toerag

Some danforths have a bar in between the 'triping palms' at the base of the flukes - you can connect to this. My 'found on a beach' danforth didn't have one, so I couldn't trip it. I've since got myself a bruce and use a single medium cable tie wrapped twice through the chain & hole in the stock.

MY Garmin had the relevant wires taped back, and I just had to chocolate block the NMEA and GPS+ together on my DSC (Silva I think). Don't forget to enable NMEA on the GPS!

As I said on the other thread - the Garmin 20xx series are cheaper now the 30xx series is out. I have a 2006 and it is excellent - it lives in the cabin, but copes with wet fingers with no trouble. Ease of use is great, and the charting is good. Watch out for the greyscale in shallow water - it's easy to get drying areas mixed up with shallow ones.

I've done it for CEFAS the winter before last off Guernsey - scales should be from the flank of the fish a finger or two's width from behind the gills - big, well-formed scales are bestto read, and you really need at least 3 or 4. pop them straight in an envelope with the length of fish, date and place of capture written on it, along with other notes like fat/thin etc. If you can get a weight too. If you ask CEFAS they'll send you a 'brochure' about how to do it.

Does drifting bugger up the MPG and range readings - Ie. I went wrecking last weekend - it was 25 miles each way, yet I did 66 miles according to the plotter for the whole day. So that's 16 miles of 'fishing', obviously half of that was drifting, the other half motoring back up for another drift. 8 miles of drifting in an avarage day's fishing could create a significant error in your calculations, even more so if bassing in 3.5knot tides.

When my baitwell pump died this oxidation was the cause - it had run at least 2 feet up the cable, and it was in the engine box so never got wet apart from maybe condensation. Apparently proper marine cable is more resistant to it. I also think it would be best to 'tin' the end so all the strands are soldered together before terminating it, otherwise once oxidation sets in the only contact will be on the outer strands.

My two lowrance's had virtually the same size screen, but the increased resolution of the newer one made a big difference. It was possible to discern internal decks on wrecks in 35m, whereas they simply showed up as a solid black lump before. As to the wonders of modern technology - my Koden CVS106 is better than my lowrance even though it's older. Having said that, it's a CRT instead of LCD, and is now suffering a dogy connection which makes the screen go dim occasionally. You'll find virtually all the commercial guys use Koden or Foruno fishfinders. Oh - and dual frequency 50/200khz is a waste of time - you'll only need the 200. My koden runs at 120khz which helps in deeper water.

How powerful are the transducers? If you're wrecking in 65m+ then you need a powerful one. I had a lowrance x71 fishfinder and it really struggled compared to my x88DF. High resolution is great on a sounder, but if you want to see the plotter screen from outside the cabin when drifting then perhaps size is more of a consideration? As for space - don't be afraid to ceiling mount stuff.

as Adam said - big mouths are great for live mackerel. I was using the 5/0's with live mackerel up to 1lb in weight hooked in the mouth and out the top of the nose for ling and bass last year. The odd mackerel comes off (normally instantly), but that's a small price to pay to use such a good hook. The 6/0s have a thicker gauge wire by the way.

Varivas big mouth or Razorclaw big bend - size 5/0 - used for everything I fish for on the drift. Incredibly sharp, and strong, and not too heavy - I've never seen one bend out of a fish, and we've had pollack to 19lb, ling to 26lb, cod to 25lb and conger to 34lb on them. They are about the same gape as a 7/0 aberdeen, but without the long bendy shank that gets in the way. The perfect hook for live launce baits. They don't really rust, but I tend to lose them in snags before they get to that stage. Apparently the sakuma manta is the same hook as well. Also the 10/0 partridge seabeast is what I put on my pirks/conger rigs - think of a modern, chemically-sharpened bronzed o'shaughnessey and that's the hook. They're even cheaper than o'shaughnesseys!

Tom - interesting to note your speed issue - I find the retrieve on my slosh30 is too fast for gilling (apart from shads) - I have to 'crawl' with it and find that much more tiring than reeling in at a more comfortable speed with my 6500 synchro. However - I'd rather crawl but have the ability to get the gear back up quickly than be forced to wind like a nutter all day, especially as I tend to fish 100m+ wrecks quite often. By the way - With sloshes at

I got mine in 1990 for

Rich - what uglystiks are you using, because the 1480 15lb class model is 8.5ft long, and a significantly better rod than the 15lb class uglystik elite. It may not be the lightest rod, but it's a brilliant drift wrecking rod. Other rods you may be tempted by - ABU premium 12-20 or 12-30 - I had a pair of 12-30's and the alloy butts are a liability as you inadvertently tighten the reel seat as they're bent, then the butt can't straighten and they get a premanent bend in them. If you bend them into wrecks with 30lb line eventually you will snap the butt, and we had the tip break on one of them, I think there's simply not enough glass in the blank. They're nice for pirking though. AlderneyBassman has a 12-20 On the subject of light rods - doesn't conoflex do a 6lb class fibreglass 'pollack rod'? I'm sure Ian Burrett on anglersnet raves about them. A friend of mine loves his Northwestern 12lb class carbon jobby - quite a parabolic action that bends like mad with 10lb pollack, yet he's had a 40lb tope on it.

