Author: Neville Merritt (Page 39 of 43)

My son and I picked up our new admiral 560 fast fisher some weeks ago and we have been waiting very patiently for a weather window in my son’s words to get some blood on the deck. So on Saturday my good wife kindly offered the get up extra early to launch the boat.

We headed straight out to our favourite cod spot and after the first hour we had the usual dogfish and some very nice pout, the boy was very happy that he had the first fish on board. As it approached slack water the Whiting arrived with some good sport on our light rods, the boat was on the turn so out come the cooker bacon butty all round. The tide had now turned and  down to our last five Squid I phoned the wife to let her know that we would be back soon, as soon as the phone went down son Luke shouts fish on and after a good fight we landed our first Cod of 12 Lbs not to be out done my rod started to nod and within 10 minutes we had our second Cod 14.5 Lbs. What a day the boat performed brilliantly the fish turned up and I had a great day out with my best friend Luke.

Last weekend before Christmas – I think I was very lucky to be allowed out at all. It was a foggy, murky day and I had to juggle tides at Southsea Marina so I decided on a leisurely start, fish local and be in by dark. That went to plan and by noon I was fishing on a patch of mixed ground which had produced before. Rods were soon nodding and produced small conger, a couple of dogfish and plenty of good sized whiting and pout. The smaller whiting went down again as bait and accounted for more conger and a blonde ray of about 15lbs. As the sun dropped the gloom closed in and I decided to call it a day – no cod but plenty of action. Action of a different sort happened as I was thinking of packing up, this tug from Rotterdam came past, close but a respectable distance, but the wash from these things is something else.  Everything that wasn’t wedged in place ended up on the deck – in a smaller boat it would have been very scary. Garrydog also came by to say hello – good to meet you!

Me and dad left at 4am on the Sunday morning. Down to the boat and ready to launch by 7am but the left trailer brakes had locked up! We quickly jacked up the trailer with the boat on it using the car’s jack and took apart the wheel to remove the brake. Wheel back together, we launched he boat and were out at our favorite east nab mark by around 9am. Straight into pout and dogs and my dad had a small thornback. After a few dogfish I got another bite which i struck and instantly felt a heavier fish. After a fun fight debating whether it was a cod or conger and getting excited cause I felt head shakes on my ugly stik 12-20, I brought a small strap of around 10lb to the side of the boat. We slipped it back over the side of the boat not bringing it in, they’re smiley buggers. Kept a few big pout and whiting to make fishcakes. We moved to another mark nearby for the flood where my dad lost a fish that felt like something better. The anchor dragged twice so we headed in just as the sun set over the IOW. The weather was a bit windy in the morning with some swell from the wind through the week getting up to a force 8 at on the point apparently.

We decided on a last minute trip out today with my mate Paul so we headed for a mark just north of the Nab Tower. From the off we were into some decent whiting up to around 3lb+. Around late morning came the first decent fish to me, a cod just under 15lb which was followed by a pollack of 15lb which took me by surprise as I’ve never seen many pollack let alone that size come up from where we were fishing.

After the pollack I had a conger around the 30lb mark. After loads more whiting my mate decided to use some small whiting as live bait and he lost a couple good fish and one had bit the whiting off right behind the head. Probably conger but we’ll never know. I lost couple good fish which felt like conger and cod. Will deffo go back to that mark again!

There was a 30lb cod caught on a charter about half a mile from me today.

From Steve on Sunday:

“Caught at least a couple of dozen of small whiting in Hayling Bay today, with a few larger ones in the mix, and lots of double headers.  Some big dogfish taking my whole squid too…

I nearly didn’t get out at all as my engine didn’t start this morning after several attempts, although it was firing. Called Sea Start and they were just about to set off when it finally started.  The guy said I need to run it a bit more often… (Steve – that’s a very good reason to go fishing more. Use it with the Boss! – N)

Lovely flat calm and gentle breeze this afternoon in the sun, but a pretty brisk westerly over the tide in the morning which made things tricky for me!

Pic of a whole mackerel bait after being in for about 10 minutes.”

A weather window in winter is too good to miss so I negotiated a pass from my business partner and took the day off. It was a bright, cloudless day with near perfect visibility, although the low sun was very awkward at times. It started almost flat calm so I used the opportunity to re-calibrate my Azimuth compass, which didn’t take long. I did it over a bass-holding bank so I had something to watch for while the calibration was happening. The large shoal has gone but there are still shoals of bait fish. Sprats already?

