duncan

Firstly glad everyone got there and back without too much incident - the trip out was marred by the unfortunate swell (direction and size) but as others have said the trip back was great adn I also felt the overfalls were significantly smaller than I expected - maybe that's because we are so use to St Albans, Peveril etc.

With Dave refusing to 'prat around' with shads, and Alun having practiced for the first time the night before on the A. Sky, it was an aprehensive first drift - made more so as Sundance dropped right inside us.

I had a pollack around 4lb and Dave landed a Brill (3lb 2oz) on his mackerel strip to stop us dead in our comments!

Overall it was harder than I had anticipated with fish clearly localised. We ended up with Alun taking pollack to around 7lb and I had Pollack and a Cod of 7lb 4oz. As the best fish we had managed on Friday had been a Pollack around 9lb to me we clearly weren't burning up the comp stakes but were enjoying ourselves (I think?).

Deciding to stick to our original plan we headed back in to Dancing ledge, stopping of at a gulley half way for the odd hour. Beautiful run in with the only noteable element being us crossing the Condor heading in from the CIs. At about 4 miles Alun asked if I thought we were going to get close to it adn I advised him maybe but we are stand on vessel so he will expect us to hold our course and speed..........I think he thought I was joking but the Condor altered course to pass behind by a few degrees at around a mile and we eventualy crossed no closer than 500m at any time.

The gulley was interesting as 45m is a lot to anchor in ........... however we were now to get lesson II from Dave as we laughed at his whole old (er) mackerel bait on a mono snood - what do you think you are ogin to hook that you can land with that? Sure enough the only fish we had there (apart from joey mackerel attracted to a sack with magnet) was to that bait by Dave - initially thougth to be a smut with attitude it became recognised as a Spurdog when it managed to get Dave' s leg! Pulling the scales down to 11lb 7oz it swam of happily enough despite Dave's swearing at it.

Moving in again, to a mark we know and love, the rest of the Magnet went down on the Anchor chain and we settled down to some good bream. Unfortunately no one had told the bream - nada no bream. However we did have undulates all round with the best going 11lb 12oz to Alun.

Dave managed another feature fish with a pretty red gurnard then it was back in to dock just before 2300h for the second day running.

4 hours of baot cleaning this morning followed by a long run home was not the way I would have planned Sunday but you can't have everything.

Great fun and good to see so many boats out.

Nope - forgot all about it actually!

Swapped the units over a couple of weeks ago but have left the other one down at the van in Poole.

Special offer to you 70 if we can avoid postage..........despite the fact that you haven't joined the club yet!

pm me if you want to go ahead etc

Duncan

I would echo the above and add that it is really important to deploy the anchor so that it works as an anchor rather than getting initially dragged along the seabed until it 'hooks' something.

This may seem obvious, and in a strong tide can be easier said than done, but is important. It is also a reason the additional chain length makes a difference to lost anchors as it helps the initial pull set the anchor even when the scope is still a little low when the first pull goes on. Minimum 1 x boat length preferably 1.5. This would give you 30ft / 10m which at 10kg for 8mm plus 9 for the anchor is still reasonable weight to handle.

Finally if using a cable tie to rig the anchor always chect it for nicks everytime you deploy it, or replace as a matter of course each use. Even a small nick will weaken it significantly and an accidentially tripped anchor will drag nicely into a wreck never to be seen again........

2 x sandeels for me please

Thanks for the offer Coddy but I can't make the meeting I am afraid.

I was wondering if the club would accept measurements and a photo were one to get one of these beauties!

The sun comes out and every plan is a possibility..........

Adam, Can't use the Rule (have one spare from previous live well system) as I need one 'in line' rather than picking up from an open water source.

Have used a hozelock outlet n the end of 1/2" pipe which takes either the pistol wash or plugs onto the bottom of a livewell tank on engine cover and a simple 3/4" outlet pipe feeds over the transom.

Will measure up over the weekend regarding the rail - yours certainly looks a neat installation.

If you don't need to adjust them Charlie can't you use epoxy on any splines..........or am I missing something?

Ah well the Porbeagle specimen weight is the same in both so that's alright then..............

Just leaves the small issue of how to weigh one

With regard to 'which specimen weights I keep a copy of this page, the club records on board as it helps me understand the opportunities.

with a combination of the weather (as forecast) number of boats and fired up crews I don't somehow think 102% is going to do it this year! Hope everyone has a great time whatever!

All sounds excellent Adam - be interested in your views on the treadmaster mod in a couple of years time but would like to speak to you more about the rear rail - perfect for Phaeton too as I have a cover issue etc and you have beaten me to the washdown/ bait plumbing - well I have wired it all in and plumbed it but it only worked for a few seconds then 'stopped'. I have been able to take a water feed from the heads inlet and had a new parmax pump (5 years old) but something somewhere has failed!

Can you let me know a bit more about the rail? and the holders you have mounted to it - dead smart.

that won't work as we would only catch bass so big we would want to put them back........

however we always get large mackerel (when trying for joey's to use to catch the big bass.......) so how about we do it that way round?

rafted up off Studland beach late afternoon Saturday? If we can use a small craft as a tender back and forwards to the beach we can actualy hold it in the BBQ area on the beach (downside is you loose the sun early to the shadow of the cliff).

you can have the sausages, burgers and beer - I'm with Adam and fancy mackerel, bream, bass a lightly dressed salad and ice cold Muscadet.........

