BigMac

Newboy, sorry meant 50 not 51, Allan Tom, pm Allan

Newboy, you have a pm Enjoy Allan

Ruperts first go for bream, he always rated bream as an acceptable bass bait if small enough or a shark bait if its too big for bass I think we have a convertee, he aint stopped talking about his 4lber!!! Allan

Saturday Set out 7.30 from Christchurch, with Cam as crew, heading for the banks south of the island to sort out the blonde rays. There was a vicious easterly blowing and 8 hours fishing on four different marks produces 1 blonde ray of 19lb, 3 dogfish and one missed bite. The sea was very dark and a horrible dead algae was building up on the line on every drop and it was tough to pick it off the line. May black water!! Spoke to Rupert on the way in and decide to have a go at the solent smuts and the ledge bream tomorrow based on todays result and he and wife and 2 small Morrals are plundering the stocks of hardback on Mudeford quay as I come in through the run at 5.30. Sunday Myself, Rupert and 10 yr old Aaron leave the mooring at 7.30, exit the run and head for the mid solent, with a large bucket of hardbacks, on an oily flat sea at 30mph against the tide. God I love this boat For some reson the plotter loses its fix not long after we go past Hurst castle and then only works inter... intermitt.... inter..... now and again!! We get to our mark and chuck out crabs in various forms and sit back for the action to start. Rupert gets the first bite after half an hour, strikes and thrusts the bucking rod into Aarons hands and he lands a beautiful little starry about 3lbs, another 2 almost identical size follow in the hour and then things go dead. Still a bit early for here yet, another 2 or 3 weeks and they'll be crawling up the rods We use slack water to travel back to the ledge to target bream for the afternoon. A quick feathering stop on route produces 2 garfish and 8 mackerel. Drop the pick on the ledge at 1.30 and put out a bit of groundbait as soon as we settle on the rope with the trusted bag and lead method. (We've got one of those "The Edge" droppers but they are nigh on impossible to wind up after use!!) Within minutes, Rupert has the first bream bite and strikes into a turbo charged male that after a tremendous scrap goes 4lb 2oz and a new pb Just the start of a couple great hours fishing that produced 15 fish that were all over 2lb with 6 over 3lb, including a new pb of 3lb 14oz to me and the 4lber for Rupe. Kept 6 males between us and returned all others. Three happy crew after a smashing day out and back on the mooring at 6.00pm Allan

Never in the right place at the right time

Tom your more than welcome to tag along anytime. A tide of less than 1.7m at Lymington and the banks fish well. Give it another 6 weeks or so and there's a chance of that big tope you talked about!!!! Great fishing down that way cause the charter boats can give most of their crews a reasonable days fishing by burning half the amount of diesel and traveling half the distance. We nearly always have it to ourselves We'll keep in contact and set it up. cheers Allan

