Holidays got in the way of a July Catch Report so here’s a combined edition for the last two months. We were blessed with some great days for boat fishing with relatively calm weather and warm sunshine. Calmer seas and smaller tides meant that some boats could push well out into the Channel, while others still enjoyed great sport but closer to home.

Every summer we hear the same comments: “Where are the mackerel?” and then “There’s loads of mackerel!” It’s true that they can be fickle and locations unpredictable. Where we used to find huge shoals and anything shiny would catch, now the fish are more scattered and feed more selectively but there are still plenty to be caught. You may need to use better quality feathers than the crude strings that were once reliable and also search around to find feeding fish but you should still be able to stock up when needed.

Summer catch reports usually include bass, tope, smoothhound, rays, bream, mullet and huss, with 2024 being no exception. All have been caught and made anglers very happy. Gilthead Bream have featured in more catches recently and they grow to a larger size than Black Bream. There are some impressive fish in the gallery below caught by Peter Churchill (3-6), Wayne Comben (4-7) and Ken Barton (5-9).

Sole need to be deliberately targeted and a calm summer night is the ideal time – if you can find the right mark. Baits need to be hard on the bottom and a lead at each end of the trace helps to keep them the baits in the right place.

You never really know when a codling might appear towards Autumn and one has just scraped into this month’s Report – from the Langstone Run of all places.

Mullet appear in late Spring but are difficult to catch at that time because they are feeding on micro-organisms. Later in Summer they start eating other things including our discarded scraps and this is when you can catch them on baits like bread flake and sweetcorn. I wouldn’t want to eat a mullet that knows what sweetcorn is though.

The Solent area has an amazing variety of species and this makes Species Hunt competitions great fun. We have visits from shoals of herring, and these can even be caught right in the harbours. Tuna have been sighted right by The Forts, and I won’t be surprised if sooner or later one is hooked. That would be a great one for a Species Hunt! I know a spider crab doesn’t count in a Species Hunt but I thought you would like to see an impressive one caught by Mark Banks.