Gummage

It was a cuttlefish for me and that was great too.

Well Adam, first the fishing report: I got to Tucton just after 7 o’clock and met Gordon there. He had diverted to the Christchurch angling Centre to get bait Hooky was sadly ill and had to cry off. I knew was going out of Cobbs in pool on madness. I rang him to talk about the fog we both expected it to burn off quite soon meantime, Coffee at the Captains club was good.specially as the biggest disappointment of the day was that my flask was still in the kitchen.🥲 It’s worth noting that you could get breakfast there . Drifted over the ledge for bass for a few hours. Shad nursed a cuttlefish to the boat . Ran out squid jigs and lazy feathers for much of the time. Nothing fell to them. Got a u/s pollack and a ballon and a bream to worm and a small pouting to a shad. Finally my shad got me a just and just sized Bass. Anchored to a small mark just west of the ledge which showed fish on the finder. Anchored bang on them. A shoal of mini bream. Spent too long at that but it afforded a break for lunch. Didn’t leave much time for plaice fishing and blanked at that. What a beautiful afternoon. The amber light the clouds with raindrops spangling in the sun on a glassy sea. You could do better as a poet than a fisherman. But what of the sea trial for our skeg and newly serviced motor? Really pleased. Motor Didn’t miss a beat. I had smashed the skeg to pieces and sonin law managed to to weld it back up . Good job but not plumb perfect . I was concerned that we might steer like the Bismark did after the torpedo hit. But she ran true . You’d never tell the fault at the helm. Chris64 from Banbury was asking who services outboards. James has a garage in Cricklade , J&J vehicle engineering and if you could get a service pack he would be able to do it. anyway, happy days!

Gummage towers marina is a dynamic sort of place come harvest time . With winter rations coming in and cattle in every shed(except when they go feral; see photo) It’s harder for E3 to find a safe berth away from all the action o After my august trip I parked it in a general store shed and pushed it back “out of harms way” in a corner. No such place ever existed in a busy store shed. Too many of these thing shunting about Apparently , according to my colleagues, it was a good thing that I was driving it when it clipped the drawbar and sent the boat back into the wall. All that trouble that Chris goes to to dismantle an engine…. I found the quick way! Hardly 200 hrs old Did I feel gutted You bet I did😢😢😢 Now it just so happens that not all the things that happen in this barn are bad. Ok so the fire in February wasn’t so good, but at least the boat wasn’t in there then and there was no blood. We had it all fixed by July in time for the happy event of my daughters wedding to James. We had a memorable Hoe down that night. Now why is this relevant ? Because I hadn’t so much “lost a daughter as gained a hairy mechanic”! Not just any mechanic but one who can aluminium weld! My motor is just out of guarantee. Holes bay marine supplied it and have serviced it. I’m pleased with their service; pricey but comparable with agricultural dealers. But it is a pain that I have to do a 100 mile round trip to use them, and I waste a day. And the straw that breaks the camels back; having to pay for parking as I leave Cobbs even though my boat has been looked after on a premises which already pays cobbs a rent! Good sorts that they are , they sent me a service package(impeller and all) so that James and I could do it at home. Pig sick pigs can be pig sick for a very long time and I was one pig sick pig. James is a good sport and gave up his Sunday to get me out of the malaise. James set about the service. Here he’s accessing the plugs. Oil and fuel filters were changed and the thermostat. Then the lower gear was dropped for the impeller change. We pressed onto strip out the seals of the bevel box before welding I hadn’t realised until this point that aluminium is extremely heat conductive and James was concerned that we could burn the seals or distort the gearbox housing . Our Shetland marine engineer friend Callum advised that wet towels can be used as a heat sink. We went with that, only after stripping out the gearbox using an improvised slide hammer. James cleaned everything and got welding . First time lucky? No, it cracked. Then a sound result. Every time we heated it there was a chance of damaging the gearbox but we knew this wasn’t good enough. So once again james fettled. “ Neither of us would claim that it was perfect but let’s see if the sea notices . mercury spray paint blinky good stuff. We cleaned it with brake cleaning fluid first . It’s a new propellor . We will mend the old one for a spare. Will it be OK? Sea trial was last Tuesday ……….TBC

I bought mine from mike at poole sea angling down the high street.

