Author: Neville Merritt (Page 32 of 45)

Without doubt, early May is a watershed for fish species in the Eastern Solent. Those pesky little whiting have gone, although the pesky dogfish (aka Solent Salmon) will be here forever. Plaice are fattening up after spawning, and the summer species of bream, smoothhound and tope arrive to give great sport.

If you don’t want to go too far, wrasse can give a good account of themselves on rocky marks or by the many concrete structures around the area. Small hardback crabs and soft lures find the better fish.

Bream are becoming more plentiful as the month progresses. They rarely appear in great numbers but when you find and can hold on to a shoal they give an amazing fight for their size. There is no mistaking a bream bite on light tackle! Kev Johnson and John Jones had an exceptional catch of 40 bream, all were returned and the two best were kept in the fish-well initially for a photo-opportunity – see picture.

Garfish arrive shortly before the mackerel, and often follow baits right to the surface. They can surprise you with a last-minute grab of small bream baits. They make a bit of a tangle out of your carefully constructed bream rigs though.

We have seen some very good smoothhounds caught. The 19lb 10oz specimen boated by Adam Houghton currently leads the Catch and Release Cup for Southsea Marina Angling Club.

In the last week, tope have put in an appearance resulting in some cracking days out for those crews fishing the tope marks. Other good fish reported this month were Bill Arnold, smoothhound 18lb; Neil Glazier, smoothhound 16lb and Steve Kelly, undulate ray 14lb 4oz, all catch and release.

Further offshore, pollack and cod are being caught over the Channel wrecks and catches are well worth the trip to get out there.

We were very pleased to host the RNLI at the SMAC May meeting, where volunteer speaker Brian Masters gave an excellent talk on small boat safety for anglers. Even though many of use were experienced, we all learned something new. Brian Hill ran a Lifejacket Clinic at the event, and found some important safety defects in some of the lifejackets he inspected. This reminded us all to check our lifejackets carefully. We raised £94 for the RNLI from donated prizes and a collection at the meeting.

SMAC is keen to involve more juniors and ladies in the sport. To this end Adam Houghton has been organising some Ladies Trips, which seemed to enjoyed by all (eventually) – see the photos!

The juniors seem to be rather good at out-fishing their dads sometimes, so maybe we have some club champions of the future among the junior membership.

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Here are some great photos sent in by skipper Peter Churchill of “Moonshine”. Featured above is Chris martin from Essex, with a 51lb tope. Below are Lee Taylor from Leigh on Sea, Essex; James Hogsden, Essex; Rob Ng, Essex; Tom Monk, Essex

And an Undulate Ray too…

The first couple of months of the new season have been very difficult for Ian and I on Orca. Our first five trips yielded just a few Bream, Plaice and Rays along with a shed full of Dogfish! Despite going to most of our favourite spots, and trying a few new ones, it just wasn’t happening.

However, despite the lack of fish we have had some fantastic days out, enjoyed being on the boat again, topped up the tan and had a dolphin surface right next to the boat yesterday. Too quick for a photo but a lovely sight with the sun in the background.

Talking of yesterday. We at last had a good day out and some fish in the boat. We started at Bracklesham Bay with just a small Bass (which shed the hook at the net) and then moved to Boulder Bank along with quite a group of other boats. I was immediately into Bream and had five in quick succession on small squid strip before the tide slowed, as did the bites (should have moved earlier!)

We stuck with it and changed to bigger baits. This resulted in my best Bream at 3lb 9oz (photo attached) on squid head and ragworm followed by a very hard fighting Smoothound of 8lb. The Bream was full of roe and was carefully returned to do what comes naturally. Not a spectacular day but one that shows we can still catch fish – which we were beginning to doubt!

Now, you may have noticed that I refer to me catching fish – and not Ian. Why is it that one side of a boat can have a good run whilst the other side can’t even buy a fish? We always fish the same sides of Orca and we regularly have periods with one side doing much better than the other. I am now expecting Ian to have a great time during the summer and me struggling – such is fishing!!!

