BigMac

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

Here's another showing the sand bars a bit clearer.

Allan

Just thought all might want to see photo taken at 7.20 this morning at low water.

Its not too clear, but the buoy in the foreground is the one opposite the east end of the quay. Just past the furthest sand bar is the second buoy and just to the right of the coastguard rib is the third buoy, on the far side of the bar.

Jack,

I have a friend who does a lot of spinning and trolling within the area that you refer to and he had a long telephone conversation with the EA about this.

The grey area seems to be how you distinguish whether you are fishing for salmonids or sea fish. My friend has been approached by the EA whilst trolling lures as far up as the top end of Stanpit and when he explained that he was Bass fishing, and that he had checked with their Head Office as to the regional by-laws, they shrugged their shoulders and left him to carry on! He also doesn't buy a rod license because he isn't fishing for salmon or sea trout just bass. He has to return quite a few as a by-catch though

As far as the run goes, I'm sure there's no problem.

I've also had some great very early mornings 100 yards of the beach under Hengistbury head casting skitter pops or chug bugs back towards the beach on an ebbing tide. Must keep noise to a minimum though!!

Allan

If anyone decides to put a small group together for a radio course, could I add my name to it?

Allan

Terry,

I'm also interested in that aspect of trim tabs but cant seem to get those videos to run. Any other sites that may have the same sort of thing?

Al

I was down at Mudeford today when the flat bottomed open dory,(that I cant remember the name of) commercial guy arrived back.

He had a box and a half of good size plaice, up to about 3 1/2 lbs and one really nice sole about 4lb.

Most should know the area he works!!!!!

They all looked in good nick too!!

Al

Hi Dan,

yep, thats me

Gave up the freshwater when Rupert Morral and me bought a boat together nearly 4 years ago. Barely fished freshwater since!!

What about youself?

Al

It is ...........but pronounced " pooket "

Al

I' m off to Thailand in the middle of May, Staying in Phuket not far from Chalong pier and me and the missus fancy a 2 day, 1 night fishing safari.

I've looked through the web and there is a lot of charter boats to chose from, all round about the same price and all sound brilliant.

I was wondering if anyone has any personal experience of fishing in that area, or Skipper/boat names that they could recommend

Cheers

Al

Adam,

dont know whether your interested, but a mate of mine has a house in Cape Coral, Florida. Its a 4 double bedroom(2 en suite) house with swimming pool, air con and all the other mod cons you would expect. Cape Coral is on the west coast of Florida about 70 miles south of Tampa.

Best of all, the house comes furnished with a 23 foot walk around Skiff with a 175hp Yamaha on the rear. On arrival at the house (2 hours drive from Miami or 20 mins from Ft Myers Airport if you use an internal flight) there is a phone number of a guy called Captain Bob that comes round for two hours, takes you out, and tells you how to operate the boat where the channel markers where to get fuel etc.

Then your on your own!!!!!!

Within ten mins of the house there are Tarpon flats a plenty, fish run up to about 200 or so and 100 pounders are reasonably common.

20 minutes in the other direction and there are some deeper spots full of Tarpon, Bull sharks, Nurse sharks and Black tip (or spinner) sharks. The Tarpon average 100, the bulls and nurses up to 300 or so. This is still in the Caloosahatchee River.

Half an hour from the house is Sannibel Bridge And the exit to the Gulf. 20 miles off brings you into cobalt blue waters and the possibillity of just about all the major pelagics except billfish. Groupers up to God knows what size, (you can see em on the sonar as your playing them) lost most of the biggies but landed one of 350. (have posted a pic of Carl, owner of house, leaning over the boat to one we guess at 500 plus) The hammer heads go up to 1000lb or so but generally hang round Boca Grande Pass waiting for anglers tired Tarpon caught by the fleet of boats that fish there.

I've been there 5 times now and it really is fantastic. Took Rupert and his missus last year, he had a nurse shark of nearly 300, a lemon shark of the same size and a Tarpon of 140, his missus had a Tarpon of 120 and I jumped about 20 but never got one to the boat

The house costs about 900 quid a week, not a lot split between 3 or four couples. Just flights and a hire car required.

If your interested I'll put you in touch with him. Only lives in Ferndown.

Al

Paul J,

Thanks for that I'll check it out tomorrow

Al

Tom,

Roughly how expensive would that be?

I am sitting down.

Al

Tom,

would that be in Poole or Christchurch?

Would it be a pontoon mooring?

Cheers

Al