great white

Welcome Shane and please join in and use the offers of advice. Your shetland is a very capable boat and I hope you get lots of fun on her The time at Rockley coincides with the Club open boat comp so maybe we will see you taking part or at least have a chance to meet many of the members. Tight lines Charlie

Very Well Done Bobi Nice to see a very keen lady angler getting in the prizes. Look forward to the 2012 Dinner Dance and seeing big Colins face when you get the trophy. Only kidding Colin, of course its all down to the skipper finding the fish [was bobi driving ] Charlie

I remember that too Paul especially as he was texting pictures from the slipway. when we were building the boat in my Garden, Dan and I were generously loaned a boat by a Member on the day that the engine was craned in. We only had half a day, on a new boat with no secret marks in the plotter, but we happily took the opportunity to get afloat. We eagerly entered the comp to support the event and even got amongst the prizes Just goes to show that you do not need to fish for 48 hrs or go out of the sight of land. If we can not go offshore, we will adjust our aim, change tactics and try to fish as well as we can locally. Looking forward to it as usual. Charlie

That link has information that looks spot on Can it be put on the home page for all to access easily in the future ? Charlie

Ask him to phone the fisheries when he sees them, they should respond as this is not legal. Sam and I have done so in the past and they do try to act on this information. Charlie

I have not been on the site for a couple of days, due to family commitments and was interested to read how this thread has gone in that period. IMHO this is one of the best comps of the year, but then again the boys and I have always liked specimen fishing more than scratching. We book this one into the family diary early and Wendy knows how much we enjoy it so accepts it as a fishing weekend. I then look to ensure I do not have to work as well. We have not always had the boat to chase miles offshore but have always felt that with planning and preperation we could compete, even when the boys were small we tried our hardest and enjoyed ourselves. Their first ever night trip coincided with small tides and the 48 hr comp. In a nutshell I do not believe that smaller boats can not compete any more than I think that the winning fish can only be caught offshore. Maybe it is the thought that some of us will be putting the hours and effort in that puts others off. We hope to go accross channel this year because we have good tides , a fishing pass and Sam has some time off from the Navy. Because of that I wanted to have a look at french waters. I would encourage all that are fishing that weekend to enter, but if you do not want too because of various reasons I respect that it is your choice. Mike Your boat has the distance capability, comfort and size to not really be classed as a small boat, so I presume that it is your speed or the fact that you fish from a yacht that holds you back. I would have thought that an overnight at a shelltered anchorage would give you all a chance to be very competitive if you wished to be. Trailered boats also could plan around the weather to fish productive areas and target species if they wished too. By trailing the boats to the extremes of Club Waters they can fish in areas that are a long steam away by sea. As I say I try to respect the choices of others, I just wanted to put over my thoughts on this one, for the sake of newer Members. Who may not know that this comp has been won several times by fish caught on inshore reefs. You have a 48 hr period, pick the best tides times, weather windows etc and give it a go. Be safe and make the most of an extended fishing pass like we do .

Happy Birthday Trevor Have a good one Charlie

exactly and that is the reason to ensure a good length and weight of chain is used. That is also the reason we pull the warp in steadily as we drift or motor back towards the buoy. if you pull hard and keep the warp and chain tight the weight of the anchor may overcome the weight of the chain and it will start to drop again. Dan the method works even if the anchor has to be tripped, We always rig ours to trip Charlie

1) Adam F - JV 2) Alun J - JV 3) Paul F - JV 4) Tom B - Mrs Sea 5) Greg C - Mrs Sea 6) Terry B - Mrs Sea 7) Martin - AWOL 8) Dean - AWOL 9) Dave- Wight Magic 10) John W - Rosie One 11) Allan Green- Kind of Magic 12} Charlie Alfresco 13) Sam Alfresco 14) Graham Alfresco 15] Will TBC Alfresco

