ChrisE

Chilly start from Lymington saw us acting as ice breaker to get out of the marina. Out to The Spoils for 930, baits out and the wait began and continued to be honest for most of the session. Other than the usual LSD, pout and whiting no bites off bigger stuff until a thornback about 4lb turned up on the last chuck before offsky and more icebraking to get back onto the pontoon. This really is the end unless of course we get some calm weather in the next couple of weeks to have a crack at the blondes

Panic not! Weather back to good again. At least during daylight.

Don't forget your longjohns!

At present Saturday looks calm, if a bit chilly, for one last pop at Mr Cod. I'm wavering over whether to go for one last go...

A real whopper, how did it get past the car park?

Nice fish, fly caught?

Thanks Nigel, on your cuttlefish again!

Got out there for 9, with a chilly breeze and not a lot happening initially. Then as forecast the wind slowly died away to a flat calm as the day wore on. To cut a long story short we ended up with a couple of codling, 3 eels, the usual array of pout and LSDs and a whole host of whiting up to about 3lb. Also dropped a few fish, suspect eels but could have been bigger cod. We stayed until the end of the flood, all in all a nice day on the water, probably the last for the cod. Probably boat out and serviced ready for the start of the plaice season. Although we've had a reasonable cod season I'm really looking forward to getting back to lighter tackle and hopefully some warmer weather.

Both Sat and Sun (!) looking good now, although met office being cautious about what is really going to happen.

Hilda Maud will be out, assuming that the weather holds. Whether Mr Cod is still around who knows?

Made me smile this morning You'll need the sound on to make any sense of this.

In the interest of posting real fishing than just the red letter days a short report about yesterday. Fished from 10-1 at the same spot where we had a good day on Saturday, arrived at slack and quickly caught enough whiting for tea and then not alot else when the tide started to flow. A couple of conger, some dogs and pout and that was it. No big bites that we didn't hit. There wasn't a lot of tide about (flood was due to run from 10 - 5 and it wasn't a big tide anyway). Still the sea was nearly flat and it didn't rain and it was nice to get out, something we won't be doing for a week or so looking at the forecasts. Roll on Spring....

Friday saw me on my own fishing for a couple of hours, fairly quiet and ended up with a cod 10lb and a load of decent whiting. Trip two today with my brother saw a 9 o'clock anchor down in reasonable conditions. Missed a bite within 15 mins, then opened with a 20 ish conger, whilst this was coming up my brother had a tug which resulted in a 13lb cod. Good start. 30 mins later another bite and after a bit of hauling up comes a 15lb cod, better. 30 mins later another take which runs off then nods a bit, I was thinking small cod or big whiting when up pops a bass and not a bad size, 9lb it weighed and in spanking condition, it went back to continue growing. Finished the day with a fair sprinkling of whiting up to about 3lb. So a good day was had by all. And Nigel, all caught on your cuttlefish!

On Tuesday, we had fish on a mates boat in The Spoils, most of the fleet was concentrated around that area, although surprisingly few boats around given the good conditions.

First trip out since the end of November, off to the car park. Very pleasant day with a reasonably small swell and not too much wind or other boats. So that's the good bit over. Battersea dogs home must have filled up over Christmas because most of them were sitting underneath my boat. I've never had so many and these all on 8/0 pennels and baits bound up tightly with elastic... Half of them had just grabbed the bottom of the bait and wouldn't let go! Also had the smallest conger that I've ever caught, about 2lb and managed to lose a good fish on the way up although didn't have it on long enough to work out whether is was junior's dad or a noddy. Still, weather looks to be set fair for the next week, so will be catching up on lost fishing time

Blimey, that's one big flounder! Well done.

Looks a longer weather window emerging from Sunday onwards...

O rub it in why don't you? Had planned to go out today but called it off last night. Well done Nigel, looks as though the rest of us will have to wait a while for the next weather window! Chris

For God's sake let's hope that we get a break in the weather soon

Fwiw it is absolutely flat calm at Keyhaven and Lymington at the moment.

Just watch it all the way through.

The weather gods may be relenting for a little bit, it looks as thought the wind will haul round to N midday tomorrow and stay there for about 36 hours. So who is up for it? Not me, I'll be in France (it was almost inevitable that the only flat spell would occur when I' away for the weekend )

FWIW, we have a few which we bought in the US a few years ago and I use them as the 'weight' for mackeral feathers/lures to give the bass something to chew on if they are below the shoal. I've had a few fish on them but have have never tried them as pure jigs.

Apologies, I did hear the shout but was a bit busy at the time and by the time I wasn't busy, I'd forgotten (yes, I was 60 a couple of weeks ago.....).

Went out yesterday to everyone's favourite cod spot, The Needles plus a bit south. Even on a Wednesday we counted over 30 boats within a mile of each other. For a change the weather was calm and the swell small, was out my mate Jim who has been commercial fishing and boat building forever. He directed me to a new mark, to me anyway, where we anchored for the ebb. First chuck, rod nearly dragged out of holder by powerful fish, I'd not slackened the drag so it took a while to get the rod out of the holder and into my mitts. After 5 minutes of speculation as to the identity of the leviathan up popped a conger of 30+ lbs. Not the target species but a nice start to the day. Then it was dog feeding for the next 2 hours until we noticed a mooring buoy skipping past the stern. We both remarked that this was unusual and I casually said that it looked a bit like mine except that it's attached to the rode. Oh no it wasn't.... So we were really looking forward to manually dragging up 100m of rode back into the boat when Jim hit upon the idea of using another buff on a piece of rope instead of the original. In short it worked a treat, retrieved anchor and then zoomed off 1/2 mile to pick up rogue buff and we're back in action. All this excitement got us up for a move, so we moved a bit further south to a mark that I have on the plotter under the name of 2Cod, 'cos I caught 4 cod there last year in a sitting (don't ask...). Anyway the mark lived up to its name and with first chuck out on dead on slack up popped a 17 1/2lber followed by a 10 about an hour later. My mate Jim was a bit disappointed with his tally of dogs and pout but we had a good laugh, especially when the third 'cod' pumped up from the deep by yours truly turned out to be a mega pout plus 2 other lines and leads..... Looks like the last weather window for me for a while, I hope others get out there.