 11lb exactly to Steve Photo to follow once Alun has figured out how to get it off his phone [emoji3].

I wouldn't bet on it Stuie! We will however be giving it a go. Just been down to Barton, it's flat flat flat out there [emoji3] Now if the comp was biggest cod or if not biggest whiting, we would have a winner.

So poor cod count then

What's the chances of a cod, well.... not wishing to put too much of a damper on it. I've heard of a 6 pounder this side of the IoW and a 16 pounder in the Nab area, zippo from the Solent. There are lots of congers around (I went out on my own yesterday and it was almost hectic) , there are whiting to be found on some spots but by no means completely widespread yet. Anyone else got any intel?

Madness - Dean - Jim - Martin Reel Magic- Dave- Mick Serenity - Tony - Ian Tigerfish - Steve, Alun

How times change still 1 - 0 but this week against Man U!

Re: we have a deal? Fraid not Paul, I have a Targa 31 already. I was giving some objective views as a Targa owner based on what I saw on the photos and text. I love my Targa, they are expensive but work really well in our waters, they are well designed and made from quality materials so stand the test of time.

This is one well used Targa over 6000 hours on the engines. The inside looks pretty tired, to be expected with that much use. It's also not setup for fishing at all. The MFD is quite old and well outside the normal line of view for the helm, the usual place for the MFD is where the engine control and instruments have been placed.

Many thanks for all the input, I was looking for a lure rod for the boat to handle better some of the heaver lures I've been chucking around. I've gone for a Savage Gear XLNT3 Lure Rod, can cast up to 100g.

Thanks Jerry, I took a look at the Majorcraft range, there didn't appear to be anything suitable for handling lures in the 40g to 90g range, except for 1 slow jigging rod. Quite pricey too at £150 and upwards.

I am in the market for a spinning rod that will handle casting lures in the approx 40 to 90g range. Any recommendations?

Well done Jerry and Kev. I managed to get Tigerfish out for a few hours in the late afternoon on the flood, there was continuous rain and as the evening gloom set in, fog. Being on my own so not needing to worry about everyone catching I had a go for bass with a whole bunch of different lures, catching as many bass as possible wasn't the objective, just trying to compares lures and fishing methods, ie a learning trip, catch a bass on one, switch lure. Best bass went around 6lb with some others of good size and a wrasse or two as well. The lure experiments are a work in progress, so no conclusions, needs many trips for that.

Great trip you had there and great report Charlie, I really enjoyed reading it. Thanks for making the time and effort to write it up. I'm currently in Cambodia in the rainy season, it's worlds away. Lots of fish around here and water! I don't think I'll be writing a trip report, but over a beer!

I don't winterise while my boat is in the water. Except to make sure the outside fresh water shower head is drained down (it cracked once). While on the hard I use a low power heater if it's going to get well below freezing.

I agree with Brian 100%, use a dedicated antenna for the AIS, for the best results from both VHF and AIS, that how I set mine up. The AIS antenna will be about 70cm long. Sharing antennas and reduced signal strength is quite well documented, also the ideal AIS antenna length is different for the VHF as the frequency is different so although it will 'work' it's far from the best. The AIS antenna does not need to be particularly high, on top of the cabin roof is fine, higher is better but the improvement in range is fairly small, mines on the cabin roof and it appears to be good for 10 miles at least for the ships.

The sea horse sounds like a legit catch, guess it was rather hungry...

Tigerfish, no Rays. A late start, Diane doesn't do early! Tried a new offshore mark, lost a tope and that was it. Went over to my banker blond ray bank and it let me down. Failed to catch any fresh mackerel either so fished with frozen the whole time which didn't fill me with confidence. Sounds like I should have fished inshore.

Tigerfish: Steve, Diane (not fishing)