TomBettle

Hi All I am about to leave for the boat show so (lucky for you lot) won't be on the forum for some time. If any of you make it up to the show, Jeanneau have a pretty good display of larger cruisers and the like on stand S2489 and it would be great if any of you wanted to say "Hi" as it breaks the monoteny of the show. On the 28th and 29th January I am officially openening our office at Salterns Marina so if any of you fancied an hour or two away from the usual you would all be very welcome to come down for a glass of bubbly or a hot drink. We will have a stack of boats on display from a few fishers through to some of our biggest Prestige line. Even if you just want the free champas or just to cat about fishing then pop along. See you all soon Tom

Fantastic And it looks like I have managed to avoid being featured! Cough cough, Martin knows what I mean....

Flat out will use about 80 to 100 litres a hour and cruising about 45 to 55 litres an hour based on the figures given. She shouldn't need trim tabs to hold her on the plane or get out of the whole quickly with the power house provided so check the beam and lateral stability as a lot of the American sports fishers are pretty narrow and a little rocky. Check it has fully self draining decks and doesn't just dump water in te bilge to be pumped out. Looks quite a smart boat, but freeboard looks very low. Make sure it is CE plated as it is a US import. Don't even sniff at it if it isn't. Check the owner has full chain of title including VAT invoice from new or on import. And some decent service history. If all the above checks out fine definitely get a survey. It may make a fantastic boat, but be careful. Give me a call if you want some help Adam. Tom

..... Doesn't a wig go on yer head and a cod piece go on your wotsit? ...am In taking this too seriously? Tom

Hi Charlie You would be more than welcome to come along! Most of the Weymouth wrecks we fish are usually due south or to the west so I would suggest you had a stop over with us in Weymouth as it woul be a hell of a steam from Poole unless you fancied meeting mid channel en route to Alderney for example... For that matter any of the PBSBAC would be welcome to tag along if they are safe / able to make the journey. There are many good closer wrecks, but Chris is one for believing we have to steam to the furthest marks to catc fish!!!! I would imagine we drive over the top of some good fishing on the way. We fish exactly the same wrecks as most of the charter boats as it is these guys that have kindly given us their numbers. As it is their livelyhood and they have built their knowledge over years I would not be happy to publish the details on here, but would be happy to share them one to one with club members. Nearly all of them are shown on your plotters although they are often a few clicks out on position and so the skippers numbers are more useful. In addition, the skippers all know which fish are producing and will real off the wrecks to try. The "codes" they give are not necessarily the actual wrecks name. I mentioned sharing some numbers with Adam. They are stored on our plotter so next time I am down to the boat I shall pick a few favourites for those that would like them. Tom

Thanks everyone for your tips and advice. Last night I brined two small Pollock fillets. Or I guess that is what I did. I took half a cup of salt, half a cup of sugar, dissolved them in a litre of water and poured that over the fillets and left them for about an hour. I rinsed them off in fresh water and left them to dry over night in the fridge. Stuck them on the smoker this evening for about half an hour and fantastic! Best tasting Pollock I have had in ages. Just in the process of flaking them and making them into a kedgeree like me mm used to. YUM! Tom

Hmmm clever!

The main Ling wreck is a little further west and we certainly haven't Ling over it on our boat, although may have done so in the past on Tiger Lily without realising which wreck we were over. It could have been a Lng tat took the Pout although the Pout was certainly 2.5lb so a biggy. The teeth marks were very distinct. On one side the bite was more like it had been very strongly "mouthed" removing most of the skin and a little bit of butchery" however on the other side were three deep (to the bone) and very clear tooth marks across the flank. Each was spaced about 1cm or so apart and were about 3cm long. The sort of cut you may make with a knife to release odour. May well have been a conger as we were hardly moving in th breeze at slack water. Tom

Hi Mike I can't actually remember my own stand number, but you can't miss us. Have just checked and apparently we are on S2489. We are next door to Sunseeker in the main power boat hall and we have a large stand with a total of 12 boats (including 2 on the water). Most of the boats are cruisers, but all are welcome to come and look around them! All the best Tom

