duncan

Daz As Adam says 100ft + - in bright sun make that 150+ or more This can also equate to 'really cloudy water after a storm' and about 60ft or anywhere inbetween.

my view is that the first is a blonde and the second a spotted. In this Ihad the advantage of a 14lb fish being unhooked to compare - and unless dave then returned a britich record spotted this is how they 'matched. I understood blondes have spots to the edge The spotted spots are generally darker and better defined However the spotted usually have 4 darker whirls which aren't present here. The kicker is the wing shape, especially trailing edge and towards the tail. But then again I am no expert and could be wrong here. Great bass Dean - A new pb I understand so if you want to email me the full size file I can arrange a print for you.........this from the image posted

meanwhile I've managed a few tope to 20, a matching blonde at 14lb and some smaller rays. I thought I would post these 2 pictures as an illustration of the difficulty of identification! Firstly, at about 4lbs and then this at 3 1/2lbs interesting eh? overall we had a great day out and throughly enjoyed the fishing. as a bass mark we thought it sucked - but dean continues to maintain a different perspective! in any event we have agreed to name it 'Y-ray' for obvious reasons!

Having replanned this weekend more times than I ate a hot dinner last week it was with some trepedation that we headed out of the harbour and thick fog...... Meeting up with AWOL we agreed to give Dean's inshore bass mark a go - although we expected to be fishing strips rather than live joey's is was apparantly a bank, and stuffed with flatties etc etc etc A short motor later we get to the mark........... as you see we quickly settled down to anchoring in the slight and AWOL was instantly into fish - I will leave them to their report. we started slighty slower but got into our stride pretty solidly after a quick cuppa! Dave had an early blonde at 14 and later moved ontl tope, dog's, conger and huss. Having landed this huss on a redwolf spinning rod and small fixed spool even I was impressed! more next post

metcheck is reallly an inshore/area onshore indication. excellent as a comparision to known and general 'local forecast' but pretty uesless beyond Studland............ windguru is mpre localised but slow to update freyr is now comercial but brilliant downloading a grib file on demand is now my preferred route - relies on the interpretation programe but it's basically 'raw' and avoids the BBC safety loading that has existed since the famous hurricane I have personally cancelled fishing Sunday now despite being comfortable with a channel crossing only 6 hours ago............. but then again I don't do flounder.

as I opened the thread the name came to me! yep so the question remains - is their any reason that this area would be inundated with boats because of the festival on Sunday?

further out Alun - but close

whoops - got the wrong one then! between Kimeredge and the Shambles?

very very interesting - look forward to hearing more!

are there likely to be a whole load of boats parked on the kidney banks on Sunday as a result of the Weymouth comp............?

Welcome Paul and Paula, It's a great club and if you get out regularily in company your catches will increase exponentially in the first year - it's as simply as that. Collectively there is probably over 2500 years of experience of the club waters in the club now ........ harnessing just a little is one hell of a fasttrack! Duncan ps forgetting her name isn't the issue (unless you start trying to guess it late at night) - forgetting her birthday on the other hand.............

there were reports of an angling boat in Freshwater bay having close encounters with some pretty large squid last week so they are 'around'.

I am afraid there is for the reasons given. However, looking on the bright side for the minute, there may also be an excellent chance to get the byelaw amended as a result of the inevitable press any case will bring. Getting byelaws amended in cases like this is usually a huge uphill struggle simply to get round the inertia of change. Here we have a regulation designed for one purpose that could never have anticipated the increase in charter boat size that has happened. That this increase itself can be argued results from a need to provide increased comfort and safety to consumers rather than representing a significantly increased angling 'take' must also bode well in this case. Add to this the impact on the local economy represented by the manufacture and fitting out of these craft and you have an excellent case for change. What is of course extrememely unfortunate is that either no warnings have been issued highlighting the issue at an appropriate time or they have been ignored. However it may well be that this is the fastest route to a long term resolution for all parties? There are obvious extremes applicable here as well - the 60ft powerboat anchored in Swanage that lets the kids fish and they catch a mackerel is also breaking the byelaw as is any yacht over 12m towing a mackerel lure with the 6 mile limit!