The short answer from my engineers “Bolleaux, it’ll be fine!”

Didnt go out today ; too many whitecaps!

Two fish in a tank. one turns to the other and says ”Have you any idea how to drive this thing?”

I was very excited for me and Andy as we left tuckton on Monday morning. it was on Andy’s Orkney out of Banff that we had a great day on Haddock and ling a couple of months back. Tides might be brisk but it was a flat forecast. I wanted to give my all to a Bass project. Colin and Jerry1 gave me the. Lowdown on how and where. It would be some fifteen miles steaming. we stopped to feather several times on the way out. On the east drop off at the southern end of th shingles I tussled a handsome bream to the boat only to lose it. NOTE TO SELF: Throw away the rusty feathers! They are catching any amount of mackerel in the moray firth, Andy has a freezer full…..in Scotland. wed bought some tiny frozen joey fillets so that and Squid baits were used on our markswhere Colin has reported great success before. we fished and moved many times on the Ebb One fish only became apparent as I wound in at the end of a drift. A keeper, but only just Our luck changed with the turn of the tide but not for the better. The wind got up, the sea got up and I started to question whether I dare go on burning fuel for the drifts, with the sea getting ever more lumpy we soon lost our nerve. I can up the east side of the ledge with waves beam on. That spared us the cathedral hull slam and we made a useful 10 knots. IMG_0277.mov I was weary by the time we got near Hengistbury and steered for home

E3 could really use a couple of those Rob.

Coming down on Monday. Current plan Christchurch. If interested in a crew space or buddy boat, pm me.

Total catch report Two red gurnard….returned Two scad ……………1 returned 1 for bait 3 bream "……………. 2 retained 4 plaice…"……………..2 retained A ruddy great yacht…. Returned injured

