G
Guest
·Myself and Quest II co-owners, Malcolm and Paul, headed off mid channel yesterday after a very lazy start we were underway by about 09:00 and pointing more or less due South 25 miles to our first mark.
A gorgeous morning with light Force 2 to 3 breezes saw only a very slight sea and a minimial bouncing as we crossed the race a Portland.
The lazy start was for us to use the tide to our advantage and give us an extra knot or two up the rear end. This was important, Quest II, the poor old girl, has hardly been out since the Summer and was rather scabby underneath, but with the extra tide we still managed a 14 to 15 knot cruising speed comfortably.
Our mornings wrecks had been chosen to still fall inside Poole Bay club waters and then we were to use the slack tide tio head off to the car park of charter boats some distance to the West to fish the flood tide to get us home.
I was using the day to test some new gear, both of which now have reviews on the WSF reviews page.
1) A stunningly built, by hand, rod from Alba rods. http://www.alba-rods.co.uk
StanM on WSF is Alba rods and builds these incredible works of art for the same sort of money as a top end off the shelf product. The rod I was trying is still in it's prototype stages and it was set up to try and be as much of an allrounder as possible. This little girl carries an IGFA 6lb class rating, but it has immense back bone and in "our speak" I would give it a UK rating of 12lb to 16lb class. Stunningly put together I have been pretty objective in my review and offered tips for anyone who maybe looking to treat themselves to something ever so special themselves.
2) Matched with the new rod was a tiny little Avet SX reel.
This baby lever drag offers incredible levels of power in something that is 5500 to 6000 size. Again it really is a little work of art and again the review I have written of it is totally objective.
Back to the fishing.
It was close to 11:00 by the time I backed the engine off and the first of our wrecks loomed up on the zoom setting of the fish finder.
On the zoom feature of a C120 she looked huge, but in reality she only stood some 12 feet off the seabed. Still, plenty of fish seemed to be showing tucked in behind so after calculating our drift I headed 150metres or so uptide, pointed Quest II north and cut the engine.
Drift speed was perfect, we drifted the wreck, nothing. We headed up a further 5 times to drift over the rusting hulk and eventually Paul managed one small Pollack of about 5lb so rather than flog a dead horse we headed a further 3 miles South to a "dead cert"....
....good friend and possibly the countries best charter skipper Chris Caines with a full crew on board "Tiger Lily" were already over the mark so we guessed we were on the money (if he is there then the fish are too!), but as I backed off the engine and settled in for our first drift, he rather despondently waved, started his engine and began steaming North West to the "car park".
"Oh" I thought
, "doesn't look like this was a wise move after all."
However we still had a couple of hours of ebb tide behind us, 12 miles to steam if we were to fish the car park too and we had come some 28 miles so we thought we'd give it a bash.
First drift and I missed the main bulk of the wreck just skimming down what appeared to be the bow section. Next drift was spot on and we all hit fish just as what I guess was the accommodation block came onto the sounder. Rising some 30 feet above the seabed she seemed full of fish with soundings showing a further 30 feet off her highest point. We each had different lures on. Paul was on a bright orange 6" shad, Malcolm on a very well used red gill and I was using a Berkley "Gulp" fire tail jelly worm. All of us were fishing typical flying collar rigs and it didn't seem to matter what you put down, for a few drifts the fish were simply "avin it".
Initially we were catching small fish in the five to nine pounds bracket. They were all coming just in front and immediately on top of the wreck, but as the tide began to ease a fraction we managed to time it that we missed the smaller fish to drop in tight behind the wreck where I knew the big late winter fish would be hiding.
No monsters, but a succession of fish in the 12lb to 16lb bracket found there way into the landing net. The pictures of fish below are actually to try and show the rod and reel off, but in the net is my biggest of the day at an ounce or two short of 16lb and the one with me holding aloft came in at 14lb 8oz.
After we had a dozen or so fish between us the tide began to ease. It was incredible to watch, but in the space of one drift the whole shoal of large fish that were showing on the fish finder tight behind the wreck moved on mass to in front of the wreck. A the same time they switched off the feed like a clock. I can only assume that they were preparing themselves for the forthcoming flood tide?
One more drift showed all we were to catch now was to be pout so we began a steady steam West to join the melay....
...As we approached the "car park" we could see dozens and dozens of boats in the distance. A few were dotted about individually, but I counted a total of 8 pairs that appeared to be fishing in perfect tandem. As we got within a couple of miles you could clearly see what was going on. Working around the wrecks were 8 separate sets of pair trawlers :schmoll: . I've never seen anything like it they were simply carving their way through everything and working the whole area.
In amongst these sea bed destroyers were quite a number of charter boats from both the Weymouth and Exmouth fleets. We headed a little way past the bundle of boats to fish our own wreck. It soon became clear why nobody else was on it. There were no fish either!
The tide had just turned so at about 15:00 we headed East with it shoving us along at up to 17.5 knots cruising (fast for Quest II and my tight fisted RPM control) to fish a couple of wrecks on the way home. By this time the weather had changed and was getting decidedly breezy with a stiff Force 5 and very chilly bite to it. Our hearts were no longer in it and a few half hearted takes from fish didn't see any in the net so we headed on into Weymouth running tight with Tiger Lily once again.
The charter boats faired a little better than us by all accounts.
Talks of 50 or so fish seemed to be the average for full charter crews. The three of us had a dozen or so to about 16lb, but our morning had been very short and our afternoon little more than a tour of the English Channel.
Hard work, hard fishing with an OK result, but simply great to get back out on the water!!!