Rich Have you more info on the festival schedule at all - looking more to miss them on the marks than joining in ! Weather isn't looking like it's going to be too kind next weekend so Plan B is getting researched a bit harder right now..............

under 12 m though surely Jim? like 11.99m..........

Dan, My ususal conger and ray hooks are probably about the same size visually as 4/0 but I use a much bigger one for tope as I really really want to hook into the jaw outside the teeth.

yep - and probably yellow too............

works fine for me - full circle crimped to 150 nylon with a mackerel cutlet hanging on the bend............liphooked, liphooked, liphooked..........

ty Sir - I do remember the conversation as I was trying to save you the costs and time............

thanks for reminding me Bob - will take up with Dave!

tried to bring out the blonde's marking's a bit more - not enough of them being caught this year! nice fish Dean

hehe - so there I was scrubbing off a boat and putting it away when everyone else was off enjoying the sunshine! Martin - you have a new pm

a last minute change of plans (big row) gave me a window of opportunity for the weekend......which unfortunately didn't exactly match existing committments for the crew! believing everyone else was fired up for the comp on Sunday the decision was made to look at a night fishing session. in the event we were probably the only boat leaving Poole Sat who didn't (eventually) appreciate the conditions! getting away slightly earlier than anticipated we finally fueled up following the 48hr run to the CIs (not a great usage year.........) and headed out for a bit of bait. Instantly filling a bucket with fresh mackerel (yeh right Ed.......getting 5 in an hour and giving up on the damm things knowing you had some squid more like) we eventually hit the mark just as the tide hit 2.5knots. not easily diverted (shame really we just don't take hints at times) we stuck the hook down, cut some sparing cutlets and baited the 16/0 hooks and 2lb of lead went flying down (and back) and down (and back)............ about an hour later a screaming run (bit of a tap on the tip actually) resulted in a hook up and 25 minutes later what started as a club record blonde morphed into a 10lb 6oz undulate the fish was clearly stressed from the struggle and was quickly returned to grow a bit bigger meanwhile an interesting approach to feathering (casting uptide and recovering) almost imeaditly (from 50yds downtide) produced an amazing amount of success and we know had our bucket of bait............... a spirited conger to me later and Dave is showing signs of petulance ( ) so he starts another roll up and his tea.............cue rod bend, line running out etc - you have all been there..... wandering slowly over to his rod he arrives as it goes slack, and moans about it having gone away, then it's there, then it's pronounced a dogfish so I relax. 10 minutes later he's finished the fag and the doggy is hanging in the tide something cruel. It's a ray I get told. Another 10 minutes later it's now a conger. It clearly isn't as it's hanging deep despite a lot of line being recovered but there's no point in arguing. Anyway Dave walks it back a bit and I stick my head over the stern in to the gathering gloom.........not a ray, not a conger - bl**dy great bass with it's mouth wide open! Dave declines to believe me Fish netted. Dave start's grinning (and hasn't stopped yet as far as I know. New PB 8lb 12 oz. Anyway despite more conger the N breeze is now pissing us off as we have picked the one spot on the planet where it has enough fetch to stir it up so we call it a day, rue the surpring abecence of tope (target species) and get back on the berth around midnight.

don't think I have one either................ 10% of the new B3 drive costs would be nice too.........but I think I am getting a good deal anyway just wish they could get it and fit it a bit quicker!

sounds like a good trip Daz wouldn;t get wound up about a 30lb rod class - some are thin, some thick, some have a soft tip and other flex all the way through on the same loading. All the same class etc which is really just a line indication nowadays except for IGFA rated rods where the test curve is a function of the rating. I look forward to reading your account of a 25lb blonde...............or 50lb conger