Think yourself lucky you only have one prop.......I found an uncharted rock a couple of years ago with both my duoprops.

If you do a lot of drifting and have the space, then get separate units. Garmin 2006 plotters are relatievely cheap as the 30xx series has superceded them. I have 2006, and recommend the 2006C as the greyscale makes inshore navigation a bit dodgy!

For Sale - Atlantis 20 fast fish/dive/runaround. Cruising speed 28knots top speed approximately 40knots. This boat was built in june 2004, is in immaculate condition and has had one careful owner from new. The engine (150 Mercury Optimax) only has 180 hours and has been maintained to the highest standard. Comes with Garmin Fishfinder 80, Garmin Colour GPS Chart plotter (blue chart technology), Navman 7100fixed DSC VHF, Mercury SmartCraft engine monitoring system, fitted 45gallon stainless fuel tank, automatic bilge pump, manual bilge pump, nav lights, full console cover, 130m warp and chain, danforth and fishermans anchor. Comes on a fully-braked two-wheeled RM roller trailer with sealed bearings.

LOL, I knew someone would ask that! Whilst fishing the boxes are normally stacked either side of the engine box, however weight in the stern of the MI21 really hurts performance, so for the journey home we move the boxes in front of the engine box to improve the trim.

OK, the 'persbox' is the one at the front, and you can see how normal boxes stack perfectly alongside the enginebox on the left. Re: Ling - 6 miles off is the nearest to shore that reliably holds ling for me. Old decayed wrecks (pre-WW2) are best for ling in my experience

It feels even faster when your mate's driving and you're in the back trying to clean fish or the boat!! I crawl round my deck to stop myself falling out!

I've looked up the igloos, they're not as thin as a fishbox unfortunately, and fishboxes are a perfect fit between my enginebox and gunwhales. I don't have time to fillet my fish when I'm fishing, I'm too busy catching them! I have discovered that 70l 'persboxes' (the non-nesting 'prawn boxes') will stack 2 deep under the gunwhales nicely, and they're useful for the bigger pollack cod & ling. So if anyone has any persboxes they don't want then I'll have them off you..... (picture to follow sometime)

How about making your radar reflector into a ball shape instead of diamond, that way you only need the reflector? (yes I know this may not be correct for when you're under way, but it's probably worth doing as extra weight in small boats like ours is a bad idea.)

I suggest you find out where the commercial guys get their ice. Alternatively, your supermarket may have one - that's what I do sometimes, fill a 40l coleman cooler up with ice cubes.

If you fit a tube-type close behind your radar arch it will chop itelsf in half when you fall off a big wave and it hits the arch. Don't ask me how I know that... ! As to the See-Me - Roger Bayzand did an article about it in Sea Angler and reckoned it was great - He kept on getting Jobourg Traffic calling him up to ask who he was! In my experience my JRC1000 will only pick up things like Warrior 175s without reflectors at 1/2 a mile, so get one!! 1/2 a mile is only 'a quick rummage in your bag for a sandwich' at 25 knots! Even if you never go near the shipping lanes there's plenty of nobheads charging round in their powercruisers relying solely on their plotter to navigate. Oh, and if you haven't got radar then when it's flat calm and foggy like it normally is between now and July then you'll miss out on some good fishing!

The commercial boys here 'slush' their fish, then put them in normal fishboxes with flake ice on once they're cold. Slush chills the fish fastest due to maximum skin contact. The popular boxes with the commercials here are the beige www.saeplast.com ones, the B4 model in particular. If you want to compare sizes, a normal fishbox is 60 litres, a B4 is 220l. A B4 costs just under

Pair trawling for bream off Guernsey has been going on for years, mainly by the french. It also goes on off sussex, and probably nearer your neck of the woods too. Although it's not really agreeable, as anglers we have a dilemma - do we stop them pairing for bream for 4 months of the winter and force them to trawl the banks for flatties, or do we leave them to the bream? It's a nasty situation, because if the pair team are displaced onto the banks then there won't be enough bank fish to go round. This will mean the current banking boats will start gillnetting or longlining, and so on. The reason for the potential angler bag limits for all the species put forward is because if there was just a bag limit on flats then people would concentrate on the bass, and so on and so on. Displacement of effort is a real minefield. Currently Defra have increased the pollack quotas in the western channel to try to discourage boats from targetting cod, for which the quota is in danger of running out due to high catches earlier in the year. There is a real possibility of a cod ban this summer. In an ideal world, lack of quota/fish would make boats give up fishing, however fishing is addictive and fishermen just won't give up until they're old and knackered. If you're interested, the pair team doing the bream will be on the banks this summer, both are shelterdecked, one is red & white, the other is blue and white. Both are around 14m long. The French boats I see in winter are normally 20+m long, so in the grand scale of things the Guernsey team is a drop in the ocean.