I had a stack of Pollock yesterday that were all coughing up sprat so this may be part of the reason for the slow cod fishing.... Well done on the Whiting. Tom

1 to 6 not sure about.. Oh is 3) a Painted Ray? 7) Smelt 8) Bull Huss 9) Bib 10) Monk Fish 11) Witch 12) Sole 13) Brill Think I got the easy ones. Tom

I have to admit, fish pie is great with Pollock and I have a very nice recipe, but I have to get this smoking malarky cracked and there seems to be a few simple "brining" ideas on the net which I may try. No worries with numbers, I'll get a few for you next time I am in Weymouth (all on the boat!). In honesty, "Go West". Head for HMS Delite and any of the wrecks in a line West of there. Where we fished was pretty much South and certainly half way to Alderney. I'll jot a series of numbers down for you next time. The problem with my mate Chris, he hates Bass (!!! !!!) and loves Pollock and likes to take some for the pot so invariably we do an 80 mile day when he is onboard. Still, it paid off today. I won't be at this coming meeting as I am at the boat show, but will try and get some numbers to you before Feb if I can. If we are catching now, by then there should be plenty of fish about. Tom

Triceratops! 3 Bearded Rockling

Thanks Rich Would much appreciate a few chippings from any flavoursome tree! After reading the replies I have more or less worked out where I went wrong. Thanks all for your advice! The little burner thingy's take meths not paraffing!!!! These warm (not incinerate) the bottom of the actual smoker causing the chippings / dust to smoulder. These chippings are right at the bottom of the smoker, not on the "drip tray". This smoke goes around the outside of the "drip tray" and gently flavours / cooks the fish. Got any good marinade, recipe tips for smoking Pollock. Once again Thanks and hope to see you all, speak to you at the end of Jan as I am off to the boat show. Tom

Chris and I decided to head out way offshore to some wrecks at about 30 miles due South of Weymouth. This was to be a hit and miss exercise as the Winter Pollock don't normally show to the South until late March and are normally 30 miles West in January, but due to the big flood tide we thought it better to cross it than punch into it. A little chilly when we left Weymouth, but glorious by about 10:00 with a gentle ocean swell and hardly any other chop at all. The flood tide proved ominous with 4 or 5 small (year round resident) Pollock in the 4lb to 7lb mark coming. Only one fish taken on a storm lure and the rest taken on smallish jelly worms. As slack water arrived we took off the flying collars and fished squid and mackeral baits were blown at about 0.2 knots in the wind across the wreck and were straight in to monster pouting. Chris hooked a Pout on a whole mackeral frame which was snatched at by something with very large teeth (deep regular gashes down it's flanks), but the hook didn't make contact and then and the merest hint of tide Chis was in to something that puled back. 200 feet of water later a Pollock just short of 15lb lay in the net. Back on went the jelly worms and the next hour and half saw us land a further nine fish in the 12lb to 15 lb bracket. Pictured is the very first of the better fish. When we arrived back into port, Pat Carlin was waiting for us as Chris had some timber for his new boat. He said that a number of the charter boats had had the first couple of trips to the wrecks with almost zero success so we felt quite pleased to have had a number of good fish on the boat. Now, after my fish smoking adventures, does anyone know a good smoked Pollock recipe? Tom

Thanks Adam My original post was a bit of a "knee jerk" reaction after nearly blowing up my balcony (slight exageration) and I have subsequently seen info by you and others about smoking fish including your marinade which sounds great (do you use it on other fish too?). The only thing I am still unsure of is whether the wood chips go right at the very bottom of the smoke box or just above on the removable tray? Enjoy your vino tinto Tom

hmmmm! Me thinks you may have a good point Paul! The faint taste of petroleum was a tad off putting and the whoosh as half my balcony went up was a tad disconcerting. I shall let the parrafin evaporate and try again with meths unless someone comes up with anything else... With regards the limited amount of wood smoke.... After the whole lot had cooled down I gave it a good wash down and noticed I had put the wood dust on what appears to be a drip tray rather than the bottom of the smoker. I guess it needs to be right at the bottom to get enough heat to smoulder?