My guest was one of my oldest friends who I met at college in 1977. The finest of company and a rare someone who could look upon spending three days living on Endeavour three with Gummage as a great adventure. TUESDAY The drive down from Wiltshire was beautiful. The launch was easy and the cruise through the harbour was uneventful save a quick slide on the mud where a red pole is missing. Someone has replaced it with an anchor buoy but at first sight it looks like a bit of flotsam. If you go up there watch for this and go round the buoy. Turns out we weren’t to be the only one thus fooled. Otherwise the trip to the ocean was uneventful, no explosions. This trip was a retry. Look up “It went with a bang” to see how it ended last time. We paused for breakfast and a mackerel hunt by the Hook Sands where first catch of the day was a Gurnard to Ian which took the slow jig we had under the feathers .🎣 I decided to go west to Peverill ledge. Club members warned us to be careful on the flowing tide. We stayed well out and were able to drift in the chop and the fresh 10 mile an hour breeze. We used sidewinders whole squid feathers slow jig and even a squid jig for a couple of hours. All we caught for the rest of the day were two small scad. One was volunteered for bass patrol to no avail. With the tide flowing in the late afternoon we tried anchoring a ridge mark. No knocks. We moved on to Bournemouth in the early evening. After losing a few rounds of bait to something small and annoying we decided we were tired enough and set off to ridge. At the river Frome The missing navigation pole had snared a victim. Three folks in an inboard engined 18 foot(or so) boat were sat firmly on the mud a couple of foot above the water line. They got off at the next high. WEDNESDAY Went into Wareham for petrol and a bacon sandwich. It was 9 o’clock before we chuffed out of Ridge . It was a beautiful start for the day, but we knew the wind was forecast to get up. It takes an hour from here to get down the harbour and it wasn’t until 11 o’clock that we found ourselves at the 50-50’s Another Club member Graham Nash on Samoya had already been there for a productive couple of hours. Encouraging! The conditions were initially languid and we chucked squid and worm Bates down on a very slow drift. They included a whole squid with two big hooks in it, a shark‘s breakfast! This was to produce our only catch there; a 12 ounce bream.🎣 As per forecast the wind got up blowing from the SW against the tide and we found ourselves drifting uptide at half a knot. Anchoring was in the original plan but I dropped it.(The plan, not the anchor)The other boat had a mixed bag of dogfish,bream eel and smoothie. It’s the early bird that catches the worm! We ran in on the blow and anchored 1 mile out at the rocky pool patch. Wind over tide as before produced a maverick anchor set up. We bounced caught rocks and nothing else. Went on to Bournemouth to Plaice drift . Ian had a lively Gurnard but at about 4.00 a pub supper beckoned and we gave it best A tomahawk pork steak and a Purbeck cider or two hit the spot. Then a gentle stagger back down the river towpath to the boat The full moon rising to make it an entirely memorable evening. DAY THREE It was never going to be the earliest of starts to a short session. After 3.30 there wouldn’t be enough water at ridge to retrieve the boat on the steep slip. So a short day. We left at nine and slipped down to Poole Ian Bought a small pack of fresh worm while I waited at the town steps. The bridge upstream had just lifted and boats came through from Cobbs quay. We got a cheery greeting from Chris Witherford on Kingfisher. A top club angler. He went plaice fishing outside the harbour along the swash. It would be a good plan and he welcomed us to shadow him; even gave us some ******(it’s no for me to give his secrets away😉) to cap our worm baits with. We had a good couple of hours and caught three plaice( two keepers) and a bream. At 1.30, time to run in. NO GOOD TURN GOES UNPUNISHED As we ran up the Frome on our tight schedule we came upon the missing Nav pole’s next victim. At the same spot as before a 30 foot yacht was teetering in the mud. Ian advised,”Don’t get involved.” I probably should have heeded. The vessel had deployed a rear anchor which had set but its keel was just in the mud and it was pinned to the bank by a cross wind I figured my 60 horse power could get him off before it got worse. (I wish I’d left him there; and so does he I expect) How? I found that by reversing into the crosswind I had good control; upsteam ,downstream, backward, forward. I suggested picking up his anchor line with a loop of rope and pulling there. That idea was rejected by the other skipper. Perhaps he feared the salvage rules? Instead he threw me a line from his rear starboard cleat and Ian OXO tied it to our bow sprit. I was concentrating hard on not becoming the next victim here and doing well at it thus far. As I put the power on to initiate the tow I had to look lively as E3 was becoming wind driven as I knew she would. Then, is this unlucky or what? As the tow line tensioned it didnt draw up out of the water straight as I expected but span like it does when two people work a skipping rope. Why is that a problem? Because it flicked behind his port side mounted auxiliary outboard and before I could throttle down, it lifted it off its mounting and dropped it in the drink🫩. Whilst both of us had that heart sinking feeling it wasn’t a reason to abandon the tow. E3 controlled well and a burst of power had the yacht following me across the channel . Ian was on constant standby to cast us off if we lost control. I know this is a danger when towing a vessel Thats bigger than you are. But we manoeuvred around and set to towing down stream to a wider part of the channel. But we made no progress . Nobody had attended the anchor line and as we pulled his boat round the line had gone over his prop and the anchor was still set beyond.🫩 Perhaps I might have tried to clear that rope with my boat hook, but it didn’t occur to me at the time , and time was running out For us . When I came upon the scene I might perhaps have called the coastguard for him. When I left, perhaps I should have called the Samaritans . Everything else went fine.

Our Alderney retrieves all went awry on Wednesday too. The wind over tide thing was making everything just align unpredictably.

Might well see you there Graham

We are booked for a Tuesday and Wednesday berth and hope to arrive tomorrow morning and fish again Wednesday and possibly Thursday morning. A visit to peverell has been suggested. We currently have space for a guest? We would be pleased to buddy up with another boat. In any case looking forward to seeing who’s about.

