Newboy

Freezing them won't be a problems, I've a walk in freezer at work and it blast freeze anything, a joint of pork is frozen in less them 1 hour. The fish van come and sell us fish+ shell fish, we buy some cuttle to eat, quite like the chewy textile. Don't and won't be selling on, I just get them at whatever they cost. (Sod's law, this timw I want some cuttle and he won't have any ...... just keep the finger cross.) I'll phone and check the prices for squids.

I have a fish merchant who come to my shop every month and usually he has a good supply of cuttlefish. Around 50p to the lb. Only problem is that I'll have to freeze it if you want any.

Went out today, didn't have much time, so anchored about a mile sse of the Needle, hoping to snare a cod or 2 before the Sunday comp. There weather was really good, even Mr Sun came out to play for a bit. The sea was a little choppy to start with but settled after lunch. We were closest to the cliffs, around us there must have been at least 15 boats further away. There were plenty of whitings, not very big tho a few over the lb mark but most under. Then pouts started to make an entrance, big bugger tho, some were as big as the whitings. During hw, caught a few small pouts and remember reading about cod would swallow a pout whole, so put it on a long flowing trace (8', 60 lb mono) and sung it to the bottom with a 1 1/2. After about 10 mins, the rod tip nod, nod [could this be my first cod on board Sweet Honey? I asked myself] Then the tip just bent right down, without thinking, I picked up the rod and 'strike'. It took me between 5-10 mins to land it, when I got it up at the top, it's a conger , not a huge one only a tad under 20 lb, but I felt drained afterward, must have been the adrenalin .....

ok, it might only be a tiny one compares to Jimbob's 60+ but nevertheless, it was very exciting to land a conger.

I'm on Ntl and I'm not experiencing any email problems. Usually when they ungrade their email system, it should last no more than 2 days. Again if Charlie uses ntl, he can use webmail to log into his account, just click on Services then select webmail

Which ISP are you with? Some of them have webmail where you can read and response from Internet Explorer (bit like hotmail)

Was going out today, but the batteries still weren't charged. Having real problems as the weather been really wet and can only get the extension out a few hours at a time.

Officially it's Kam, but I've been using Ken since I was a littling so it's both really. I think I will try all the above and see if it improve, thanks everyone.

I think I'm a tack too young, Grandad......

I keep mine in the wheel house, and where the boat is on the drive, it only see sunlight for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Maybe it's the lack of sunlight, I don't know, but I think I will plug in the charger once a week/2 weeks just to top up.

come on lads, there's no need to be so competative...... let settle it on the big comp and see who will catch a cod first.

go on Dan, you know you wanna .......

It was 4 weeks since I last started the outboard. All the electrics work, but just haven't got enough juice to turn the starter motor on the outboard. I think I'll just use my battery mate to charge the batteries once every other weeks just to be sure. Before I had the solar panel I'd left the boat for about 3 weeks but without any problems. I did turn the batteries to off before that. To add insult to injury, to be able to connect the solar panel, I had to plug in the ciggie lighter plug which has a red light ......... maybe it's the light which drained the batteries.

Well, membership costs you

Just gone and tried to start my outboard and the batteries are as flat as a glass of week old cola . I bought a solar panel before I went on holiday and thought that would top up the batteries while I was away (well, obviously not ). So where did I go wrong? I left the battery switch on 'all' and with the panel plug into the cigarette lighter plug. The red led 'flashes' and I presumed it's working. I must admit the panel doesn't see any direct sunlight, but then it should still have worked.

As we have discovered already, there are less and less hermits, reason being a shortage of ready made new homes, ie, emptied whelk sheels. The whelk industry just take them out of the sea and just ground down the empty shells for whatever uses. If at all possible I suggest we don't smash the shell and just pop them back into the sea.

I read it somewhere if you heat the the point of the whelk shell gently, like a lighter or something, the hermit will shoot out of its shell.

You wouldn't go out buy a car and drive it around unless you've been taught how to drive. So should we be allowed to 'drive' a boat without any basic skill? I think UK is one of the few countries where any Tom, Dick and Harry can legally go out, buy a 30' 250hp cruiser and 'drive' it around without any test of competency. In Europe a basic competent certificate is required, in Australia, you can be in control of a boat only if a qualified people gives premission and that they can take control of the boat in any given moment. If it was to become law that you must have a (say) RYA level 1/2, would it have any bearing you you owning a boat? Personally, I would say it'd probably have......

Never done any uptiding, so I thought I'd give it a go. Also, a bit more room if one of the rod is not down tide.

I want to try up tiding for cod. So for the needle area, which is better, ledger style or patonaster style?! How long should the trace be?

nice knot, only problem I've encountered is when it is sometime difficult to thread the mono thru the eye twice. I was using 7/0 and 50lb mono. Probably need bigger eye.

I personally think the trucker's hitch is very useful to us trailerman. I use it to tie cover on my last boat, sheltering it from the element.

Never mind holding bottom, just imagine if you hook into a fish, How long it'll take to reel the bloody thing in......

Big rat huh? Maybe the catfish will have it ......

This knotless knot look very much like 'snelling' a hook. Incidentally this is what I use for my pennell rig.