duncan

with more days since the last post than there are weeks before scheduled departure I wondered if this thread had been locked or lost.......... just checking the days seem twice as long, the temperature's jumped and there have even been some calm periods (of more than a few minutes!) - could this year bring those perfect conditions to make a trip of a lifetime?

have been hearing of some good catches already; and funnily enough not actually from East Cowes itself....although a lot of the hound grounds are East of course. personally I don't limit my fishing to 'club waters' either or are we supposed to stay in them all the time

and you don't think they are planning on a shot at the smoothies 'while they are there' Charlie?

certainly better but, both there and in the US, they have much more appropriate size limits driven by science as well rather than ....... well, how we approach things basically! also, in fairness all round, both the US and Aus have 'sportfishing' whilst we seem to equate charter fishing/professional angling with 'catching'. Many charter skippers in this area have been trying hard to change this focus but it's difficult - and always will be.

Haven't given a thought to implementation - simply pointing out that from a conservation perspective the implementation of bag limits is ridiculous without an annual baseline. Otherwise, if you set it at, for example, '5 a day' someone fishing 365 days a year can take 1,825 fish.......and someone who goes out twice could take 10. The real problem is that both would think they were doing their bit for conservation by only taking those fish - people need to think a little wider; as was I believe the point of the initial post in the thread.

In conservation terms it should be an annual bag limit - nothing else makes any sense at all for own boat angling. You could take the view that a charter boat has X trips, with Y anglers each time and the application of a limit per angler per trip equates to such a limit but generally the skippers (I have been with) already operate such an approach by moving on......

as Martin suggests there are a few other factors beyond the simple 5x; however when moving away from such 'rules' it's always important to make sure that you have everything considered! some considerations - over about 10m depth you can normally start to come back from a baseline 4x until about 2.5x at 50m. conversely I would want about 8x out in 2m! (and that's not because of tidal range)

the simple answer will be that it depends......... generally the higher the radar the more distance it can see, and the better it sees at distance. lower radar is much better at short distance the tighter the beam width in both vertical and horizontal the better the definition, but obviously for vertical, the more important that the angles all work. this is one of the reasons that yachts need to make the right compromise between height and unit power; they also have huge problems in any sort of 'sloppy' conditions. given the French involvement we will see a very detailed and blunt analysis of cause. It is however confusing for a number of reasons - 1. the boat that was hit is both a reasonably large radar target (and generally a good one too) and unlikely to have had the speed to significantly contribute to the collision. 2. Condor creates a significant wake at speed and aims to give a significantly larger clearing distance than most vessels would 'bother' to do. 3. The fuel costs to Condor associated with slowing down to go nearer, rather than go wider, doesn't make financial sense 4. Condor is a very stable radar platform, equipped with excellent technical equipment and, most importantly, runs at such speeds that it uses radar clearance all the time ie it's not an occasional user! All of the above suggests that this particular combination is the most unlikely poor visibility collision you could envisage....so what the hell happened???

you wouldn't have done as the incident was just North of St Malo (Plateau de Minqueries) and, unfortunately not - see other thread and link

I read the report and was surprised that the cat had hit anything. Pre 9/11 I was allowed up on the bridge of the ferries and was impressed just how much their radar could see even in the thickest of fogs. Still, I suppose there's always human error.... I'm gald that no one was hurt. I think you will find that one of those on the fishing vessel died. Fog and large waves, such that the radar echo gets confused, are a rare occurrence in most waters but around the CIs you get a lot of standing waves in otherwise benign conditions. Whether this was a factor or not isn't clear. Equally it's easy to assume that the boat was a small craft, such as many of ours or even smaller - again unclear at the moment. If it was a small open boat it may well not have had a radar reflector in an elevated position - but then again I can normally pick up a pot buoy in calm conditions, let alone a boat of any description, but heavy rain or a swell/waves and things simply disappear... A difficult time for all involved.

whilst this answers the question 'why were you targeted?' it does widen the target for us (the clan!) to search for. do you have visible data on the boat? I'm also sorry for your losses; I finally got to the point where I just accepted it about 4 years ago. Part of it was 'why me?' and a, bigger, part was the sheer waste of many of the incidents (instrument panel smashed to get at the ignition unit so they could 'hot wire it' - I will leave the brighter elements to realise the true stupidity as this is an open forum. Add in the damage elements and you really can't treat you boat as a 'loved one' without going mad (or never leaving the back garden!)

