Newboy

John Keggie isn't involve with the tagging programme. Out of those 6 fish, only 1 was tagged. I guess there are lots of untagged fish out there. We know very little about this fish, all we know is that they are there all year round, largest one ever caught was estimated to be somewhere near 280-300lb (not by a rod I may add, imagine hauling up a 300lb fish ). No one knows where the young goes, fish below 50lb are rare and fish below 25lb are unheard of.

Makes sense, it probably has a built-in float switch.

Sure you are not going out to snare another ray?

Surely if you use a large enough pot, you are gonna catch a cod.....

The 2 +ve are for auto switch and manual switch. Connect one to a rocker/on-off switch and the other to a auto bilge switch.

As it was mentioned already, 9 skate was the record in any one day, but that was fished over 2 tides. This made our 6 fish in 1 tide significant. . Then again if you read our 2nd day record, we couldn't make contact even tho it was the same spot, same tide and condition were similar, less windy. My advice is if anyone is keen, book for 2 days, since it's a long way up and it would be a shame not to see a big skate. John is doing a write up on this trip, when he's finish he will send it to BFM. Also, Glasgow angling centre has asked him to video skate fighting footages, he took some footages of us and it will be burnt onto a dvd to be sold in the tackle shop. I bet it will be funny, I was swearing and my face went from brown to red to white...... Porbeagle and other sharks will have to wait till 2007, I'm off to Norway next May.

Thanks Martin

I wouldn't use the trimmer line if I was you. Although it's mono, but they are made of difference materials, they break alot easier. Just thhink how easy it is for the line to break by hitting the guard of the trimmer..... I would agree with Sam, I tend to fish slightly lighter, I just don't like some skippers insist on 150lb mono for conger and 100lb for ling, for pete's sake, average ling size down Weymouth is around 20lb..... One advantage of using 200lb mono is that you don't have to change the trace everytime you caught a fish, sometime if I'm really lazy or in a comp for number of conger caught, I would just bait up using the same trace and chuck it down.

I'm looking for a fixed spool reel for light stuff like breams or bass, what would you guys recommend?

Martin, where can I download the form?

A little off topic, but how does registratipon work for chartered boats? I have some friends fishing with Andy on Silver Spray on Sunday, I tried to get them to take part but they don't know there way round Poole as they are from London. Do the chartered boat have to have all participent named or just the name of boat with number of people?

Second day of our Scotland trip. We were up before the crack of dawn which wasn't that difficult since it was only 7:15am. We fished a shallow wreck in Loch Spelve for pollocks, using shads without weigh casting near the wreck and retreive. We caught 5 pollocks upto 8 lbs, good sport on 12 lb set up, they fought every inch of the way. Also saw a couple of sea eagle working near the cliffs. Although from a distance, they looked awsome diving down. We then moved near where we were yesterday, the tide wasn't quite right yet, so we settled down for some ground fishing. I put down a couple of rods, 60 lb trace 8/0 hook, as congers are only in the 30lb-40lb mark. One with a mackeral flapper, the other with a mackeral fillet with a squid. Not long after putting the bait down, I had some interest from the mackeral flapper. A few violent pull and it was on, a conger I shouted, it felt big on my 30lb set up. it fought really well for about 15 minutes, it was nearing the boat and it took a dive and dive and dive and then nothing, *#@+"#, I shouted. We thought it must have biten thru the trace, but on retreiving, the trace was fine, the 6/0 O'shagnessey was straightened. I have caught eels upto 50lb before without any problems. At this point John said, 'It was definitely a conger and a good fish, I would say a big fish, in fact a potential Scotish record as it is only 46lb.....' . C K was next, a more subtle pull. Got it up to the surface and it was a thornback, not huge but 10-15 lb, then it got caught up with a few of the other line, and somehow dislodge the hook from its mouth, he was gutted. I then caught a small spurday, only a kiddie about 3 lb which we keep as bait for the skate. We moved a couple of hundreds metre across to the same skate mark fished thru the slack but nothing, I did manage to catch a small conger about 8 lb, so I guess I won't bother the record book. John stayed out as late we he dare risk, but it was not to be our day, we were a little disappointed, but we did have a wonderful first day. I thoroughly recommend a skate trip to anyone. You can drive up or get a cheap flight up, John would even pick you up from the airport, top bloke, one of the best skipper I've came across. Nothing is ever too much trouble. Or if you want to be really adventurous, there are many slipways near Oban. Started our journey south at 6:00pm and arrived back at Andover at 1:30am, grab a few hours sleep and set off for Weymouth at 5:30am........