Good point re insurance Kam (I think my Brest to Elbe restrictions ( ) cover the rips) and people should be aware of their cover limits.

Adam, for a number of reasons my preference would be for Saturday I am afraid - not least because if the conditions are good I would hate to find a front suddenly arriving on Sunday! Further reasons are that there wouldn't be any real contraints on getting back in if someone has a problem etc with Sat night/Sunday as a huge buffer. Realistically if I have a good session Fri/Sat I will head back for brownie points on Sunday......

There are also, as you suggest, options around the slack and ebb tides on the way back in, but it's going to require a fair length of anchor rope and some heavy gear to fish at anchor in that tide - nothing to big relative to the winter codding I suppose but I had hoped to have put the 2lb leads away 'till November! I am sure a quiet word with the some of the more experienced club members could illicit some suggestions and even numbers to try (? ?). It is certainly looking a reasonable forecast at the moment

I also thought Loyal Royal had decided to base themselves at Weymouth for the weekend? Had planned to request position checks every so often to see if they were heading West of Portland!!!

Alun - do you want to pm me when you think you will want to be out etc?

Adam,

Tides certainly look realistic for a trip out to the rips area with the flood running from around 7/8 in the morning good for an early launch/departure avoiding the crowds that will inevitably accompany the weather over the weekend.....

I am most likely to fish sessions Friday night and Saturday if the weather permits - probably have space for one if someone want's to contact me.

Yep the weather was certainly a pain - have noticed that everytime it rains when out there we are anchored wind over tide and the rain blows back into the wheelhouse!

At one point we even considered popping below for lunch (a first!) but decided it was a silly idea when out fishing in those conditions really............

Obviously not as well as if we had used Magnet.......see seperate report !

Given your plans you feel free to have your snifters in Weymouth Rich!

Personally I am expecting a calm heatwave (law of averages) and will be BBQ ing on the boat through the weekend between tides and fish, possibly stopping off in Swanage or Braye (using the water taxi in either to get in/back) for a snifter.......

Having worked the logistics out in detail I picked Dave (now a member!) up from the Quay at 0800. Heading out to the forecast blustery day we thought we would head West on the basis that some bigger fish have been caught, but not in the numbers found on the Patch, Ledge and Ballard.

Battling round we stuck down the hook ona mark a few yards from Shelia Marie and played with the mackeral rods until the off. Fortunately we caught a few as it help keep the mind on things and off the boats motion!!!!.

0930 and the bream rods went down with Dave into a fish at 0933! However it turned out to be a doggy.....

Having given it an hour, the best bit of the tide that day too we thought, without even a nibble, we decided to move to quieter climes......tossed around and catching is fine, even bites!, but enough was enough.

Passing the boat parking lot formerly known as Peveril Charlie gave us a call and invited us over for lunch so we dropped the hook where instructed and chucked out the rods......... I went forward to double check the anchor before cutting the engine and saw my rod bouncing around in the holder as I returned - action at last!!! Stopping to kill the engine I then grabbbed the rod and was clearlyt into a decent fish right off. After a great tussle lasting long enough to have thoughts of fame I suddenly realised I had a double shot of bream which, unlike the more stupid mackerel, were swiming in perfect unison and giving the impression of a single fish. Both fish went 2lb.

Hetic sport for an hour or so then the tide made it hard to drop baits back on light leads and we had to move up a notch on tackle to hold bottom. Eventually decided to relax and chucked down some decent mackerel strips on the bream traces ( ) just in case.......sure enough Dave was sooon into a nice ray that bought a smile to his face. Smalll Eyed at 8lb 12oz.

At the end of the day we had had around 25 bream with 12 at 2lb or better. Unfortunately the largest only went 2 4 and the next best 2 1. Amazing how they were all the same size!

A good day despite the weather, and great to see Dean pick up his prize and the pool back at the Mariner.

Now onto plans for next weekend - shame Lulworth are fireing as that scuppers the original one completely!

Phaeton will be out with me and NM Dave (unless I get him to join tonight!)

I am sorry you can't make it too!

Never did get hold of any so I will have to continue the 'find the fish' rather than 'get them to come to me' approach..........well it's all luck actually!

Headlines - Luck continues to outperform Magnet.....?

having definitely said I wasn't fishing the comp - because I wanted to have the whole of the following weekend free for the 48hr - I am now planning to do so (having come back from holiday yesterday 'cos the weather just wasn't nice!).

Probably be doing both comps.

Theyr is giving 3 and a bit of 4 SW for Sunday at the moment - Saturday a lot worse..............

Phaeton is a Faeton Moraga 780 HT

Jim,

Try getting yourself a piece of red plastic to cover the screen then adjust the brightness of the screen until you can see through it but no glare or loss of night vision.

enjoy the crab!

ah Jack Jack..........

Google? perfectly good search engine on here m8!

Portland rig and details here

When the tides running hard then a long trace/snood is great - when it's slack it's a liability especially with something alive on the end!

sorry for the abrieviation - poker game was getting a bit warm!!!!!!!!!!!

good fishing

helicopter or portland rig

snood length to tide - shorter slacker

yes to mackerel

no to slowing the drift