After a late start and then the calibration thing I didn’t have as much time as usual so I decided to try a new mark, not too far out. Having arrived there, there were no features to be seen so I pottered about for a bit and suddenly saw a congregation of fish on the bottom. I circled back and they were still there so it looked like a fish holding area rather than a passing shoal. I wasn’t exactly confident I had found a mark but I anchored up anyway, and from then on it was all action. I had three rods out and sometimes all three rod tips were nodding. Most were pout and whiting but they were of a reasonable size, with a couple of dogfish thrown in.

These were interspersed with four massive bites including one where my rod holder was twisted 90 degrees. Three of them were conger who did a fair impression of a nodding cod which was very annoying, particularly as they all came on the cuttlefish bait. The final big bite turned out to be an undulate ray of about 12lb but what was more remarkable was that the bait had been taken by a not-so-small pout, and the ray had grabbed the pout. I am not sure whether the ray was trying to steal the bait (cuttle again) or chomp the pout. I suspect the latter. The wind increased in the afternoon, a lot more than forecast but what’s new.

Although I used a variety of baits – frozen mackerel, squid, lug and cuttle, the best bait by a country mile was the cuttle. I stopped by the tackle shop on the way home to stock up with more cuttle but they had almost sold out, only bits and bobs left. Apparently cuttlefish are in short supply as well as squid.

A final thought – have you ever contemplated the eye of a whiting? The proportions are huge. A true sight-hunter.

It has been many months since I’ve been out as one of my fishing pals, David Bennett, who has been mentioned and pictured in these reports a few times, unfortunately lost his battle with Cancer last month. The Doggies of the Nab will miss him as will his fishing pals.

So Roland and I headed out on Sunday 27th Nov. as it looked the best day to go out matching our availability. The NE4/5 forecast meant we thought going up the Solent might be best to get cover from the wind. As it happened Sunday morning was reasonably calm so we headed off to East Nab. A slow start resulting in some good sized “smellies” (pout) to around 2lb, small whiting and the inevitable dogs. Just as we were discussing moving, always a good tactic, Roland had a strong knock, struck, had a fish for about 5 seconds, then…… Well we’ve all been there and as I’m writing this before the watershed I can’t repeat what he said. However 2 minutes later my rod went and a lovely 8 ½lb cod came over the side (see Pic). So, delay moving, amazing how one fish can change a strategy.

Roland kept his battle up with the odd large”smelly” and the “Selsea Flounder” as we now call the ubiquitous doggies to make it sound better, but nothing else, so we decided to move to north of the Nab. Here we got far more whiting, some 7/8 getting to the potential “keepers” size around 1½lb with the rest being the pencil sized. A 12lb Blonde Ray then came over the side and Roland kept up his battle with dogs and “smellies”. The cod came on single squid with most of the whiting coming on mackerel; pout and doggies taking everything although a whole whiting fished for most of the day caught nothing.

We left late afternoon as the light faded having spent some 5 hours and a reasonable day, although the wind had got up by the afternoon. Talking to other skippers coming back into the marina who had gone up the Solent, we did well compared to a lot so happy with the day.

Dave was out on Jenny G from the Hamble.

“We saw a break in the weather last week so we decided to go for it.
3 nice cod came aboard all on squid.”

Nice one Dave, you have to grab those chances when you can with storms like Angus turning up to mess with our weekends.

This week we heard the sad news that Chris, who set up the Solent Fishing Guide web site and the very popular Forums, passed away on 4th November. The web site remains in place but the forums are currently on hold. His brother Mike posted this message:

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

Chris, my brother, the keen fisherman and webmaster who set this site up about 15 years ago, and has maintained it since then, sadly died in hospital on 4th November 2016 of cancer, following several months of acute illness. Despite the certainty of his death, intense pain and paralysis his sense of humour prevailed right to the end.

We are debating what’s to be done with this website and if it has got a future. If you have any suggestions then drop me an email.

http://www.solent-fishing-guide.co.uk/

If you want to leave any messages you can do so below or email Mike directly.

Since catching a decent cod and bass, Gordon and I , fueled with enthusiasm and belief that we can finally catch fish, have been out a number of times. Taking advantage of the calm conditions we have been out 4 times in the last couple of weeks – the latest trip being the 3rd November.

On my part I have become the whelk king – as I have had more whelks  on my squid than doggies. Aside from doggies , Gordon had a couple of whiting , and a very small spotted ray on our latest trip  – which despite my best photographic  skills still looks tiny in the photo!

Still the weather has been great and maybe ,if there is some stormy weather to stir things up, we might start catching again.