duncan

Whilst I don't have experience of 'auto' functiions on either trims I would seriously question the benefit for a small craft? It would seem an unnecessary complication and I can see you using manual override all the time! Being able to, and actually, trimming for the conditions is probably more important for small fishing boats than most summer leisure users - you will go out in significantly more varied conditions than most others! What do you hope to gain from the auto function?

(just for Jack)........... Dave and I took the opportunity the weather forecast predicted, and actually delivered to the hour! With Saturdeay also being as predicted I couldn't be arsed to head across the harbour to refuel so we made a quick stop on our way out Sunday - what a great advantage the floating poontoon at Corrals is. Then headed out to our usual 'winter mark', last visited in February, where we were met with glassy seas and sunshine as the anchor hit the floor at 0845h and the process of peeling semi frozen squid of the bloack began! The tide was gently flooding and the bites quickly came with fish through the first three hours before things seemed to go quiet for an hour - time for a move. Decided to head East (as we hadn't been there for a long time either, and taking advantage of the still clam conditions, we headed for an area about 6 miles south of the Needles. Dave's commitment to his maccy feathers whilst I get the hook down saw a mackerel first chuck,to add the the scad already aquired at the previous mark, but either he was a loner or the schoal moved on and no more were seen. Settled down to a busy session which had us pretty much constantly on the go. As the predicted breeze came up from the south the sea took on a distinct chop but no great problem to fish. We called it a day at 5, anchor up at ten past and tied up at Rockley 1800h - and yes we did drop to 10knots through the harbour entrance but had a lot of water over the screen/boat on run back! Fish wise we had bream, scad, dogs gallore, 11 tope, thornback and a pair of blondes going 18lb and 20lb 10oz. The largest of course falling to Dave! Looking forward to more weather like that.

good luck - St PP is good fun but do that after winning!

sry manged a double

taking responsibility for 'rights and wrongs' is a huge issue in itself I think the club has been heading in the right direction in this personally Recomendations re safety and regulation/rules re comp fishing

doesnt look like i'll make it paul - will call anytime I m heading down good luck with the prop!

weather fish ???

Alun, with your love of suid/cuttle have you tried a proper squid jig at all? btw I look forward to seeing the full recipe for bream stuffed with green weed in due course!

think you would need to catch at least one fish Kam..........but I like your style!

think you would need to catch at least one fish Kam..........but I like your style!

have to agree with you Kam over the BFM picture. I can only assume that f'hall got in on her figure rather than her fish - which look decidedly dead. didn't sam (chapman) have a fish picture rejected becasue of a bit of blood (although it went back alive and happy ; in an angry sort of way )? maybe he should wear a bikini? I signed up to the mag for 4 reasons - (1) the articles up until then had been excellent and relevant (2) keep up to date with JIMBOB's antics (3) see which picture sam had in that month and (4) a nice pair of scales. Only JIMBOB seems to have had the staying power amongst that lot!

great looking fish Adam - sounds as if perserverance paid off.

a view - 1. the fish are gutted so look a little smaller 2. the best picture is the one without the anglers and, although you have to work hard to get any size perspective, nothing looks under 3lb or small to me and the skipper's commented on a lot of smaller fish being returned 3. at 3-4 fish per angler on a charter boat this doesn't look excessive either; 2 guys on their own boat every weekend would be a different story - there's only so much bass you can eat! 4. not a good picture for a sea angling magazine maybe but for a charter business I can understand it. however if the picture was of one guy holding a 7lb bass, ungutted ont eh boat etc, and the story was about this party that landed 25 bass to 7lb with over half the fish returned you would naturally look at it differently (but the same thing happened!). I wouldn't therefore condone the image. possibly not the view you were looking for? btw link to image here and here- not embedding image for obvious reason.

ah well you can now expect not only 1 1/2x the performance but 2/3 the fuel consumption from the new unit now! all the best with the cod - I'm seriously thinking about fishing tight inshore for the smaller ones this year rather than bobbing around hoping for one further out. last season didn't see a whole lot on the boat for the effort expended!