The other half kindly got me a Ron Thompson smoker for Christmas and I decided to try it this evening on a "test" of mackeral that was in the freezer. I had lost the instructions but it looked very self explanatory. After abut 20 minutes of gentle warming and very little "smoke" action from the wood dust the two little burners flared up massively and just a little out of control. I was using paraffin as fuel (the type from Homebase for garden burners) and just assume that I put too much fuel in and once it started getting going "whoosh". My Questions: 1) Was it the right fuel? 2) Was it too much fuel (I thought I had only put a "glug" in each burner)? 3) Is the wood dust supposed to noticeably smoke as it didn't even smoulder? 4) What else may I have done wrong? The mackeral was actually just about cooked and had a very faint smokey taste although I suspect this was more to do with the exploding paraffin than the sweet wood dust! When I lit the two little burners I needed a small wrap of newspaper to get them started and as they appeared very slow initially I left the vent wholes open on the burners. I sprinkled a thin layer of wood dust over the bottom of the cooking tray and placed the fish grill in the "high" position... Please help as I would love to use it properly and more often. Tom

Well done Paul!!! Where were you guys fishing? Who else caught Cod that we know? At what point of the day etc etc? Tom

A quick blast around the bay saw a number of the usual suspects over a wide range of marks. On the way down in the car it was chilly with 0 to 1 on my thermometre. I have to say I was quite pleased to just be out for a spin rather than sitting all day in it. The few people I spoke to all had the same story... not a good one. Alun and Gordon appeared to have done best inshore near the Table Top with a clonking whiting and a 30lb eel plus a few bits n pieces, but nobody appeared to have any cod. Martin said he had heard of a couple being caught, but none in any numbers. This was all around 15:00 so what was the final outcome? The day had apparently started beautifully with a flat calm sea, when I went out it was just beginning to lump up a bit and was decidely bumpy in the swash with the last of the ebb being pushed up into a fairly confused sea by the wind. How did it end up? Tom

Just got back from dropping the littlen back to her mum's. Chris called and has whoosed out with some excuse of "having a couple of things to do" so I won't be fishing now, but I may bomb out and see what is going on with my camera. What general area is everyone likely to be at? Needles? Whatever, I will only have my hand held with me and no onboard charger so will only come on in emergencies so if you have any corking fish (or any cod at all for that matter) and fancy a decent offshore shot taken from a few yards away from the boat, call me only mobile 07780687795 and I will nip over to you. All pics will be digitally available, but around 3Mb plus so email is not advisable, CD's better, saying that, someone needs to catch something first!!! Call me if you have anything worth snapping. Good luck Tom

Hoping to get out in the other boat "Nautibusiness" if I can persuade fishing mate Chris to join me. Centre console boat so more than a tad chilly, which is why it may be tough to persuade Chris. The prospect of -4 first thing and a 30knot wind chill factor on the way out leaves a little to be desired, particularly for us fine weather fishermen, however what with the boat show in two weeks it will be my last chance of a winter Cod. If we get out, hope to see some of you over at the car park. Good luck and tight lines to all who make it. Tom PS: Where is the sign in exactly as I haven't a clue, and what time?

Amongst other things I managed a set of binoculars which look pretty tough for the boat and a Ron Thompson smoker. Only a cheap one (asked santa for it) as I haven't tried smoking fish yet, but it looks like it will do the job. ...only trouble is, I live two floors up in a flat and the grumpy old neighbours complain with a simple BBQ so god knows what they will think of this! Can't wait to try it out though! Tom

A tremendously Happy Christmas to all at PBSBAC (and anyone else who happens to stumble across the forum). Have a fantastic New Year and see you all sometime towards the end of January. Tom