TomBettle

Tuna have been taken in nets of Keyhaven and likewise in Portland Harbour, but these are very small fish. Probably either young Albacore or small Skipjack. These are by no means unheard of and a few are caught right along the coast accidentally by commercials every year. They definitely aren't targetted as Albacore has very little commercial value. There have always been unusual or should I say unexpected species of fish all around our coastline. Don't be fooled into thinking Bluefin are a tropical fish or even an accidental visitor. They have turned up all around our little set of islands on a relatively regular basis. Jersey to the highlands to the western approaches, up the Atlantic coast of Ireland and through to the North Sea and way beyond into the Baltic and even arctic waters. They are not in large numbers and don't make their presence well known, but they have always been there. Always there, but only in real numbers when the quantity of food allows and when the commercials have laid off them and allowed them to recover from near extinction. I have a number of friends who are far less gobby than me that regularly target (regularly catch is not the right words) various species of Tuna and even some species of Billfish that are known to occasionally visit what could be considered "our" waters. Tunas Albacore, Bluefin, potentially Big eye, Sharks Thresher, Mako, Greenland Billfish White Marlin Slimmest chance of a Blue Marlin Broadbill All the above are theasbly targetted from boats running out of British, Irish and Scottish ports. Big game fishing takes many hours of hard slog, but sometimes the impossible does happen.