I’m wary of taking this post away from the boat angling theme, suffice to say the cows are eating something closer to a ship’s biscuit than grass at the moment.

Nice honest report Martin. One of the biggest challenges of this sport for me was getting through the green feeling. It still visits occasionally.

I’ve also wanted to ask this question . Ie what is the warp for? My buoy and ring go straight on the anchor line. How does this bit of warp help?

No , you want uddermint for that

I spray mine with agricultural chain lube. Seems to keep corrosion away.

I rode home on Sunday while you were all at the Bream. It blew on Friday and Saturday so whilst found things to do it wasn’t boat fishing. Paul had bought a week permit for the Devron and managed to meet a couple of par and two brown trout. I enjoyed an afternoon watching on among the foreign flora and fauna. The “serviced “ engines had been looked at by a farmhand. Not quite a service and we checked out a place where they could be fettled by a professional. I failed to master his Raymarine dragonfly sounder. If anyone uses one successfully I’d love to have a chat. We couldn’t find bottom with it. The 20 yr old sat nav wouldn’t load beyond the legal derrogation page. We returned to the boat to try to resolve these issues….on going.

IMG_0130.mov Happy hunters

I was due to travel up with my mate and his party early on Sunday morning . On Saturday ,one hiatus after another landed in my lap to such an extent that I had to let them go on ahead whilst I did some sorting out. On the up side at least I had Robs one year old pup to help me call my cattle out of my neighbours Barley. IMG_0107.mov The advanced party went on ahead and drew the boat out of its bothy on Tuesday morning and guess what? Yep, the wheels fell off.🤧🤭🤭🤭. Fourteen years ago I went up and the same thing happened and we never did get to sea, but this time we had Amazon overnight delivery and new bearings were dispatched for midday Wednesday. By then things had settled at home and with only Thursday looking half decent weather wise , I decided to train it to Bristol and catch a flight to Inverness etc Such stress! Finally made Huntley by supper time😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨 The boat is actually a beautiful Orkney 590 cw a mariner 60. we got her in to Banff marina, which is in the historic well sheltered fishing harbour. We were made welcome by the friendly harbour master. Incidentally this berth will cost about £1000 for the season. services: slipway, floating pontoon, access security , fresh water hose and I think I saw electric hookups. Shes right at the very back of this photo Soon at sea, and first stop and fist stop chosen as it appeared to Be a wide dish shaped gravel plain. We had no bait but felt sure to catch some . Coloured feathers and white feathers were used. Ten minutes in . Our host kicked off with a double; haddock and a dab!👍👏. This was all right and soon more haddock followed. We could have stayed but I wanted to try a very promising looking spot a couple of miles further out before the deteriorating weather might drive us back. That bank looks so fishy! we caught haddock at the top of it and below it . In fact despite my planning we seemed to catch a fish and a few doubles every ten or so minutes wherever we were. It looked like wind and rain were closing in so we retreated to the earlier mark. The others carried on as before, but I changed tack an rigged a Tubot rig baited with a haddock flank. It hit the bottom and within 4 seconds, bang. Up came A ling. It didnt carry on like that but another later fell to my mates baited feathers. The weather threatened We moved closer in shore where apart from a couple of mackerel , the action stopped. Early evening and our skipper, knowing there was a supper on the stove, drew stumps. A great intro to the Moray firth; About 24 Haddock 4 Mackerel 2 ling 1 Dab CO2 credentials….Dont ask

On Sunday I’m going up to stay near Huntley with a Wiltshire friend who has a property up there. He has a little used (but overhauled) boat there. I think it’s a Warrior or similar. I went once before but his trailer bearings were shot and we couldn’t get to the ocean. Fingers crossed, this time we will launch at Banff. I hope to report on our achievements here. Charlie suggested how we might make use of the topography to find Cod and Haddock . Turbot are caught from the shore there. My pal has been disappointed with his trips so far. His son did well last year , using the stick the pin in the donkey technique. (No mark recorded) Has anyone any experience of this area ? All tips and encouragement gratefully received.