We are heading into the last week of June and bream are still around in reasonable numbers, although a lot are on the small side with a few larger ones among them. Mackerel are well scattered, I have caught a reasonable number but in ones and twos, not stringfuls.
On Father’s day I went out with my daughter Aedy. It started with a promise of good weather, but that deteriorated through the morning, and with only dogfish and a ray to show for our efforts by lunchtime we decided to feather up a few mackerel and head into the marina for lunch.
While I was preparing our modest cook-up, Aedy amused herself by rigging up a makeshift crab line from an old trace, and impaled a large lump of frozen mackerel on the end. She was happily filing a bucket of crabs off the back of the boat when suddenly, a 4lb 7oz bass grabbed it – under the boat, in the marina and in about five feet of water and plenty of commotion around. Not what you would expect! Anyway, a combination of marina rules, bass nursery and EU ban meant there was no chance of bass fillets for supper so back he went. I thought Aedy had taken a photo but no, being 19 she uses Snapchat so here is a still from her video but it hardly does it justice. It did look big on the pontoon!