Not! Met up with John Jeffries at Weymouth just before sunrise yesterday morning to spend a day aboard his boat "drifter" after the mythical Bluefin Tuna that have been supposedly chasing bait shoals around the Bill. I had brough three rods along which were pre rigged and ready to run. 1) Penn Waveblaster 12/20 with TRQ100 real loaded with about 500 yards of 12lb braid topped off with about 100 yards of 20lb mono finishing in a double tied with a bimini twist to a big game swivel 2) Penn Waveblaster 20/30 and TRQ200 reel similarly set up 3) My treasured Alba custom built, "Tuna Tamer 30" and Penn Formula 15Kg John had bought his new Penn Innerguide 30 and Torium 14 and also a UK stand up stick rated 30/80 with a TLD 20. Despite the heavy rating and plenty of power, this rod was really rather nice. Within half an hour the boat engine was warm, John's rods were rigged with bimini twist doubles, big game swivels and 80lb five foot leaders and lures attached. Now a Raider 18 is a pleasant enough boat, but was never rigged with trolling lures in mind and so had no flush mount rod holders, but this was no problem. She did have a set of four "rocket launchers" on the transom and the fifth rod would be wedged in place and held fast by being tied to the lanyard of a bucket! A lovely orange glow was appearing above St. Albans Head as the first lure was set. Attached to the Alba rod a Rapala Magnum CD22 in purple and black was slipped right down the centre line some 80 yards or about 11 waves back. This was to simulate a struggling fish, left behind by the rest of a schoal. Typically we would have set this one deep on a downrigger and that was the plan, but with limited space to cobble a makeshift downrigger together we allowed it to run with out any hindererence. Next, outriggers! Yep you heard me, outriggers. Using the rail mounted rod holders on John's boat we employed two 12' beachcasters complete with reels mounted and line thread through the first two rings. Attached directly to the line were two Popper style lures with the hooks removed. These were sent back into the wash at about 15 and 20 yards respectively where they worked as small, but definitely effective teasers, popping and burping their way along and creating a nice little smoke trail behind them. A length of 100lb mono was now wrapped around the rail of John's boat and up through the remaining eyes of the "outrigger" before having a zip sider threaded on and the two ends tied with a swivel. It was now a simple job to send my 12/20 and John's 30lb rigs back to the 8th and 9th waves running 7" Williamson soft Mackerel lures. Using elastic bands clipped to the lead link on the zip slider they could simply be pulled out to the tip ring of the "outrigger" to create a spread of over 30 feet wide. Not bad considering it was being totally bodged. The final two rods had Rapala Magnum CD22s attached and these were run at about 25 and 30 yards behind the boat respectively and to keep them well apart more elastic bands were utilised to bring the line down to the cleat on each side of the transom. This had the added effect of creating a "flat line" to the water which allowed the lures to dive a little deeper. Now the rods stacked in the rocket launcher on the transom didn't look conventional, but we had an effective five lure spread running complete with two additional teasers. Drags were checked and set at about 4lb or so whilst running with the ability to run up to about 7lb at strike on the two lever drags and close to 14lb at sunset for these two. The other reels were star drags and more guess work was needed, but we were now running up the east side of Portland and trying to manage our expectations. Anyone who has trolled for Pelagic fish anywhere in the world will know that this can be a waiting game. You can go days or even weeks without seeing a fish, but it doesn't mean they aren't there. The hardest part for us was that this was our first ever go fishing for a fish that we suspected would be there, but had no proof apart from a spear fishermans picture. We were telling ourselves that this was nothing more than an experiment and don't expect too much, but this style of angling really is rather alien to UK boat anglers and so boredom and perseverance will always be the hardest things to control. Especially until techniques, knowledge and equipment are all refined. One thing that kept me positive was the belief, enthusiasm and trust that some truly great anglers / boat captains in the big game world had in what we were doing. Roddy Hays, Adrian Molloy, Trevor Gunning and even new big game captain Oliver King had all been enormously helpful with advice and sharing knowledge, not to mention quite a bit of kit in due course. I am proud to have these guys as friends of mine and their belief and genuine excitement in what we are doing back here in blighty was a tremendous boost. So with the sun rising to the east we headed south. Huge balls of bait were showing on the sounder as we kept to the relative shallows of this area and drove following the 20m contour line. A few birds eyed the teasers with interest whilst others sat lazily on the water. The odd gannet dived like a missile after the occasional Mackerel silly enough to stray near the surface, but hour after hour nothing. We tried to hold ourselves as close to four knots through the water as we could. We rounded the Bill, still following the winding path of the 20m contour and headed through the rough of the race and on down the western side. Back up on the 30m line and we began to head across to the Kidney Banks to follow their contour patterns. "That area screams Giant Tuna" were the words of Irish record holder, Adrian Molloy and they rang in my ears, but as we crossed back over the race even on a neap tied it was building into something very uncomfortable for a small planing hulled boat running at displacement speed and with green water rolling up the screen and confused waves washing over the gunnels it seemed prudent to turn back towards the Bill to face the conditions. The next couple of miles took literally three hours with our speed over the ground down to about 0.8 knots we headed back towards the mussel beds and the West Shambles Buoy. As the tide slowly eased we headed back along the original 20m contour and then doubled back across the shallower still 10m lines looking for the bait balls we had seen at first light. Little sign of the bait now, but this time and the only time our hearts began racing there were very definitely some very large returns on the digital fish finder display. No not the random blue with orange fleck "clouds" you see when passing bait. These were bright orange and red, at about 20' through 30' and the overall return of each coming back on the screen was a flattish oval shape. I cannot possibly say what these were for sure, but they were much larger than a Bass or Pollack return and each one was almost definitely coming from a single mid water object with each one being fairly uniform in size. Still, no hits, no screaming reels and no conclusive proof. A fairly long day doing something we really are not used to. Boring? Yes, in a way. Will I do it again? You bet I will! I need to find out what those big blips were!

Unconfirmed One of the local Weymouth marine engineers took a Bluefin yesterday on conventional tackle and a mackerel flapper on the east side of the Bill.

If I am incredibly lucky and do snag one then my first will most definitely be coming home. Not as a trophy, hut it will be bled and dressed by the time we dock, however if I caught more than one then the remainder would ne released. On the subject of frenzied... I drove Phil's dive boat on Saturday and there were an unusually large number of spear fishers launching from Kimmeridge, hut in Weymouth today not a hint of tuna mania.