Left the mooring Saturday at 7.45 and out across the bar at Mudeford with prop intact at 8.05. Rupert opens up the throttle and we're on our way to the banks 9 mile south of Atherfield. 40 minutes later and we arrive at our first mark, a bank in 35m of water rising to 28m. We haven't fished this bank for 2 years and despite spending half an hour doing an extensive grid search, we fail to find it Does anyone else experience disappearing banks? This is 4 banks that we fished last year or the year before that are now flat ground!! On to the next one, about 6 miles east and we're on it first time The bank has a steep face on the eastern side and a gradual slope on the western side, lending itself to fish better on the ebb than the flood for the Blonde rays we're targeting. We drop the pick and she bites first time, (new 15kg bruce anchor and chain, great advice, thanks guys) leaving us sitting nicely, 70m from the face of the bar. Its a race to get baits to the bottom, one with the good old faithful launce/squid wrap and the other with a mackerel head flapper ( had a 12lb bass last time out this way on a flapper) both on 6/0 pennels on 80lb trace and a pound and a half keeps it on the bottom. The mackerel is off within 10 minutes and I,m playing a heavy fish that is definetly a round fish rather than a ray and it's not an eel. Never will know, it hung on for two or three minutes and the hook pulls Felt like a big bass to me Ruperts away next with a blonde that goes 17lb on the uptider and follows it 20 minutes later with another of 12lb. I seem to have dogfish attractors on and try to keep them away from Rupe's bait as much as possible so that he can catch the proper fish. He catches a pout and then I hook a ray at last, and its a blonde barely out of the egg sack at about 4lb. Still a blonde is a blonde. The tide dies, and we resign ouselves to fish one rod a piece under the boat durring slack water. Rupe's squid and eel picked up by a fish that gives a great account of itself and a bass hits the surface to be scooped up in the net before it knows whats happening. 5 months since Rupe's eaten bass. and a 5lber will do nicely The wind keeps us in place pretty well and then I hook a lively fish that turns out to be a nice little smut about 5lb followed 10 minutes later with another of 8lb before the kennel descends on us, for an hour, before we pull the pick and anchor on the west side of the bank for the flood. The dogs stay with us on the flood, apart from a small eyed of about 7lb, and we decide to call it a day, at 4.00, and head home. Leaving the uptider till last, when I pick it up a ray has hung itself and it turns out to be the best blonde of the day at 19lb Back on the mooring for 5.15, and another great day out on "Aquafresh" Allan

Mr Bayzand always used to swear by a strip of manky mackerel on the hook as the top bait

I've lost a couple of anchors on the ledge, but had one retrieved by a mate with scuba gear. When he went down he found that the chain and anchor were lying in a heap and the rope had lassooed a large rock making it impossible for us to pull the anchor, which wasn't even stuck!!! This had happened because we let the anchor and chain to freefall through the water, as we got to the uptide limit of where we wanted to anchor,(rather than backing off as it dropped)and then take up the slack as the boat drifted downtide by which time a couple of loops of the anchor rope had got itself around the rock. Haven't lost one on the ledge since we started lowering the anchor to the bottom by hand and then paying out the anchor rope under tension. We would of just presumed the anchor was stuck if our mate hadn't retrieved it and not realised that it was our inept way of anchoring that had really nearly cost us our second anchor. Another day older, another day wiser Allan

Tom, sounds like a better day than most of us. I personally didn't have a bite over the whole weekend drifting Barton and Highcliffe.......... so much for that great theory How did your newly fitted tabs perform? Allan

I sat behind some guys on Sanibel Island once that were flying mullet livebaits out to pods of Tarpon off the beach. Seemed to work really well and they managed to get the mullet at least 200 yards off the beach. They use mullet in the same size range as we use mackerel. I bought one last year while in the States but still haven't got round to trying it in a real fishing situation. Very easy to fly in slight breeze I have no doubt it will work in the right place at the right time.

Thanks everyone, taken all that information on board. 12.5 kg Bruce being delivered friday, got the chain and we're going to use our rubbish rope for this year and change it next. Will let you know after the weekend how we get on. Allan

Cute little 5 yr old Daisy sees a group of workmen turn up next door to start building a new house. She takes an interest, over the next few days, and talks to the builders. They decide to adopt her as site mascot. After a week, the builders with hearts of gold, present her with a little pink hardhat, little pink gloves and even put

Sorry forgot to say, Estimate we had let out at least half the coil (110m) if not, a little more.

Mike, the boat is a 23 ft Aquafish. It weighs in around 3.25 tonnes loaded. We were anchoring in 35m of water over sand an hour into the flood tide. Might have exaggerated the anchor weight a tad, but I reckon it must be 45lb. Its a Danforth design and has 12m of ( not really sure, but its about the same diameter as the rope, eg 14mm ish) chain attached to it. The previous owner had lost the anchor and replaced it with a cheap danforth of 6kg which wouldn't hold the boat at any stage of any tide. He had also lost 50m of the 100m of anchor rope (he never really fished at anchor in deep water) so we replaced it with this bargain 220m, (97 quid) coil of poly-prop line that is terrible to handle and coil. Should have paid the money and got decent rope in the first place, by the looks of it Allan

