August is often a quiet month for Catch Reports. The big hounds and tope have departed and the winter species have yet to arrive. Many anglers are also taking summer holidays while others are taking this lull in fishy activity to take their boats out of the water for annual maintenanace. Nevertheless, we do have news to share and I’m always very grateful for photos and news from other local anglers (mail to news@boat-angling.co.uk).

Some of our regular contributors from SMAC took themselves off on a dream fishing holiday to Norway. I don’t usually include catches from outside the Solent but it would be a shame not to share Dave Newnham’s halibut! The other significant August event was the SMAC Open Species Competion, full story here.

One species that does make headlines in August is the sole. Anglers picking calm, quiet nights and fishing over sand and mud close to shore managed some good bags of sole this month. Small hooks, worm baits and rigs fished hard on the bottom will account for sole if you have found the right mark. In the right conditions they can even start feeding in the evening. The problem with night fishing (for me, writing these reports) is that photography tends to be more succesful in daylight, so here are stills from Peter Churchill’s evening double header and Dan Lumsden’s sole in the carusel below!

Bass fishing also continues, and the kinder summer weather makes trips to offshore wrecks, banks and reefs more possible. Mark Banks shows an impressive brace of 10lb 1oz and 9lb 9oz, the only two retained (Bass Rules) from a very good day offshore.

Mullet are still cruising around our marinas and are a worthy target if you can’t get further afield. Lee Marshfield demonstrates the quality of fish, this one caught in Southsea Marina. A lot of fun can also be had fishing LRF-style for mini-species. Jake Kelly and Jim Atkins both show Tompot Blennies below.

The summer wouldn’t be summer without a discussion about mackerel. Last year they were hard to find and then arrived in massive numbers in early autumn. This year they made a late start but by August we had plenty, and some big ones too. It’s always a relief to fill the bait freezer for winter. John Calton (pictured) was helping me fill mine, which we achieved in double-quck time and then laid in a stock for the smoker!

Although the larger breeding bream have moved off to deeper water by now, I have noticed that this year we still have good numbers of bream in the pound to pound and a half range (good table size) on open broken ground. Over Ryde Sands it’s hard to get past them and they will worry larger baits so you may as well scale down and have some sport. Mackerel skin strip seems to be more effective than the traditional squid strips in my experience.

There’s always a hope of an early run of codling in September but many years have passed since that was a reliable prediction. We can expect plenty of whiting later on though, and I have found fish baits to be far more effective than other baits if you want whiting for the pot.

Neville Merritt
August 2022