Newboy

Of cos you're right Adam, size has nothing to do with it (funny that's what the missus been telling me.... ), but in practise it's better and safer to let the big tanker go first. I was fishing Folkestone (can't get much busier than that with cargo ship coming in and out of Dover) on Tuesday, twice the skipper let the big tanker go first even tho we were the stand on vessel, simple reason being you have to assume the tankers know you are there in the first place. All you need is a kamikazee pilot on helm without a proper look out and that will be it, my bet is they won't even notice they hit you.

As said before might is right, the big one is always the stand on vessel, as big ship can't change directions quickly.

Up at 3:30, picked up my friend from Woolwich at 6:00, spent the double 666 (06:06:06am of the 06:06:06) filling the car with fishing gear. Arrived at Folkestone at 7:30. Had brekkie, stocked up on 8 and 10 oz lead. Boarded Fathfinder ay 8:30. The boat is a little old, but very spacious, especially there's only CK and I fishing it . The plan was first to stock up on lance/giant saneels on the Varne and once the tide had turned, we start with Mr and Mrs bass a bit closer inshore on a patch of rough ground where the bass comes in every year June to Aug to spawn (more of the spawning bit later ) The ground isn't that rough, certainly nothing on Southbourne or the bass ground around Weymouth. No pinnacles or underwater structures, just some rocks. We used shrimps rigs with a bass wedge as the flashy silver of the wedge attracts the sandeels. I have never caught so many sandeels before, it was quite fun . I also caught lots of weevers, it's the lesser weever apparently, much lighter in colour than the Weymouth one. We started on the bass at around 12:30, and it was action from the off. Sandeels on a 8' trace on a Portland rig. We managed on average a fish a drift. We had in total more than 40 fish (I caught twice as many fish as my mate which makes a change) with the largest 7 1/2lb, tremandes fun on light spinning rod with a shimano aero fixed spool. Did lose what I believe to be a double figure fish, as it nearly spooled me on its 2 initial searing runs. Lost it within sight of the boat I was well gutted. The fish was definitely spawning, as one fish was so excited cuming over the gunnels, it incorrectly mistaking the boat for a bukkeke party and covered me with the white stuff.......

James, if you want the photo larger, after scanning the photo, cut out the white bit using any photo package and use the remaining instead.

Sam ain't wrong how your photos...... got any more?

Excellent fish.

We saw 1 dolphin (could have been a porposie) last week on Tomcat2 on the ledge.

Well done mate, smoothhound on 20lb trace, not easy

Great fish, wonder hoe long this one will stand now everyone is going over to Alderney?

You don't do thing by half, do you? A brilliant report.

That's a big bream, any photos? Well done Paul.

The turbot bites came in the morning, the 17.5 was caught 8:30, (well the bast*rd rang and woke me up at 8:45am) and the 20+ was after lunch. In between they also caught a few 6/7 ish. They were out on Lady Godiva fishing for bream and bass using sandeels.

Did you try for the turbot today? A 17.5 lb was caught and rumours has it a 23/24 lb was also landed, but that is yet to be confirmed.

Great result on the bot and brill. There's nothing like the feeling of "I told ya there'd be fish" I bet Rob is bored stiff now Electric Blue is sold. Tell him Ken say hi.

Why can't you be like the rest of us contend with catching medium to small fish?!

Personally I blame James and Adam, catching all those big fish thus pushing up the specimen weighs.....

Mark, it only take a few minutes to catch a match winning fish, 4 hours are plenty and the crew doesn't have to be members.

We were anchored. Sounds like a ray now you mentioned it, didn't know rays frequent the ledge, I thought they like sandy bottom. Don't think it's a smut, cos it didn't charge.

Brilliant report. Hard luck not landing a sailfish. Unfortunately weather (specially the bad) and fishing go together. One day, you will catch a sailfish, and many more after that.

It was warm..... on shore.

I was fishing the Ledge on Tuesday and hooked into something which got away. It started off like a bream bite with the rod rattling. On picking up the rod the fish started to take line, but that was no bream, it took line slowly but continuously for a minute having already tightened up the drag twice. I was using light gear, Shimano crucial casting rod plus a conquest 200 with 12lb braid and 12lb f/carbon trace. In the end it spat out the hook and swam away. It wasn't a bass, as it didn't take line quickly like a bass, I was thinking it might be a baby conger but some smart ass onboard reckon it was a trgger, as he'd seen one landed a few years back. The skipper was't sure as he'd never caught a trigger. Any thought?

What do you mean? How dare you think we are such an insensitive bunch? We do n't kick a friend when he's down...... we only trip and kick him when he is up

Day 6 Looked outside from our cabin and the wind is still there (dame). We spend the day hiding from the wind, so was limited to where we could fish. We fish Dave favourite ground where he caught all his 50

Day 5 We knew we couldn

I landed the biggest cod of our group in the whole trip, a 19.5 lb. A personal best for me, so only 3 more fish, namely red fish, halibut and haddock to cross out for my Norwegian experience. Very tired due to all those days fishing and decided to pop out for an hour. Result, hooked into my first haddock, didn