Adam, I have a couple of sizes of nice white fenders that are too small for me so you can pick - I am sure we will work out a time somehow if you aren't in a rush. Absolute worse case could be the 27th Nov alternatively I can give them to Dave if he's heading to a club night when you are there. Duncan

great question as usual Adam. Charlie and I spent a good hour discussing this Saturday night and concluded that there are so many other factors that there can't be one answer (we thought!) my belief is that if the bank has one tidal face, ie a short steep slope facing one tide and a smooth long slope facing the other then I would look to fish the top of the bank behind the short face when the tides hitting it and the gulley the other side of it when the tides coming up the gradual slope way. However in both cases the speed of the tide must influence where the fish are going to lie as any eddies etc will move relative to the features. Equally at slack water the fish will be heading for emerging food - sand crabs, eels etc - rather than those caught in the flow. Both of the above lend themselves to searching the bank/ground as Bob outlines clearly.

ICOM have advised that the 421 will be discounted at the show - what that means of course is anyone's guess but 180 maybe?

depth, tide, line diameter and bait are the key factors we were fishing 100ft with relatively low line diameters but about 2 knots of tide and large/whole mackerel baits meant 2lb was required to save putting out 150m line (which ends up counter productive anyway)

funny you should have mentioned that Charlie - as we passed Anvil just before 0800h Sunday I offered the crew the chance to fish Alderney on the basis that we would have got there rready for lines down at 1100h, got 7 hours to 1800h and back across the big bit before it got really dark. they declined can't understand some folks - we only got in a couple of hours earlier anyway.

Paul - the reel acn definitely contribute to this things but I agree it's not the fundamental cause. The reel range Kam was using had probably the best (smoth/consistent/robust) drags in the world for many years and, although there are now some better, they all come at a really hefty price

Charlie that makes mine positively complex - easier to do than the explanation sounds but remember the balance of the rode has to pass through the little hole next to the windlass.......... 1. pull a few metres of rode through the deck and then attach to cleat leaving lots of slack beyond windlass 2. attach fender to slack away from windlass but under rails etc (obviously!) 3. release bitter end and pull remaining rode on deck through hole - it might jam if you leave it to be pulled out after releasing the tied off rode and you wouldn't have any easy way of taking the pressure off the jam (untill the tide changed!) 4. press down anchor button to take pressure of tied off rode, release the whole lot and watch it disapear about 3 minutes I reckon. For a man OB it would be knife in the winter (and get a diver to recover) or wave nicely in the summer and call a downtide boat to hook him out.....

rather depends on what the etc means after conger in your question! I think the answer probably lies in your choice of rod - ie the maximus 20-50 is a light sporting rod for the class with a lot of grunt down the blank - so I suspect you are looking for a reel that you can fish realistically across the line range as well but that has the guts to handle wrecking for conger and big rays (topical!). Penn's 45 gls (It's not a senator they are star drag cage reels) is a light composite reel with guts and, as already sugested, would make a great match. The 320LD isn't in the same league and the internalls are a little light. TLD20 is proven, as are the CS's. Other's have experience of the Abu's and have commented but much as the 7000 LD is a great reel I wouldn't have thought it really built for this work - I would put it with the Pen 975LD and whilst they will handle it they wern't built for it (if this makes sense?). Okuma Titus Gold 4/0 is another possible. If you are really just looking for a good match to the rod for general bottom fishing including cod, conger, tope and rays that could handle a big fish then all of these reels will do the job adequately. If you want to anchor a wreck for conger and play bully then the 45gls, larger TLD, Penn Formula 10kg, Abu 10000, and other big reels will be required. Given the small size of the rods blank and reel fitting, plus weight, I would favour one of the smaller reels myself, and compromise on my ability to bully the fish with the reel - that's what the rods for anyway!

in which case you were a very mean skip not to buoy off your anchor and give the man a fighting chance to land the monster................ having said that I will admit that it wouldn't have been easy on Phaeton - cutting the line is easy enough but securely attaching the buoy would have been in a bit of a palava as would re rigging it all in that tide in due course! we have had a number of fish around 25lb from the area in the last 4 years but there are obviously some even bigger ones around!

9lb 3oz - as expected the smallest undulate I think I have had this year ah well that's fishing - here's to next time

Sorry Martin I think we are at cross purposes! Couldn't agree more that once the fish is of the bottom drifting with the current makes the subsequent 'battle' a completely different game. I thought the problem Alun had was shifting it in the first place from what had been said - in which case starting to drift will enable you to put more pull on the fish than most can do with their arms (about 25lb?) but will be like snagging the bottom on a drift. With 20lb main line Alun could already exert the maximum pressure (and more) that the gear warranted in this case. Anyhow here's a happy man and his first blonde (he claims!)