Hoping to get out if weather allows on Tuesday to genuinely target these mythical Bluefin Tuna that just may be hurtling around after the large mackerel shoals all along the South Coast. These are smaller school fish so whilst tackle needs to be strong it also needs to be forgiving and we will be starting off lure fishing so the rods need soft tips. I genuinely don't expect to catch anything, but it is going to be a lot of fun giving it a go. I am off out on a friends Raider 18 from Weymouth and I've been getting some amazing advice from the most famous man in Bluefin Tuna fishing this side of the Atlantic, Mr Adrian Molloy who used to run "Tuna Charters" out of Donegal and now holds the Irish record fish of 968lb. In addition to that I am very lucky to have another living legend as a good mate, Mr Roddy Hays. Roddy was the chap that put Tuna and Marlin fishing on the map in Madeira back in the early 90s and if you go back through grainy old John Wilson programmes you'll also see him in the Alderney features where he used to be a charter skipper. Roddy now runs a company in florida called "Legend Lures" and he's kindly packed up a sample of magical sounded "whizzers" to run behind the boat. Pixies, Nemesis, Roller Trollers... things you have to imagine in your mind. Finally a company I hope you will all be hearing more about soon, FishXL run by former pure fishing marketing man, Trevor Gunning will be loaning some specialist rods and reels. Got may own gear too including a number of Rapala Magnum CD22s, makeshift downriggers made from heavy rods, outriggers complete with teasers running from them made from beachcasters complete with reels attached... All sounds fab, but the chances of catching are genuinely tiny, however the more prepared we are and the more advice we absorb the better the chance. I'll let you know how we get on, but if the amazing happens and we do get a few we'll probably keep one each for sheer gobsmackingly amazing reasons and then return everything else as they are an incredible fish that is very much endangered in the north east atlantic.

Top left of gill plate. Think it's a bigeye, possibly a small school Bluefin. Defo not a Yellowfin.

Huge Plaice Martin, fantastic!

Sorry Oli, don't know. I've just avoided Ebay for it since I heard

Hopefully these guys have the common sense to allow other boaters some courtesy so won't cheese off anglers. They also got enough sense to ask for some tuition which is better than much of the Birmingham Navy so fingers crossed these guys will be half decent. Cheers for the advice regarding the run. I'll point out they need to be very careful.

Yep, keep off my marks it's too busy already PJ You'll love these guys... Sports boaters, got it for water sking etc.

Arrrrrg! It's my day off and if only I didn't have to get Natasha on the school bus! until 11pm?!

My braid of choice is Power Pro which when I buy is typically bright yellow or bright red. I use 12lb for wrecking on the drift and for general bottom fishing through to Tope on light gear and then step up to 30lb on my 20/30 rod. I think I have one reel with a different braid on it and that is some very thin green stuff which is OK, but gets a bit fluffy. EDIT: Just checked your link and see you are looking at Power Pro. Around the world it is probably the biggest selling premium brand of braid. Be a little careful buying off Ebay as there have been mention of a few fakes on there.

Thanks Rob Brilliant. Anyone with any tips for Christchurch? Those tides look ideal for tutition over those days.

Hi Guys Need a little help if you can. I am doing some client tuition probably over 18th and 19th of this month on their new sport boat up at Beaulieu Gardens about a mile up from Christchurch town centre. The tuition will mainly involve boat handling etc, but will involve a little local information on using their boat on the Stour. Can you help!? Firstly I could really do with being directed to some online tide tables for those days or be lent a tide book. Next, I know the run can be tricky, but won't be heading out unless I know we have plenty of time and tide. However, can any of you locals offer any advice or tips for the rest of the harbour? Cheers Tom

I suspect the bucket load of scallops had something to do with it! Not with me though, of course I was simply trying to help a mate out!

I can be there from dawn, but need to be at the office from 10.00

Bad luck chaps.

Ebb is east to west and flood west to east. Out mid channel in our neck of the woods once running properly the ebb tide actually runs ese to wnw. Also, a common cock up is to assume that high water on your tide table coincides with the flow direction swapping round. It doesn't. For example, high tide this evening is at about 19.30, but the flood tide mid channel is still moving until about 21.30 / 22.00

Nah. not CE marked and it wouldn't get more than a CE cat C anyway...

Yep, geat system for short chain, no use if using a proper length of chain as we do for deep water. Good idea though.

LOL! Generally speaking I am not sure there is anyone better in the club.

Glad all of you are safe and well. Mistakes do get made which most of us learn from, but above all, another time the club shows it's colours with such great members helping each other out. Bad luck Charlie. No damage I hope? Tom

God I love Catamarans! I am soooooo jealous Tomo.

Nothing big for me. Biggest Pollack, 11lb 4 Biggest Cod, 10lb 2