duncan

Is a 75% of specimen size a good rule to introduce or do you think it would just make the competition less attractive?

Tom, a good point but one that I think has to sit with the skipper and crew on the day.

Personally I wouldn't bring a fish to the scales that I didn't believe had a reasonable chance of a 'major' prize unless I would have taken the same fish for the table on any other occasion.

The ban on sharks, including tope, taken last year indicates a serious concern over conservation by the club and committee, and the lack of anyone targetting wrasse, despite the opportunities available in our waters, is I believe indicative of a wider responsibility.

It would be nice to know the estimated prize cut off percentage throughout the day but even this is flawed as the apparant discrepency on my scales showed!

If the club was looking to implement a rule across the competitions fished through the year I would be more in tune with your suggestion but this is the only one fished to the scales with little evidence of people targettign inediable species over the years.

Good topic for airing though.

Great Ray; glad you got into some fish.

Whislt I am sure others will have another view I personally would consider general fishing on the drift in the area you did to be a waste of good fishing time.

There are some great bass marks there but they are specific, fish best with live baits or shads and a good speed over the ground - neeps wind against tide late November and you would have done well to snare a Gurnard (probably the one thing you might have seen to baited hookeyes!).

I will pm you some numbers in that area.

A late start for me, but that's the advantage of not having to launch - even if I was at the wrong end of the harbour!

Alarm went at 7 and I had the boat ready for 0720h - although I hadn't bargined for the frost and the heater took a few minutes to warm it up enough to get the iceo f the screens.

0730h and we slip the lines and head off sticking to plan A. This was a calculated and potentially rash plan as we had never actually caught the target species before - any of us! However it seemed sound ...........

the target were huss; they had the potential to deliver excellent speciemen weights and we 'knew where they were' based on Dave's experiences as a potter "a couple of years ago".............

So throttle open, trim out and off we went through the harbour.....a friendly wave to Great White (who appeared to have stopped to feather bait off Old Harry... ) plotter on goto gave us 13.5 miles of open water and winding it up to 28 knots gave us an ETA of 0825h - what a perfect day!

However as we left the lee of the Purbecks a reduction to 22knots seemed prudent and we eventually arrived at our mark in snotty conditions and to find a North End of a string just North of where we had planned to fish - poetic justice or what?

No great shakes as the gulley we planned to fish ran a long way E/W so a move a prudent mile E saw us drop the hook into 150ft, and conditions suggested the full 150m of chain/warp go with it..........

Thoughts of recovering that lot were quickly dispelled as the first drops resulted in instant action - there was something actually down there!

A couple of missed bites and bare hooks later Dave and I were both into fish and, amazingly, both were huss! On the boat his registered just over 8lbs and mine just under 7 so we kept his and put mine back (expecting bigger!)

Well, apart from a sloppy beam sea, some excellent soup from a pressure cooker, the odd drop of pussers rum in the tea.........the final tally read 2 huss and 2 conger to Dave, 4 huss and 2 conger to me; together with 1 dog and a fair few pout. The majority of the pout being contributed by Phil.

Running back in the change in the conditions after the first 5 miles was absolutely amazing, and by 3 miles off the sea was as gentle as a kitten. Given the weigh in time, and the journey from Rockley by car, we eased up to 32knots from the back of Peveril right through to Rockly, dropping to 10 through the entrance as required by local byelaws!

Great day out and a plan that (almost) came together - Dave thought it did anyway! His Huss weighing in over 10lb and 100%+ on the scales at baiter.

Thanks to all the organising committee, who put in endless hours of effort to make the day run as smmoothly as it did. Thanks to Aidy at the Marina for the warm welcome, and of coure the sponsors who contributed so much to the event - the Icom, Lowrance and Raymarine products on the table would all have been welcomed on Phaeton.

ah now I am begining to see some light........

One advantage of using 200lb mono is that you don't have to change the trace everytime you caught a fish, sometime if I'm really lazy or in a comp for number of conger caught, I would just bait up using the same trace and chuck it down.

I haven't changed any of my winter traces since the day I made them - most are on their 3rd year.

I take it this is not how I should be doing it...........

moi - the only rays I like are sunny ones

Anyone any suggestions on how to mount a 5lb box of squid - is a pennel rig recomended?

Charlie,

Presume these exceptional circumstances would be more in the area of assisting the coastguard with a casualty than running out of fuel, the engine won't start or beached (al la Maverick a couple of weeks ago)?

Always good to have people aware that the committee can make such decisions in exceptional circumstances.

Duncan

Phaeton will be in the harbour playing with flounders with Dave and me on board...........

maybe

100lb should be fine, it is have never proved wrong with us the thing is if you go to heavy you cannot break it out the wreck and end up losing everything.

given that I always seem to be using traces significantly stronger than my mainline I am not sure how not using 'even stronger' ones is going to help me break out of the wreck any easier?

using heavy gear like 30lb mainline braid you could stick a short section of 25kb mono between your boom and a trace swivel I suppose but on balance I think I will stick to keeping any possible weakness out of the gear adn accept the odd weight and boom as a price to play...........

all the best Sunday Sam - I have agreed with your dad not to try and race you out to your favorite wreck.....

wow!

makes my usual 300 mile round trip to go fishing pale into insignificance! Wouldn't want to do that just to watch the rod tip nodding all day in the tide would you.

