Seamouse

Hi Bob, Delivery squeaked through on the 13th with the factory still prepping the other boat to go out as we arrived for ours. Looks like Mrs M will do the honours with the champage (actually a bit of honey, to be exact) on Sunday or Monday if we can beat our way through the hordes of grockles on the Eastney slip (and there's any parking spaces left for the trailer). Doubt she'll let me fish though, just a scenic tour of the flattest water we can find. I've a 2-day event out of Langstone the weekend after then I'll post some first impressions. If you guys do a tope run to Selsey in June I'll try and get down to that as well. Tom, I've not forgotten the tope offer. There's a ridiculous number of Warrior's using Eastney now, if I don't have a crew space I can try and get you on with one of them. Steve

Tip rings can be fitted using a hot melt glue that a decent tackle supplier ought to stock. Best of both worlds, glue 'packs out' the clearances and you can change the ring easily. Steve

Hi Dave, I'd echo Mike on this one. You really sure you want to moor it? You've got everything to fit, remove and clean down, all eating into your fishing time. You've lost the ability to (easily) visit other ports, your boat and OB will get a lot more hammer from the environment and the fuel will be a pain in the butt. Sharing a small dinghy with ten gallons plus of fuel is no joke. Then there's the worry every time the wind gets up from the wrong direction, the panic about whether the bilge pump will flatten the battery, the inevitable visit from the light-fingered brigade...... Makes a little hassle on the slip feel more like a picnic in the park.

If the weather's good and the boat's kitted out in time, I'll try and join you. Steve

Duncan, That's one of the places that gets called utopia That particular one also gets called the tope hole, as distinct from the tope grounds which are yet another area that gets called, you guessed it, utopia! The place that's currently catching is none of those but it isn't far off and not exactly hard to find as you can see the fleet on it from two miles away. Even I can find a mark like that Steve

It isn't exactly portable but MES had the Garmin 240 on offer at 80 quid!! For that much money, worth getting one and mounting the transducer thru-hull? Steve

Hi Westray, Looks like Utopia was THE mark to be on this weekend. We never had so much as a sniff from a tope off to the west. Either way, hounds this year seem to be in plague proportions. As for morons gaffing hounds - animals! Steve

Hi folks, I blagged a ride on a friend's Warrior 165 on saturday, to find conditions lovely and flat despite persistent drizzle all day. We headed out deep SE of Nab to where a friend had reported 18 hounds to 10lb the day before. We matched him exactly, 18 fish between the two of us with the best going 11.5lb. The charter fleet was out on Utopia with a vengeance, nearly thirty boats at one point and hounds, tope and good numbers of mackerel being reported. Reports of plaice were coming in over the VHF too but no-one seemed to be into bream anywhere. We gave the bream a go on a reef inbound and picked up three to 2.5lb but it was hard work. Day was also livened up by discovering we'd parked just yards uptide of a whelk potter's string (he hauled right across our stern ) and watching the Calypso being towed past after her engine fire. Has to be said, the hounds this year have been sensational but the bream are just not showing in the same numbers as you guys down west are getting. Steve

Delivery date is now May 13th Anyone know if I will be able to change my forum name to that of the new boat (when we pick one) without getting put back to 'minnow basher' status?? Steve

Try the same query on the WSF site (http://www.worldseafishing.com/). They have a very active technical forum. Steve

A 165 with a Bigfoot gives 4nmpg average across a season, used hard but mainly in slight or calm seas. The 150 ought to do a tad better and my mate's could just about touch 30 knots flat out. Steve

Hi James, Don't forget the tope will be in soon as well I didn't give a size on the rest of the hounds. They were mainly 3-5lb, with a couple around 7-9lb. About 3:1 staryy:common, which is pretty much the normal ratio for the area. That was an exceptional day though, generally I'd call 5-10 aboard a good day. Steve

Ho folks, Since I'm still boatless, I blagged myself a trip aboard Moby (Warrior 150) out of Langstone on Saturday. Nice sunny day but a stiff 3-4 easterly put up a stout swell and didn't bode too well. However, we settled in bows on to the weather for most of the day, fishing ebb, slack and part of the flood in a deep area near Utopia. Some mackerel were about but turning them into tope baits was a waste of effort, even the dogs didn't want to know. They were happy enough with squid though. Odd that, doggies ignoring fresh mackerel but mopping up whole and somewhat manky squid instead. Killer bait for the day was hermit crabs. The hounds were there from the moment the first crab landed and they stayed on even through slack water. Several times we were both in at once, finished the day with 19 in total and a PB each, at 16lb and 13.5lb respectively. Cracking day! For those on the reefs it was another story, with a mate inshore blanking. We took a look on the way home and with some intensive baiting found tiny poor cod and pout, a few average ballans and a corkwing. As we headed in, the first boat was reporting a small bream over the VHF. Nothing for supper then, but the hound season is well and truly under way Steve

Although the 'scissors' during a lift are opening, not closing, bear in mind the hydraulic tilt has easily enough grunt to sever any extremity you might happen to leave dangling in the wrong place Steve

