plaicemat

..........and Lo! it was good. Followed by whisky fruit cake accompanied by a nice single malt supplied by No.1. daughter. Mmmmmm!

Only a 'normal' birthday but enjoyable all the same. Tonight I get to cook for the family to celebrate MY birthday, how does that work? Jerusalem artichoke and chestnut soup, duck breasts and rillettes of confit duck leg with butter softened savoy cabbage and creamed potatoes. I do spoil them.

Aw! Thanks you guys, you're the best. Had a great day including lunch with some young friends and their new bairn and yes, cake and beer have been consumed. No change there then. Now I just want to go fishing, is that too much to ask?

Regretably, I'm promised to my daughter this weekend for a major garden refit at her house.

Total time taken about 3½ hours so not too onerous.

Just given the trailer it's annual service, a big one this year, decided to give it a treat. As well as all the usual stuff I also fitted new drums, brake shoes and bearings. The drums were absolutely held together with rust but the bearings, the originals from 2001, were still pristine. Hopefully, this will keep things going for a bit longer.

..........and Rob buys new members drinks for the night.

...............and one at Mudeford quay, there are a few 'dodgy' characters fishing out of there. Alun excluded, of course.

Working on the basis that not everyone has a tender and some may go out during the day. Simples!

For those with tenders, it may be wise to pick up a mooring on arrival and leave the tender on it for the day.

Engineers rule, o/k!! I have always loved the old story of the engineer and mathematician and the difference between them. They were offered a challenge of a beautiful young woman standing against a wall across a room and if they could get to her, she was theirs. The only condition was that they could only approach her by going halfway then stopping, going halfway again and stopping etc, etc. The mathematician quickly calculated that he would never reach her so declined the challenge. The engineer did his calculations and came to the decision that he would get close enough for all practical purposes. Vive la difference!

I was told by a fortune teller that I would live to 120 and end up being shot by a jealous husband. Keep working you lot, I've got a lot of fishing to do.

Good Lord no, some of us are quite jolly people and there are plenty of undesirables to get rid of first. Folk who don't like fishing for a start and that's before I get political. Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Greg, just remember that we had to pay for our previous generation's pensions, it's a mad circle. Nobody sodded things up, it's just that there are now just too many people.

Here I am at 10.20 in the morning and there are 10 members on the forum. Don't any of you have any work to do? My pension still has to be paid you know.

Thanks for that Rich, I shall be going again. Coincidently, I shadowed Fish On for a short while yesterday but to no avail, obviously tactics all wrong. Nice to hear from you again.

What a great day today, sun shining, blue skies and a flat sea far too good to be sat at home so orft to Portland. Original plan was to try for a bass but realised I know nothing of bass fishing at Portland and have no marks. So, with a good sea it was about 20 miles offshore to try for some cod. By mid day we had a dozen in the cool box and as we did not need more we drew stumps and decided to go wreck prospecting. Reasonably successful and then ended up at the Portland Race, or rather lack of race. Not being too rough I was able to study the chart and work out some sort of drift pattern etc which is banked for another day. We had steadily caught mackerel through the day but at the race they went ballistic. A huge shoal about half a mile across pushing bait fish to the surface. We quickly got as many as we needed and then just sat and watched the fish and birds for a while. An early'ish finish gave us the chance to fillet the catch, clean up the boat a bit and make a reasonable start on the long journey home. Here's hoping the weather continues.

Talking of Dan, could we have an engine advice section in the Boat Talk section, obviously hosted by Dan. He would, at least, be able to advise people on whether to attempt a fix themselves or seek professional help.

I've recently changed the engine on my Warrior and also gone for a Suzuki DF70, couldn't be more pleased. Very quiet and so much more economical than my old 2 stroke.

Great fun and just as I imagined it to be. On the to get list. As a matter of interest, how did you fit it securely to the line?

I've been thinking of having a go on mine Thursday if the weather is really good, it would be good to have company.

The very best of days to you, Trev.

Fantastic day Peter, thanks for the invite and the good company. It's great when a plan comes together which it did in spades today.

I assume you are using tinned cables. I replaced all wiring on Stingray last year for tinned.

A man is walking along a beach when he comes across a lamp partially buried in the sand. He picks up the lamp and gives it a rub. As if by magic, a genie appears and grants him one wish. The man thinks for a moment then says " I want to live forever " Sorry said the genie " I'm not allowed to grant eternal life." The man thinks for a moment then says " OK then, I want to die after a Labour Government balances the budget and eliminates the debt." The Genie shouted " You Crafty Little Bastard."