lofty

Listening on the vhf while out yesterday and it was obvious that three divers owe there lives to Fishing boat San Gina

Great skills Mike

two years ago I had a couple of stingray but only around 5 lb. I'm looking for a 20 +

I've edited my first YouTube clip for your enjoyment

Couldn't weigh them but I measured the longest ones with my body.128 cm and 133cm for a common one( I know I know)

It's been driving me and chums mad. A good report one day. The next a blank. I've been there 3 times in the last month or two and it's been crap. With the threat of thunderstorms I arrived at 6 am with the tide starting to ebb Paddled out to the usual marks armed with 6 peeler, a box of squid,and a lb of rag . First hour nothing. Moved inshore. Second hour nothing. Moved inshore. Then they switched on like a light. The lovely sound of the clicker tearing off. I had my Garmin Virb running and I got about a dozen chaotic videos of the carnage the big smoothys make, although I now know the dedication it takes to upload these things. The fishing was awesome. Three hours of cracking fishing. Over a dozen( I stopped counting) and some real beauties in among them. The squid fished well, but the peelers were almost instantly hit. I've got to admit I was knackered. Two of the buggers spun the kayak up tide and one breached about a foot out the water. It's days like these that keep me motivated when it's quiet. Couldn't find the stingrays later on but that's for another adventure Here's a selection of the fish. Some may be the same one. In all the chaos I forgot myself. Size three circles Watch my saltist after 1.40

Got my kitchen job wrapped up last night so had Friday free. We had some rough weather thursday night but xc showed a small lull , with it blowing up again that afternoon. Optimistically I packed my gear . Got down to Branksome chine around ten am, and it wasn't looking promising. It was the Poole charter skippers species hunt comp today and many of them where on Poole Outer Patch. You can see many of them on the horizon I anchored up within shouting distance but not close enough to be a nuisance .I did hear Nigel catch a goldsinney. Various cork wings, a few dogs, and lots of baby smuts After a couple of hours the first white horses showed. That's enough for me to bug out. Paddled back against wind and tide( easy) and tried my mark at Branksome Had a few wrasse but nothing new , and with waves now breaking over me I hit it and quit. Not the best session in the world but not a bad Friday lunchtime

Fancied doing something a bit different today. I bought a couple of dozen lures for a song of fleabag a while ago, so today I thought I'd have a go along the training bank. Took a fivers worth of rag just in case Launched at sandbanks and within five minutes a schoolie . It went for the gold and black rebel minnow. Paddled up and down the training bank using various lures but nothing on them. Anchored up but the weed was horrible. Pulled out a few wrasse on hewys favourite circle hooks, including one nice big one Decided to try the pipe at shore road. On the paddle across hook sands the gold rebel took the second schoolie. A bit snotty so no photo A few more wrasse and a paddle back against w&t Third schoolie Who'd have thought lures work? Landed back at sandbanks and had a chat with a beach lifeguard. She had a bin bag full of jellyfish. She'd had 36 washed up on the swimming beach today. They were feeding all along the training bank. So no big bass. Lots of wrasse and 3-0 to goldie over the others

Window for Southbourne today. Paddled down to my ray mark. I didn't get the memo that it's now my dogfish mark. Had a few black bream, hand sized and female so all went back. Then a welcome trio of these showed up. 3 oily fatties Speaking of fatties Hello tubby So final tally 20+ dogs 3 bream 3 Macs 1 tub And a fooking million of these dustbin sized barrel buggers

I'm out from Southbourne Tuesday . Slice of life on 6 Lofty

Well done Press officer, doing a great job

The boys The gals The off The overall winner Mark Pbsbac and How See you next year