That more or less means it will expand and contract by 10% of its volume? In theory that could stress mounting points and even shear off the Sikaflex adhesive bond. Somehow I doubt it though, especially as thermal expansion of stainless steel has to be getting close to that figure as well. Its kinda fun finding SOMETHING for Adam to worry about, though Steve

Earliest bream I have on record for the Selsey area is 20th April, with good numbers by 26th (across 6 seasons). Given that we're a touch further east, I'd guess they may well have arrived in Poole on the last springs?? Steve

Hi folks, Got a used GA29 from Alan Kirby here on the forum, intending to fit it to the new boat. Slapped a connector on, checked it worked, sent it to Warrior and a week later Garmin donated me a brand new one! Sooooo, provided Warrior remember to keep the older one for me I should have it back in my grubby mitts by May. Anyone need an antenna? Offers around

57cm by 31cm ain't huge, but a standard lobster pot isn't much more than 1m? My 'shark cage' trap is ridiculously large so no good as a benchmark. Way I see it, the bigger the pot the less chance the crabs can find the exit. Next job for me is to try the top entry pot made from the washing machine drum. That one will be going onto quite shallow reef, see if it will pick up a few prawns. Steve

The plastic ones are for prawns/velvet swimmers. Maybe a bit small?? Steve As encouragement though, a friend in Cornwall dropped his first pot last weekend and had three edibles. It DOES work!

Hi, I'd offer up the 20 mm strip first and mark where it gets too narrow. Then offer up the 50mm from there downwards and marked where it overlaps the keel. Shape to fit the narrower parts with an angle grinder and a metal cutting disk. Use ear and eye defenders and a filter mask, you do NOT want to inhale stainless steel dust. I used stainless screws in M10, sizes ranged from 1.5" to 2.5" depending on how deep I found anything for the screw to bite on once I'd drilled the hole. Spacing was about every 9". The keelband was drilled on the bench then put back on the keel and I marked up each hole in turn, drilled a pilot hole slightly undersize then drilled slightly oversize through JUST the gel-coat, to avoid the screw causing stress cracks. A screw bunged in a few turns was enough to keep everything true as I worked up the keel, with a couple of jacks and blocks holding every thing in place as I worked. There's a couple of places where the keel rollers get in the way of the keel band or the drill. Leave those holes to last. Easiest thing is to remove the entire roller, then roll the boat back on the trailer. Hitch it up first I put a seperate strip of metal right at the stern as well, rather than trying to bend 3mm steel to fit the sharp step in the profile there. As it lets through into the bilge, you have to bolt through instead of using screws. Use nyloc nuts. Once everything is drilled and shaped, degrease the area with thinners, pump Sikaflex into all the screw holes, smear it over the upper face of the keel band and get the whole shooting match screwed into place asap. No need to overtighten the screws, you'll just strip them or crack the gel coat. Excess Sikaflex can be wiped off with acetone, maybe thinners, but don't go nuts with either. When I was done, I had one or two screw heads just a touch proud of the countersink holes. They chewed hell out of the rollers and offered surprising resistance when winching. A touch with the angle grinder tidied things up. Good luck!! Steve p.s just remembered, to get a better key I lightly sanded the keel and roughened the keel band with an angle grinder.

That's the million dollar question! It was supposed to be Easter, then it wasn't. Then they went to start it on schedule after all and didn't have enough of the gel-coat colour I specified and THEN the supplier quoted a two week delay Now I'm looking at weekend after next (I think) but probably can't get north to collect it until early May. What with the BFM article and the 'nice' weather, I'm getting a bit twitchy! As for the market niche, I'm not sure either but the word from the factory is that the order book is filling faster than expected. As a baby 175 it is way smaller for a similar cost, as an upmarket 165 it carries a weight and space penalty. I spent a lot of time at the Show comparing the 165 and Pro Angler and in the end went for the Pro Angler. It will work for me (I hope) as I rarely fish three aboard these days so don't need the extra inches of deck space, some of which is taken up with stuff that'll now live in the cuddy storage anyway. I'm pretty keen to see how much the weight distribution and extra hull rigidity affect the ride, plus there's a few toys to play with like the canopy and the improved bow access. My situation was unusual anyway in that I was trading in through necessity and to spend the cash just to get the same again would not have the right 'feel-good' factor. Sam, with respect to the motor, the Pro Angler would just about be OK with a 60hp but even the 165 can struggle to get on the plane with a full crew and a 4 stroke 60. Anyway, you can never have too much power available Steve

In my limited experience, the Danforth is not at all effective over any kind of hard ground. In my case, with a 4kg Danforth on a 16 footer, damn thing wouldn't even bite into mud! Bruce, Plough and Fisherman's patterns all seem to reasonably good all-rounders, I've used a Bruce for 5 seasons now and it's good on reef (if you dare ) as well as soft ground. Steve

I had a go. Inconclusive, in that we caught no tope on lamprey OR on mackerel. The doggies were much less of a pest with lamprey though. Steve

I'm not so sure I like the sound of a twisted Wotsit That could really make your eyes water Steve

Failure is not an option Steve