Great write up and an excellent session Kam - presume you will now be targetting large blondes, the club conger record and porbeagles in 2006?

Dan,

Click hereand let the enchanted learning experience enlighten you

not perchance a spurdog, impersonating a tope, impersonating a smoothy..............

I am sure that maintaining a continuous supply of ground bait to the area bing fished will have a positive impact on most marks but delivering it precicely to the depths isn't that easy!

yep a smooth and clean bum and drive gear make a huge difference on acceleration and cruise (and therefore fuel usage) . weight seems to affect acceleration only in my case. and a really sparkly prop affects top speed only.

re your fish - I had heard that most of the cod being caught were shaking their heads - probably thinking 'you're not Jack then I suppose..........

btw if you can put anything down on the gunnels it must have been like a mirror! I find that anything put down on the gunnels leaves the boat never to return very quickly! We do have the luxuary of multipul beer can holders around the boat that have been know to take mugs in the winter! I am currently working on a little rack to hold them securely upright by the galley when Dave's making the tea.........

btw do you have heating on Pal o Mine?

Lumpy??? Come on Jack you could run Pal o Mine flat out in those conditions on Sunday.

We listened to your report with interest, having had to rely on semaphore from Charlie regarding Gordon & Adam's exploits - and decided we had missed the window for further East.

Re 'robbing bastards' - I trust you had nice short snoods for the slack water? It may well have been small bream in which case they will get away everytime - bt they tend to give the rod a rattle when doing it.

Nice report Alun - shame about the fish.

I will piggyback with mine as I can empathise with the title!

Not being quite sure who was actually turning up to fish Sunday, let alone exactly when they planned to turn up, I popped down at 6 to switch the heating on and returned to the van for a leisurely cuppa and brekkie.

Back down at 730 to get things ready the ice was beginning to melt on the screen and the cabin was warm as toast - a condition we kept it in all day long!

Eventually slipped the mooring at 0815 with 5 on board and had a leisurely run out in beautiful conditions to the banks SE of the spoils.

Anchor in and fishing by 9 - what a perfect day................

Alas no one had told the fish. Whilst we had a steady supply of dogs, odd pout and a few whiting all at the 2 1/4lb mark, we saw little else. One rod had 'something a bit better' briefly on but we couldn't match the broken lines adn rods elsewhere let alone the landed fish!

Fished on into darkeness but nothing saw this as a switch to action so headed in as the breeze got up a little at around 1730 - Great White and Shelia Marie having also upped sticks from the same location.

All in all a great day out with good company - none of which I would trade for more fish anyway

there are also a few sailing boats that are out Sunday's and using 06 all the time - something Bear was one. As they were commenting on how close they were getting to things (and each other) you have to assume that they could have got away with 1W - especially with their aerials!

think you are being a touch harsh on most respondents Coddy..........'eat raw seasoned with salt, pepper and onion' and 'add nothing but let the cooking method impart a bit of flavour' are hardly highly spiced and overpowering!

on the other hand how about soaking some oatmeal in whisky and leaving to dry. Then use instead of flour to coat the fish and cook as per Adam. Alternatively just use the oatmeal to coat and drink the whisky with the fish and brown bread..........

you are clearly doing something wrong on both counts Mike!

the latter Jack

a nice run in good conditions but it's like a carpark there in good conditions at weekends.

sometimes the Poole marks outfish the Needles, other times they don't.

yep - it was weird Sunday watching the odd huge cloured slick head off down the swash on the tide!

Ah well - and there is no club record for herring, or even a specimin weight listed in the comp rules pack for the open , so I guess it's not an eligible species for that event.......

nope - I reckon if you stick at it for a year, and take in all the advice available, you stand a reasonable chance of knowing where to be when.........then it's down to perseverance, skill and luck.

of the 3 luck produces the odd good (excellent even) fish but the other two will win through in the end and deliver enjoyable trips - ripe with expectation!

Headed out on Phaeton with Dave, having elected not to head out Saturday (still trying to work out just what actually made us decide that !!!!).

Found the same E then N winds and generally yuk sea conditions but a lovely sunny day though.

Fishing was nothing short of a disaster - personally I put that down to having a landing net on board for the first time in three trips!

Highlights -

Got soaked putting the anchor down - the first time from the helm we drifted too far down on the mark

Dave lost all his gear when his line mysterioulsy parted after dropping down; he blamed Phil so I though no more about it. Phil thought he had a fish but wound up Dave's gear, including weight and 150ft of braid all smiles - until it happened again and I suggested Dave look at his tip ring..........yep, cracked.

Phil gets a storming run on his rod (in rest) and grabs rod to wind in a few yards of braid - snapped off when will people learn about drags? On a holdered rod it needs to be backed well off if left!

3 hours and no more bites later Dave hauls in a pout as we up anchor and head in.

Nothing in the harbour entrance - despite boats all round catching bass.

Nothing by the castle

Nothing further up in the harbour - but we had a nice cup of tea!

Still if you didn't have bad days the good ones wouldn't be so good! This one was strangly remenicent of 3 years ago when I hadn't a clue where and when to go!

The good news was that the heating worked great!

bit of a joke really - especially when you look at the costs which are wholly unrealistic.