ChrisE

I've had Deltas before and yes they do hold well, but too well on The Ledge! I lost 2 there before changing over to a Bruce and since then no lost anchors. Just a thought, if you fish craggy ground ....

Yup, the sequence where the RIB turned over, with two guys drifting towards and under the pier with another trapped under the boat was truly epic and must have been frightening for those involved.

It's petrol injectors apparently the same as BMWs, thanks for the kind words.

Hilda Maud hasn't been running well all season, so we took the plunge last week and had her hauled. The yard had tried most of the common reasons for a poorly engine, fuel blockages, etc. Last Thursday they took the injectors out and sent them to Yamaha to have them overhauled. Yam came back today to say that they couldn't understand how the engine was running at all given the state of the injectors, three badly corroded and a fourth broken. They reckon that the engine had been submerged at some point in its previous lives. Beyond repair, so four new ones, just the £800 to buy plus fitting, it is beginning to look like a bit of a bill. We may be on the water this weekend or may be not, depending if they can be easily sourced. On the plus side this might give the engine a new lease of life ....

I sympathise Tony. Our engine has been playing up since it went back in. Still not fixed and on our third or fourth iteration .....

We went out on Saturday om and Sunday pm. Sat was off Milford where we had one bream, one plaice, one dogfish and one smoothhound in about 90 mins fishing, nothing special but all on light gear and the smoothie, around 8lb, kept my brother amused for 10 mins or so. We then tried a drift or two off a nearby reef and caught the first bass of the year on lures plus lost several and had quite a few pulls, all boding well for the coming season. Sunday it was off to The Ledge, where for the first time in a long time there were over a dozen boats trying for bream. We fished one spot for an hour with one pout to show for our efforts then moved up to another spot. My brother caught a bream around 3lb then I had knock and hauled in a 2-3lb edible crab. Took us the best part of 5 mins to get the hook out of one its legs without losing a finger to one of its huge claws. We had two more bream and a pout before the tide died and the YC called. Next trip in early June, hopefully the bream and bass will be well established by then, toodle-pip!

An Infantry Major was about to start the morning briefing to his staff. While waiting for the coffee machine to finish its brewing, the Major decided to pose a question to all assembled. He explained that his wife had been a bit frisky the night before and he failed to get his usual amount of sound sleep. He posed the question of just how much of sex was "work" and how much of it was "pleasure?" A Captain chimed in with 75-25% in favour of work. A Lieutenant said it was 50-50%. A 2nd Lieutenant responded with 25-75% in favour of pleasure, depending upon his state of inebriation at the time. There being no consensus, the Major turned to the Private who was in charge of making the coffee. What was his opinion? Without any hesitation, the young Private responded, "Sir, it has to be 100% pleasure." The Major was surprised and, as you might guess, asked why? "Well, sir, if there was any work involved, the officers would have me doing it for them." The room fell silent

I like the look of the lad who was fishing as they went past, they'd have got a handful of maggots in their direction in my day

Now that we're living in The Midlands with a 3 hour pull down to the boat, planning changes from looking out the window and making a call as I used to when in Lymington, to a long look at the weather and accommodation booking. At the moment, this weekend looks just about doable on Sat PM and not doable on Sun. Given that it is a bank holiday I fully expect the forecast to change to awful Sat, Sun and Mon, improving on Tues to get worse again for the following weekend

We went out for the first time this season on Saturday afternoon. Bloody cold wind plus the usual start of season teething problems with the boat. Both bilge pumps were playing up, one wouldn't start the other wouldn't stop, one wiper u/s and most worryingly not a lot power from the engine but enough for us to pop out for three hours. As we're on this fish recording exercise all fish, all three of them, were measured. We had two plaice at 37cm and 45cm plus 55cm LSD. By eye, I would have said that the plaice were roughly a pound and two pounds but I was interested to see if there were any weight for length tables, so searched Google and found none, other than a research paper that stated that all things being equal a plaice weight for length was the same as a haddock or a bass. Now I have WfL for bass and interestingly they reckon that the plaice would weigh 1 and 2 lbs. I'd not have thought that this would work but on the evidence of two fish it appears to.

A man was marooned on a desert island. One day a beautiful woman arrives in a wet suit. 'When did you last have a smoke?' she asks. 'Five years ago.' So she gets out a cigar and he smokes it. She unzips her wet suit a bit and says, 'When did you last have a drink?' He said, 'Five years ago.' So she gets out a bottle of Scotch and he has a drink. Then she unzips her wet suit a bit more and says, 'And when was the last time you played around?' He looks at her in amazement and says: 'You're not telling me you've got a set of golf clubs in there?' A cement mixer collided with a prison van on the Kingston by-pass. Motorists are asked to be on the look-out for 16 hardened criminals. We will be talking to an out of work contortionist who says he can no longer make ends meet. There was a fire at the main Inland Revenue office in London today, but it was put out before any serious good was done. All those who believe in psychokinesis raise my right hand. For some time, my wife's had this ridiculous idea that I'm playing too much golf. Actually, it came to a head at about 11.30 last night. She suddenly shouted at me: "Golf, golf, golf. All you ever think about is bloody golf!". And I'll be honest, it frightened the life out of me. I mean, you don't expect to meet somebody on the 14th green at that time of night. This is a message for seven honeymoon couples in a hotel in Peebles: Breakfast was served three days ago. French wine growers fear that this year's vintage may be entirely spoiled due to the grape treaders' sit-in. West Mercia police announced tonight that they wish to interview a man wearing high heels and frilly knickers, but the chief constable said they must wear their normal uniforms. It was revealed in a government survey published today that the prime minister is doing the work of two men, Laurel and Hardy. We'll be talking to a car designer who's crossed a Toyota with Quasimodo and come up with the Hatchback of Notre Dame. After a series of crimes in the Glasgow area, Chief Inspector McTavish has announced that he is looking for a man with one eye. If he doesn't find him, he's going to use both eyes. We've just heard that in the English Channel, a ship carrying red paint has collided with a ship carrying purple paint. It is believed that both crews have been marooned. A grandfather has gone missing after eating four cans of baked beans, two cauliflowers and a jar of gherkins. His family have made an emotional appeal for him not to come home for at least a fortnight. I remember that day clearly, because it was the one day there wasn't a sale at Allied Carpets. This joke dates back to 256 BC which, as scholars of ancient Egypt will know, was the year of the famous wildcat strike by the amalgamated union of eunuchs and allied sopranos, in a dispute over severance pay. Since the last joke, I'd like to thank all those of you who have written in with suggestions about what I can do with my act, one or two of you with diagrams. Offers of work have been flooding in. Last week I was invited to go on a round-the-world cruise. By the chairman of the Flat Earth Society. This week I was asked to do a very important after-dinner speech. I said, 'Do you want me to be funny?' They said, 'No, just be yourself.'

I thought that the groundbait might work ....

I know that you like going to France Mike but if we enforce a 200 mile limit, the UK will extend to just short of Paris and take in most Eire for that matter

well, I enjoyed them but don't go fishing for compliments, I'll get my coat ...

Well, I've my diary, notebook and measuring tape. I'll be giving it a go. Whilst I understand the frustrations of data being manipulated/misused any data is better than an opinion and as Rob says without the data nothing can change. By no means perfect but, IMHO, by rejecting any action we're putting ourselves out on a limb with no way of influencing outcomes. I would have preferred the AT to work with CEFAS rather than issuing an outright rejection.