Adam F

In order to give members plenty of time, I'm opening up the booking in early. Next Friday 18th at 16.00 sees the start of the annual 48hr specimen hunt. The comps runs from 16.00 on Friday to 16.00 on Sunday 20th. Only 1 fish to be booked in per entrant, best specimen counts. The entry fee is

Of course Tomo - we only take what we can eat fresh. Still doesnt take away from the fact that Bob will be playing electronics and we will be out codding!

Give us a wave Bob.... .... we'll be the Blue Aquafish riding low in the water with the mountain of cod on deck!

Sorry all - this one hasnt quite come together properly. I'm leaving at 6am with Paul Frey, Alun and me. Tom is leaving later with Terry Bartell and space for a-n-other. Sorry to those who missed out - I'll owe you a trip next time. Adam

Paul, Tom Smith is looking for another crew member - give him a call. I'll PM you his home number - he's a lovely guy with a lovely boat. Adam

Sorry, been hectic today and have had several texts and PM's re. tomorrow. Bascially JV is going out and has a space, Tom Smith is taking Illusion out but leaving later me me. Mark (zippy) not sure what you have sorted out? Paul Frey was going to take his boat Imagine out and would have had a crew space, but now might be coming with me?? Not sure - I'm confused!

OK Mark - I was looking for another buddy boat, but I do have a crew space too. I'll keep you posted on here. Your gear sounds fine. Whatever you use for smoothounds will be perfect. Adam

Planning on taking advantage of a nice little window on Weds and heading out into the channel wrecking for cod etc Anyone fancy tagging along?

Hello! And the warmest welcome. Adam

Pictures!!!!

Keep an ear out for JV - she will be out in the channel with Ian as skipper!

Just 3 weeks to this trip! Has anyone had any luck on crew? I see we have 4/5/6 boats down but most need crew? 1.) JV - Adam, Alun and Ian 2.) AWOL - Dean, Martin +1? 3.) Pheaton - Duncan +1 4.) Serenity - Tony + 1? 5.) White Magic - Dave +2/3? 6.) Alfresco - tentative? 7.) Quest II - tentative?

We sell new ones 8' long -

Looks like a few of the boats have space. Give Dave Evans a call on Wight Magic. Costs? Depends on the boat and how far you go! JV is one of the more economical boats and I use just over 1l per N/M. The last 4 day trip cost

Nicked into the side of the bait - not under tension, just to keep it tucked out of the way.

Just thought I'd pop a little piccie up for why we use 'The Franklin Flyer'.... It's not a pennel - they are too bulky and impeed the bait's presentation. It's not rocket science, but a few years back after dropping alot of turbot, I decided to hair rig a size 12 carp hook... it worked! about 30% of the fish caught last week came in on the small hook - would have been dropped on a single hook.

Nige - what plotter do you have and what size? Can you network with that? If not I'm more than pleased with my Lowrance - stunning performance for the budget.

Quote of the week for me.... Adam: " Rob - what's your best tope?" Rob: "About 7lb... do they go big here? Do they go to 20lb?" Adam: "Nah... not 20lb mate..... about 30 is the smallest!" ..... que a big smile and then 5 mins alter Rob hooks a 47lber! Awesome!

Tom had his SLR with him so we arranged a few 'fly-by' photo shoots...

Nice one Charlie - superb report!

You'll be eating Tubot for the next year how well you did!

For those golfers of you, you'll recall the famous, Gary Player quote: "The more I practise, the luckier I get" .... that pretty much sums up this years first trip to Alderney for JV. If you havent guessed, I flippin LOVE Alderney, the trip is the highlight of the year for me. After getting blown out early May, we were mega keen last thurs to get cracking, so before 1st light last thurs Alun, Rob Francis and I edged out of them Marina, and hooked up with Yelo, Alfesco, Quest II, Abode and Wight Magic for 4 days in the channels islands. I'll spare you every detail as it has been covered before, but I'll pick up a few highlights! This time Plans A,B,C, D and E all worked, hence the quote at the top of the report. We had a box of prime pollock on the trip over on Thurs, before fueling and going out for a crack at the Alderney Tope... we fished for 2 hours and had a dozen fast and furious tope, biggest 47lb, smallest 30lb - amazing! Friday saw no wind, and sunshine and a long day on the Shoale bank. 9 turbot to about 7lb was a cracking day. Rob 'honest I saw that bite' Francis was top rod, and seemed to have a knack of just picking up the rod with a turbo attached! We didnt take the mick.... much! Sat was a suprise, we expected to be land bound, but whilst it blew it was fishable, so we took the bull by the horns and headed to the Shoale again. We fished long and hard with a F5 E wind over tide all day.... lumpy.... and managed another 9 fish. Alun got his nickname of 'First and Last' today as the same as Fri, he caught the fist and last turbo of the day.... he fished damn hard for them! Sun... home time. We had a delayed start as 6am saw 50m visability due to dense fog and a string F5... should we stay another day or go home? An educatated decision based on the forecast and help from Steve Porter a few miles ahead of us saw the whole foltila leaving at 10am, headed North for Poole. We fished a few wrecks on the way back and ended up with some more lovely pollock and a few plump cod. Back into the marina at 6pm, we had covered 241 miles for 277 litres of fuel used. Tired but happy! A few nigles over the weekend.. a poorly VHF which needs some 'Bob' attention, an engine fault alarm which popped up 15 miles of Durlston on the way home, and on cleaning the boat today a cracked stringer on the hull which will need a repair (I suspect a tankers wash, and 20 knots on a flat sea with 3 up in the wheelhouse was the blame) Anyway, a great laugh and a superb weekend! The bad news is we are back in reality... the good news is we are going again in 3 weeks! A few photos for you:

OK - give me 10 min.

Me!! I cut my biggest into Troncons (steaks) and have them in the oven with homemade hollendaise, jerseys royals, asparagus and a bottle of cold white! MMmmmmmmm!!!

Nice one Tom - it was an excellent few days wasnt it! Your fish equals the club record of 5olb from 2000 - shame you didnt have any bigger scales. We did the same too - Rob's first fish pretty much bottomed mine out so I bought a 100lb set from Mark the next day....