impressive Adam - both spec and the overall aesthetics!

thanks Rob, that works fine for me now. I currently use a double sided A4 laminate with 6 pics a side - have been meaning to make it a bit bigger for some time (as I don't get on with my reading glasses on the boat and simply used the relative arrow size to give me a quick indication of flow rate - which isn't really enough in some areas!)

me too please - when I click the link it fires up Dreamweaver! Great for seeing the code but useless for viewing the pdf.

Glad we got that sorted - I would hate to see you meticulously planning; then pushing 6 knots of tide for an hour to get in and wasting all those beer tokens Whilst I don't have a Poole tide planner here (or anywhere yet) 10'ish should see the top of the second tide to ride the ebb down the channel, through the harbour and along the coast to Durlston head - which if it works will mentally deliver 4 large beer tokens in saved fuel From there the crossing should be neutral so I just put my compass on 210 (never swung it so others might need a different heading on theirs!), call Portland, open a beer and turn up the rock and roll....arriving 3 hours later. Who says I don't plan enough?

Adam... what do you consider 'afternoon' such that you expect the tide to be running West in the channel? One of us has their calculations way out.... overall the tide times do look remarkably good for refueling; strange 'cos it's never seemed like that before...mind you they look a fair size through Sun/Mon! OTOH it's also good times for use of the swinge when heading to/from the banks in terms of slack water periods (about 0730 Sat) haven't considered speedy in detail yet - someone else can exercise their little grey cells! Just realised I've got all caught up in the excitement - despite trying to avoid thinking about it until the day before (as usual) and subject to good weather etc

Oh good not an early start then ..........yeh right I wish, you lot will be out early doors as per usual Martin don't know about you Martin but that tide gives about 1000h Rockley departure for me, nice lift through the harbour and all the way past Durlston to meet slack water around mid channel.......... but then again I understand the need some have to spend 12 hours on the wrecks on the way over as well!

I'll be on board as well - and taking my 3m tender too

dogfish were a reasonable catch and had a market ('rock') but, despite the apparent abundance they were importing them and the price went to high. whilst I don't like to sound negative but pout don't really lend themselves to selective sustainable fishing; they are a mixed habitat fish that frequently mix with large quantities of immature/juvenile so how this becomes a sustainable fishery beats me! I have huge respect for Tesco's fishmongers - filleting pout is almost an oxymoron! Finally, pout are one of the main food sources for many of the species this is supposed to help........ hmmmm

sounds like you had an absolute ball......I suspect the financials would be against me but other than that (small issue) I would certainly be interested. in many ways it sounds like all your best possible trips here all at once and in perfect conditions!

I am with Charlie - my lightweight drifting rod is a US St Croix and is paired with a Calcutta 400; fish it all day long (and long days too). Whilst it has power a plenty I can't see the point of using such gear with the weights and depths associated with 'wrecking'. You also get a rest between drifts! Happy with long soft rods about 12-15lb class (UK) and 7000 class reels - accepting that some of the smaller, braid focused powerhouse reels are even better and a touch smaller than traditional 7000's

who's in charge of your PC - you or Microsoft? seriously, can't you just tell it to ignore whatever it thinks it's detected? Whilst I obviously can't take responsibility for your PC mine is pretty hooked up with 'detectors' and didn't bat an eye at it. I will try with a few other browsers back at the house later (inc IE - which isn't on this one) and post again edit - trid with IE and the only issue is a warning that the site uses Java - clicked OK and that was that.

indeed add that the use of the darker blue for the deeper channels is also a little confusing because, at first glance, you get the impression that the nursery area is the red over white bits only finally, and I am afraid a little defeatist, it's simply not enforced at all by anyone - you will see boat after boat fishing (for bass) and taking bass (of all sizes....) as well as the well known semi-commercials... and don't get me started on the netting

I'll bite - how did Plymouth get into this thread? Having made the run last year it's a long old haul - coast hopping or in a straight line!

well well well... nice to see you m8ee