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: