Hello Fellas

 

Finally I got to get out on the water, on what turned out to be an awesome Easter Sunday, unfortunately I missed church but sacrifices will always have to be made!!  A quick check on the weather report the night before showed sunshine and calm light southerly winds, was I in OZ?  The boys were duly phoned and sandwiches were made in eagerness.  Just me mate’s stag do to get through before some rod bending action!!  A few quiet pints later and I was tucked up ready to go.

 

After a 6 o’clock meet and an uneventful drive down we were on board and loaded to the nines with gear.  The skipper had kindly filled up the live well with what looked like a million sandeels, so we were hot to trot.  We spent the next two hours toolin’ up and generally abusing each other before putting our fivers in the pot for the biggest fish.  Rock On!!

 

Our target species was Pollack and we were using 12-20lb class rods with 30lb braid, 10oz of lead and flowing trace before gently hooking the sandeels onto a 5/0, and lowering them though 200ft of clear..well clearish..water, to their deaths!!

 

The sounder showed fish stacked up in great numbers so all we need to do was to start haulin’, and that my overseas friends is exactly what me mate Pete did!  5 drifts and five fish later I was starting to get a little arssed off with watching him catch fish precisely 2ft from me!

 

 

So I decided to concentrate, which as you can imagine didn’t help or last long, but I did start catching fish, hoo..bloody..ray!

 

 

In fact everyone started catching, and we were getting 5 or 6 pollack a drift and all were about 8 to 15lb, a good size of fish.  After a couple of hours of this the tide slackened off and we dropped down some mackeral baits, plus an unfortunate pouting that I had caught, for conger.  Straight away I was in, only for the jubilation to turn to disappointment when he ‘fell off’ only yards from the boat…I could see the money pot drifting into the distance!  Concentration time again, and this time it worked as I pulled a 30lb plus fish over the side and laughed at all the envious stares, as although 3 other congers were caught they were not of the superior size of my one!!!

 

 

However Pete did manage  a MASSIVE bullhuss, which was classed a specimen and was only 8lb off the british record…quality fish, shame he caught it!!

 

 

Once the tide started racing again..about 3.5knots..we went back on the Pollack, which duly started biting again, plus Popey fluked an out of season bass which pleased him and p***ed the rest of us off.  This continued until the final whistle blew..gutted!  As you can see we still had the entertainment of gutting and cleaning the fish, which is always a bit of fun, as you can see from the smile on popey’s face!!

 

 

And we were all pleased with the full esky’s!!!!!

 

 

 

And the weather!!!!!!!

 

 

Overall an awesome day with flat seas, sunshine and plenty of hard fighting fish, its just a shame about the company that’s all!!! Fish and chips on the promenade and a quick pint in the pub and Home James for a well deserved wash and rest…Bring on OZ!!  The best bit of all was that I won the 25 quid for the biggest fish…Happy days!! Plenty of fish for tea…I should start a shop.

 

Cheers fellas see you soon

 Rog