I'm sure there was a thread about this recently, but I've looked everywhere and I can't find it, so I apologise if I'm covering old ground here, but........... We bought a new anchor rope just before xmas and fitted it with new 60lb anchor ( made by Stainless Steve) and suitable length of chain but we're still dragging anchor on a neap tide and the rope has to be the problem. When deploying the anchor at the weekend I noticed that the rope floats on the surface for a long time before the boat comes tight and, in effect, sinks it. The rope we bought is 14mm and made of some sort of (very bouyant) man made material that resembles BT draw cord. Can anyone recommend a particular type or make of rope, a 150m or 200m length? I also think we could step down to 12mm to cut down on the drag? Cheers Allan

Thanks forn the advice guys. Adam, your welcome anytime for a trip. Perhaps when the plaice are on the shambles in better numbers we could sail down there and give em hell!! Only ever fished from charter boats on the bank. Mind you, aint long before the livebait tank comes into play and thoughts turn to silver spikes Tom, I'll try and get down this afternoon if I can. If you see a fat bloke walking round, looking lost, that will be me, Thanks again, Allan

Brilliant!! Wife nearly wet herself

Got to say, we couldn't be more pleased with the boat, she flies. At 2800 revs she does 30mph and rode everything we drove over without slamming at all and we reckon the 60 miles cost about a tenner in diesel. I would really like to fit trim tabs to level off the ride and get her on the plane quicker, (especially when we put the livebait tank on the swim platform) , but I'm not sure whether smart tabs are up to it or whether I'll have to resort to hydraulic tabs. When she was craned out last week, she wieghed just over 3 tonne on the crane. Not sure what that is pounds, but if 80lb actuators are suitable for a warrior, I would imagine I probably need something more substantial? Any ideas? Cheers Allan

We were going to fish for plaice but after reading recent reports and spending all day thursday avoiding nets off southbourne without a bite, we decided to target blonde rays on the banks 10 miles south of the needles. Arriving on the banks at 9.00 a.m. the tide was just finishing the flood so we anchored ready for the ebb in an hours time. After spending too much time in the wheel house fiddling with the electronics I needed to lie down for an hour and sweat profusely!! Rupert didn't have a bite and the tide was in an hour into the flood by the time I came to. Rupe's uptider nodded and he quickly brought a 14lb blonde to the side of the boat, nicely lip hooked and barely lifted out the water before swimming free. My uptider does the same and I play what feels like a good blonde before losing it on the surface at the last moment 3 1/2 hours later and we haven't had a touch, we decide to move and steam down to the banks south of Atherfield and anchor between two lovely banks, rising 30 feet in 100 feet of water. Rupe has a 9lb small eyed first cast. Unfortunayely thats it!!! No more action and we leave for home. Back at Mudeford at 5.15 and only touched bottom, briefly, once. Not the greatest days fishing, but we did get to zapp the boat over 60 miles on the day and it was brilliant to be out!! Allan

Mike thanks for that, I'll give em a call in the morning. Allan

Hi all, Followed the thread by Coddy a while ago regarding flares from J-Marine. Unfortunately they are updating their stock and anticipate it taking a while. As I gave our out of date flares to the coastguard this morning, would anyone happen to know the best place to get an offshore pack a bit quick. Prefer it to be local so that I can go and get them or somewhere that does overnight delivery? Cheers Allan

Spoke to Nick in Ribs and the channel markers are being set next week by Strides Interestingly he is a coastguard as well. The rib in the photo was on a (turned out to be a false alarm) shout. They had been out for 5 hours in the rib and spent at least half an hour, while I watched them, trying to find any sort of depth of water over the bar but ended up calling for the tractor and trailer to pick them up from Avon beach. I can see propellor retailers making a fortune this season. Its going to severely cut down the window to get in or out, thats for sure!!

Adam, unfortunately not Just thought with the big tide it would show up the deep water a bit better. Looks much different to January when I was last out. Good news is, work is completed on Aquafresh and is lifted back in the water tomorrow, just need the weather to play ball, Allan