Tom
PS: Can someone tell me how to get the pictures to appear in the text rather than as thumbnails below.
A gorgeous morning with light Force 2 to 3 breezes saw only a very slight sea and a minimial bouncing as we crossed the race a Portland.
The lazy start was for us to use the tide to our advantage and give us an extra knot or two up the rear end. This was important, Quest II, the poor old girl, has hardly been out since the Summer and was rather scabby underneath, but with the extra tide we still managed a 14 to 15 knot cruising speed comfortably.
Our mornings wrecks had been chosen to still fall inside Poole Bay club waters and then we were to use the slack tide tio head off to the car park of charter boats some distance to the West to fish the flood tide to get us home.
I was using the day to test some new gear, both of which now have reviews on the WSF reviews page.
1) A stunningly built, by hand, rod from Alba rods. http://www.alba-rods.co.uk
StanM on WSF is Alba rods and builds these incredible works of art for the same sort of money as a top end off the shelf product. The rod I was trying is still in it's prototype stages and it was set up to try and be as much of an allrounder as possible. This little girl carries an IGFA 6lb class rating, but it has immense back bone and in "our speak" I would give it a UK rating of 12lb to 16lb class. Stunningly put together I have been pretty objective in my review and offered tips for anyone who maybe looking to treat themselves to something ever so special themselves.
2) Matched with the new rod was a tiny little Avet SX reel.
This baby lever drag offers incredible levels of power in something that is 5500 to 6000 size. Again it really is a little work of art and again the review I have written of it is totally objective.
Back to the fishing.
It was close to 11:00 by the time I backed the engine off and the first of our wrecks loomed up on the zoom setting of the fish finder.
On the zoom feature of a C120 she looked huge, but in reality she only stood some 12 feet off the seabed. Still, plenty of fish seemed to be showing tucked in behind so after calculating our drift I headed 150metres or so uptide, pointed Quest II north and cut the engine.
Drift speed was perfect, we drifted the wreck, nothing. We headed up a further 5 times to drift over the rusting hulk and eventually Paul managed one small Pollack of about 5lb so rather than flog a dead horse we headed a further 3 miles South to a "dead cert"....
....good friend and possibly the countries best charter skipper Chris Caines with a full crew on board "Tiger Lily" were already over the mark so we guessed we were on the money (if he is there then the fish are too!), but as I backed off the engine and settled in for our first drift, he rather despondently waved, started his engine and began steaming North West to the "car park".
"Oh" I thought
, "doesn't look like this was a wise move after all."However we still had a couple of hours of ebb tide behind us, 12 miles to steam if we were to fish the car park too and we had come some 28 miles so we thought we'd give it a bash.
First drift and I missed the main bulk of the wreck just skimming down what appeared to be the bow section. Next drift was spot on and we all hit fish just as what I guess was the accommodation block came onto the sounder. Rising some 30 feet above the seabed she seemed full of fish with soundings showing a further 30 feet off her highest point. We each had different lures on. Paul was on a bright orange 6" shad, Malcolm on a very well used red gill and I was using a Berkley "Gulp" fire tail jelly worm. All of us were fishing typical flying collar rigs and it didn't seem to matter what you put down, for a few drifts the fish were simply "avin it".
Initially we were catching small fish in the five to nine pounds bracket. They were all coming just in front and immediately on top of the wreck, but as the tide began to ease a fraction we managed to time it that we missed the smaller fish to drop in tight behind the wreck where I knew the big late winter fish would be hiding.
No monsters, but a succession of fish in the 12lb to 16lb bracket found there way into the landing net. The pictures of fish below are actually to try and show the rod and reel off, but in the net is my biggest of the day at an ounce or two short of 16lb and the one with me holding aloft came in at 14lb 8oz.
After we had a dozen or so fish between us the tide began to ease. It was incredible to watch, but in the space of one drift the whole shoal of large fish that were showing on the fish finder tight behind the wreck moved on mass to in front of the wreck. A the same time they switched off the feed like a clock. I can only assume that they were preparing themselves for the forthcoming flood tide?
One more drift showed all we were to catch now was to be pout so we began a steady steam West to join the melay....
...As we approached the "car park" we could see dozens and dozens of boats in the distance. A few were dotted about individually, but I counted a total of 8 pairs that appeared to be fishing in perfect tandem. As we got within a couple of miles you could clearly see what was going on. Working around the wrecks were 8 separate sets of pair trawlers :schmoll: . I've never seen anything like it they were simply carving their way through everything and working the whole area.
In amongst these sea bed destroyers were quite a number of charter boats from both the Weymouth and Exmouth fleets. We headed a little way past the bundle of boats to fish our own wreck. It soon became clear why nobody else was on it. There were no fish either!
The tide had just turned so at about 15:00 we headed East with it shoving us along at up to 17.5 knots cruising (fast for Quest II and my tight fisted RPM control) to fish a couple of wrecks on the way home. By this time the weather had changed and was getting decidedly breezy with a stiff Force 5 and very chilly bite to it. Our hearts were no longer in it and a few half hearted takes from fish didn't see any in the net so we headed on into Weymouth running tight with Tiger Lily once again.
The charter boats faired a little better than us by all accounts.
Talks of 50 or so fish seemed to be the average for full charter crews. The three of us had a dozen or so to about 16lb, but our morning had been very short and our afternoon little more than a tour of the English Channel.
Hard work, hard fishing with an OK result, but simply great to get back out on the water!!!
Tom
PS: Can someone tell me how to get the pictures to appear in the text rather than as thumbnails below.