Graham Weather permitting you are crewing with us for the 48 hr and we will no doubt be anchoring I will talk you through it as we do it now and as I have done it on both of my previous boats. It can be done safely single handed, its important to know where the anchor buoy is at all times. but we can all get it wrong. My first attempt at anchoring speedy rock in 2008 we did exactly as the boat in the video did. But with more hands available, we took the weight off of the line by tying off to a bollard, then un jammed the alderney ring. Nervous moments indeed in that area, with all of the rocks about. If single handed the bait knife may have been used, but only if I was 100% sure I could free the prop by cutting the warp. Drifting with no engine would have been a bad option in that area. but maybe a better option than swamping on the anchor warp due to waves coming onboard. Good call to get the RNLI out in this case Charlie

Easy mistake to make, and really to sort out. But I expect that it was a lesson learnt the hard way. Goes to show that a practical demonstration of how to use an Alderney ring is probably the best way to learn. Charlie

4 small craft heading into Cherbourg, one CG vessel - which one get's stopped? Mine probably, because my french is so bad All part of the fun though. Charlie

I forgot to add that we buy our line from Alderney Angling at

Graham All good advice and I think very fair. I will add my two penneth as usual. We tend to load our reels with 300m of braid as even in shallow water we tend to lose some line and unfortunatey at times that can be cut or broken at the surface losing quite a lot of line. As Kam suggests losing 40 out of 300 is OK, but 40 0ut of 150 is getting a bit short. Do that twice and you will not have enough What I now do to all my reels from new is, buy the chosen braid [we also use whiplash] load all of it on to the spool from empty. then attach a good mono of the same breaking strain to the braid and wind it on as backing and fill the reel to the full level. then the tedious part, using other reels [over the top of existing] I wind the backing on to one and then the braid on to another. Now the reel is again empty you can add the backing mono, tie a very good braid /mono knot [Double Grinner is now my choice] and add the braid. The reel is now full and ready for the running leader. when I think the diameter has dropped to much [and money is tight] I sometimes remove the braid and add more backing then put the braid back. But using this method when I next want to fill the reel with new braid I have the backing already set up. I just ditch the old braid [or put on small fixed spool for breaming in shallows] and ditch the second length of backing Unless you are using tiny reels, all would take 300m and still need a fair bit of backing. its amazing how thin that whiplash is, because of that the weakest I use is 25lb Last weak I did this to my new avetSX and was amazed hom much mono backing went on such a small reel. Hope that helps Charlie

Well Trev they started it didn't they enough said

That sounds Tres Bon. It just means making sure the preperations are right and the correct paperwork is onboard, no spare drums of red diesel and out of date flares etc. Oh and I must add the SSR No on the cabin sides. and borrow Craig's french translation book Alll nous avons besoin d'une certaine conditions m

We eat very well on the boat, but have to draw a line somewhere Is the general opinion swinging to staying around the islands or are some still interested in going to Cherbourg? Of course its all down to this Cr## weather blowing itself out Charlie

I caught a Slipper Limpet on Star Turn - is that allowed? Didn't put up mcuh of a fight, though it a strong tide they can pull like a 1oz bomb! Sometimes they gang up and all pull together! You can put your 6lb Kenzaki away if that's the case!!!! Rob You need to go fishing Rob, land fever is setting in

We are looking to go early Friday 10th and Back late Sunday12th. Charlie

Thanks Nige

Hi All Does anyone have in their cupboard a kidney or shoulder harness that we could loan for the 48 hr comp. Preferably the kidney harness, as the intention is to protect Sam's weak shoulder after he has disllocated it several times in a year. Downside is we would need to use bigger gear than we usually use, but the TLD 20 and 25 have lugs. We had discussed buying one but they are not stocked by many outlets. Cheers Charlie

Sam You boys always have first shout and are always on the list if available. Graham Very happy to take you mate So It looks like we have a crew

Alfresco would rather be going a bit quicker and not at displacement speeds. We used 375ltr a bit more than we usually do on both channel crossings. Charlie

Nice one mate I wondered why I had not seen Paul Yesterday Love the pictures, the starter looks nice Charlie