Gordon Reay

I promised I would send you some pics, so here’s a few from a very successful trip we made last Saturday with my mate Ray Breton on board his Orkney day angler 19+ ‘Reel Magic’, the quality of the photos is not great as only two of us were on board and we were struggling to hold on to the fish…hope you can use one of them at least. In addition to these we had a few other species including our first herring and mackerel, bass, blonde and thornback rays, and smoothhounds.

Jason Gillespie

A lovely starry smoothhound for Peter Churchill, skipper of Moonshine. To book, contact Peter on 02392 787295

We went bream fishing last week to my top mark east of Selsey. We sat there for two hours with only two dog fish to show for our efforts and a lot of lost tackle. We then made a move and dropped straight on them catching over 40 fish. I have a large live well on my boat in which we kept the biggest fish, returning the smallest. We took two fish home weighed them live and then returned them into Langstone Harbour. John Jones and myself had a great days fishing.

Kev Johnson Reel Lucky

After weeks of challenging fishing, April was like turning on a switch, with many boats reporting exceptionally good catches. We had some good spells of weather for a change enabling the boats to get out, although some of the very calm days also came with thick fog which wasn’t helpful. Nevertheless we have, at last, some good fishing to report.

Plaice are the target inshore species during March and April, and they have been very obliging for those boats that found the all-important shellfish patches that hold the fish. Best method is casting out from the boat and allowing the rig to roll slowly down-tide, covering ground and creating movement. You will notice from the photos that some serious bling is required. These are known as WTF rigs. The fish sees some colour in the distance, thinks “WTF”, goes over to investigate and finds a conveniently placed snack. Baits included rag, lug tipped with squid or prawn, and Isome worms in light colours. Fishing has been so hot at times that triple shots were recorded, Heber Crawford’s threesome is pictured along with his son Archie’s first ever plaice.

Other pictures were supplied by John Evans fishing from Boxerfish, 11 plaice to 2lb 13oz and Derek Norman with Brian Dale and Ken Saunders fishing from Blue with 25 plaice best weight 3lb. These early fish are thin having recently spawned. Bill Arnold’s fish weighed 2lb 10oz although from the dimensions you might have expected closer to 4lb.

The Langstone Harbour Fishermen’s Association ran their Plaice Competition 14-15 April. The winners were based on heaviest fish caught rather than bags, so smaller fish could be returned. The winner was Terry Greaves with 1lb 15oz fishing aboard Limpet, and second place went to Terry Edgerton with a plaice of 1lb 10oz.

Plenty of herring have been shoaling and anglers are now targeting these very successfully. They make great eating, a good bait and can be fun to catch on light tackle. Small Sabiki rigs size 6 hooks and smaller work well. The trick is to hold the lures stationary at the depth the fish are shoaling, unlike mackerel lures which rely on movement.

Further out on the wrecks the target fish is pollack. Some good fish have been caught and gave great sport. The only downside is the distance travelled, many of the wrecks lie over 30 miles from Langstone which makes a long day – but worth it if you find the fish.

Heber Crawford, 2017 SMAC Species Champion demonstrated that anything is possible. Using LRF tactics he caught a Butterfish, slightly salted of course, while at Anchor using bread. We thought this was jammy but he was Utterly delighted.

Smoothhounds will be around from now on and the first have already been caught. A few bream have been reported caught in nets and will be another inshore target species over rocky marks and broken ground soon. I expect we will have some photographs of these next month.

Spring sees the migration of birds over the Channel to Great Britain, and it is very common to have one arrive unexpectedly on the boat. It is remarkable that such a small creature can fly across miles of sea, settle with a few feet of people, rest for a while then head on –  and in the right direction. If fishing is quiet, take a bird identification book with you. This example from Heber is a Chiffchaff.