John said a male is stronger and fights a lot harder than a female, which was why my fish went up and down so many times. 2 more fish came aboard within the next hour before the weather had deteriorated so much the boat was swinging from side to side, and the bait was bouncing on the bottom. We called it a day at around 4:00 as it was getting dark and there were millions of pots out in the area. It was a good day, 6 fish boated (best john ever had was 9 skate in a day doing both tides), C K had 3, Henry 2 and me the solitary fish. The fish of the day went to CK with a fish of about 140 lb, but it was on a 30lb mono set up and it took just short of an hour to get it at the stern of the boat. The fish had 4 wings instead of 2. John guessed it was probably gaffed too low when it was caught before and split the wings.

After all the excitement, a short break and a cup of tea was well received,….’click, click, click,…’ now the ratchet on my reel went, I rush over to pick it up, waited until it went off again, lifted into the fish and it just stopped. How hard can it be, after all C K just did it 20 minutes ago. After

A quick shower and a bite after work on Saturday saw my friends (C K, Henry) and me leaving at 11.30 pm from Andover for our delayed long journey north, which was called off last week. We arrived at Glasgow to pick up my father in law, a short tea break and made it to Dunstaffnage 4 miles outside Oban at 7:30am. A quick change into our gear, we took the liberty of loading up the boat with our bags while waiting for John Keggie to arrive. Dunataffnage is a small marina, it has a small hotel with bar and restaurant, shower facility for berthing visitors. It’s well protected from the elements and the scenery is breathtakingly beautiful. It was the first trip out for Oberon since John got back north of the border. We went to pick up some fuel from the marina but the guy never showed up so we had to pop into Oban instead. John apologised for the delay since he should have fuelled her up before hand but he was very busy with the move and never had the chance. First port of call a small island, if you can call it that, since it was no bigger than the small marina we are staying at. We drifted for pollocks and coalfish. I caught my first coalfish, even tho it was a tiny one, plus a few small pollocks, and it was time to go to our deepwater hole for the big stuff. The boat was anchored just before lunch, in 400 feet of water about

My guess is that it's www. rather than www-

At different angle

Will report later as I'm knackered from 2 days in Oban and yesterday bassing down in Weymouth.

You shall be able to pick up squids at any tackle shops.

Has anyone got/used one of this? This rod is a 3 piece set up, 9-10' and the butt extend for casting then revert bvack for playing fish. Or use it as 2 piece about 7-8' long as a normal boat rod. My friend got one and I used it and liked it but can't seem to find it anywhere, where did you get yours and how much?

Nice fish, just hope the cod show up on the open comp.

If anyone is thinking of bassing down Weymouth, get yourself some 3" shads as many bass are on the small side. Better still Tacklebargains are offering the 3" on BOGOF. Only pinfish and small bass left tho. Not to mention the club will benefit too.

My right wrist is killing me, all the jigging with the fixed spool. Also when we were out there, I noticed the a few commercial rod fisherman using not shad but eels fished paternoster style, ie., 2 white eels above the weigh. Can anyone tell me how are we supposed to fish the storm shad? We were told to use running ledger, 3' trace and hop the weigh along keeping in contact with the sea bed. I seem to remember someone mentioned retrieve and drop down but the commercial boys were holding the rod in one hand without jigging or retrieve using the other hand.

Welcome Harry I'm sure there will be dozens of offers from fellow club members regarding launch and retrieve. If in doubt, come down on the 27th which is our open comp, and most boats will be launching from Baiters.

Don't blame me, I didn't whisper nothing.....