And some of my photos

The following is lifted from AA It's Mark Radcliffes story of Saturday's competition Four days of fishing fun… I arrived at the campsite in Swanage at 7am on Thursday morning to find Martin and Steve already there. Snapper and Shaun were still in bed but not for long and soon plans were being made which the weather did its best to scupper. During the Thursday and Friday I really just wanted to catch an undulate ray, but some time was also spent exploring the reef and checking what was about. I failed on the undulate but learnt some info that I thought would be useful in the competition. It seemed that the water temp was down on usual and there was a lack of mini species. I didn’t catch a goby, blenny or the like for the whole weekend but there were a lot more dogfish, smooth hounds and rays around than usual so I thought the larger fish would play more of a role this year in the main event. On the Saturday morning the kayaks soon started stacking up on the green. After the safety briefing we were allowed to launch from the beach and hang around for the count down. On the whistle I lead the pack out and anchored on my chosen mark. My plan was to spend a couple of hours in deeper water with a target of three species, bream, smoothie and dogfish as well as a possible bonus and then head into the reef for the last two hours for an easy three or four more species. First cast and within a minute the rod was nodding, a bream was soon landed. I cast again and within seconds was bringing in a garfish. The next two casts saw a smooth hound and a dogfish. I had 4 species in less than ten minutes of fishing. I hadn’t even managed to rig up my second rod yet. This was a dream start and the possibility of winning was going through my head. I made the decision to move, there was no reason to stay put hoping for a ray as it could take an hour or two to get one so it wasn’t time well spent and there wasn’t much else I could target out there. I headed to the reef to find Martin and Dane right on my favourite mark. Martin had caught five species already and was off to a flyer, but his five were relatively easy and he knew the deep water species would be harder. I anchored ten meters from Martin and cast out. The fish weren’t prolific but eventually a Corkwing was on board. This was soon followed by another bream and a mackerel. Neither were any use to me and I felt I wasn’t over the right patch of ground. I upped anchor and repositioned. Again I wasn’t happy with where I finished up and repeated this two more times until I felt I was over the right patch. The difference was instant with bites as soon as the bait went down. It probably took ten or fifteen minutes to position where I wanted to be but it was critical to catching fish. A Baillons wrasse was soon on board – a brand new species for me. Now it was just a case of wading through the small wrasse until a new species came up. I had fish every drop, often two at a time. A ballan came soon appeared. Followed by a goldsinny I thought I was on eight species now which I was pretty sure would win. However I decided to give it another half hour to see what else I could catch. Within minutes I had a rock cook wrasse – another new species for me. And next drop a scorpion fish Somehow I had miscounted and thought I had ten species including the mackerel so nine for the comp. It was only 12.30 so two and a half hours into the five hour match. However I decided that was enough. I paddled back to the launch occasionally dropping some sabikis over a likely mark to see if I could tempt a Pollack but nothing showed. Back at the registration I weighed my bream at 2lb 7oz and registered my species. I had miscounted – I actually had eleven species but only ten for the comp as mackerel didn’t count. I registered at 1.03 and was pretty confident as someone would need eleven species to beat me and that has never been done in this event. When people started arriving back it became apparent the fishing got harder as the day went on and although a lot of people had caught fours and fives I didn’t hear of anyone near to ten or eleven, but I never really believe I have won until the results are read out. When they were read out happily I was first and now the proud owner of a 2015 Hobie Outback thanks to Steve at the Hobie Cat Centre. It was great to see Liam getting second place in his first comp, he was absolutely delighted, definitely a name to watch in the future. Also well done to Hoggy on six species in his first Southern event. Considering he usually uses nothing less than a 6/0 hook that was a great result. He spent the Friday watching and learning, asking lots of questions and you can tell right away that he has the skills to excel in these events as he does in the Northern ones. A massive thank you to Starvin for organising, Hobie Cat for sponsoring and all of the other sponsors and marshals for giving so generously with their prizes or time. It was a great weekend as it always is.

Cheers Nigel but don't worry. I use 1 kg Bruce anchors.

And now for the big embarrassing confession. The missing kayaker was me. They had 109 entry forms, and 108 signed in. I printed my entry form off at home and it printed over two sheets. Mine was the only two page entry form. Hence 109 sheets and 108 signatures. Apologies for the delays. It's all a learning process and a lesson learnt is not to trust me with a printer. Cheers chaps Lofty 67 Darbys Lane Oakdale Bh153es

Not on the day, weds I think

Anyone know this one? Photo taken by a Swanage competitor, I thought it was a cracking good photo .

Today was the 6th Swanage Kayak competition, and once again club members went the extra mile to support this event. It is a fundraiser for Swanage Rnli and in the past the organisers were quoted £1000 for a support RIB to attend the meeting, which would have to have been taken from funds raised for the RNLI By our club boats volunteering in the past and today , they are directly raising those funds by giving their time and expense in supporting the kayakers participating. So on behalf of the 108 kayakers, and all the team behind the scenes, and the service users of the RNLI, a huge thank you to Chris, Neal, Martin, Stuie and Jim, and thanks to everyone who gets behind the clubs charity Heroes on the Water. Tight lines chaps

What an absolute stonker. + Dolphins

Didn't weigh it Malcolm Maybe 3lbs. I've had them before but this was bigger than those. I've just looked up and specimen is 4.5lb

Arrived at Swanage and met with some other local kayak anglers Anyway conditions were sh1te. 18mph sw and foggy, lumpy and cold. Fishing was slow but we winkled a few out. The Swanage bream mark was not doing the do. Gave up on it and moved out to deeper . That done the trick. A few of today's , not including the dawgs. Hope we get better weather this Saturday Ballan Bream( returned for next year) Spot GB Coocoo cetchoo Corky Ballions Topping up We're out of here Peace http://i1099.photobucket.com/albums/g388/photolofty/2015/65A10A84-A3C3-413F-A26C-538F43225D9F.jpg

Happy birthday Jim

Kingfisher at 5 minutes