Author: Neville Merritt (Page 43 of 44)

I managed to get out today on Spoonbill for a few hour in the afternoon – after a 3.5hr journey down to the marina 🙁 I anchored in Bracklesham Bay and caught half a dozen Black Bream and about a dozen Pouting – no dogfish! All on squid. It was nice to be out on the water, but there were some torrential downpours (no lightning luckily) and it got pretty dark in the afternoon, so not many other boats about. Got back to the pontoon at low tide at 7:30pm – but managed to get home to vote – just. Here’s me with one of the bream wearing my high summer gear… (excuse the weird wide angle – this is a single frame capture form a GoPro stuck to the cabin window) “

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!

Tried night fishing for the first time between Boulder and Medmery on the Friday night. Only doggies all through the night. However when the sun came up we had a few bream on baited feathers as they were robbing all the bait on our bigger hooks for rays etc. We then headed to a mark south of Pullar trying for tope. No luck However I did have an 11lb conger and my dad had another bream as the tide slackend. We then came in and tried another mark on Medmery throwing up no fish before coming in. Excuse the bad photo of the eel!

The sixth month of the year already. The first June weekend had great weather. I was out on Sunday in Bracklesham Bay after my first bream of the year. First cast a bass. Why does that always happen when there is a ban? Then a right old mixture of a small tope, 12lb undulate, smoothhound, mackerel (yes – 4) and finally a bream, albeit a small one. And about 50 dogfish of course. word on the pontoon was the flood is fishing a lot better than the ebb. Good to know. By the way this is the bass, I prefer to unhook fish I am not keeping while still in the water, it causes a lot less damage and stress.

Dave and Caroline were out on Monday:

“We ventured out to an area I had great success on last year to see if there were any cod there. We managed 15 Pollack which we kept and 1 Cod. The best Pollack went 14lb and the rest were split about equally between low double figure and single figure. It was a fish a drop and an hour and a half later we were heading back.

On Monday we decided to try searching out new areas after not attending the Brighton Pollack comp as we had intended. We arrived at my chosen area and about 25 minutes later I had found what I thought looked Interesting. First drift and I had a pouting up.. Second drift and Caroline landed an 18lb Cod. We were both ecstatic and I set the drift up again. This time we were both in and Caroline’s surfaced first, it came in a lovely 17lb fish. Mine came in at 13lb. We went on to land some single figure fish as well which were returned. Little over an hour of fishing and the sea state started to look unfavourable so we packed up and headed for home.
Cracking successful day and we will be exploring the area more fully in due course.

You can see by the boat angle it was starting to get lumpy, so Caroline resorted to kneeling to get the photo.”

Phill was out last week – “Fishing at Bullock Patch last week – every cast a dogfish- anybody got any clues how not to catch dogfish would be much appreciated.”

Email your suggestions here! In my experience that is tough one – if you are using any static natural bait you will probably attract a lot of dogfish, particularly if you are using fresh fish. l have switched to whole small pout and caught ray and bass with no dogfish, if that helps!

Gordon and I made the most of some settled weather ( at last!) and had two days fishing on the 26th and 27th May. There was an easterly wind but it was pretty light for most of the time. On day one we turned right out of Chichester Harbour and fished around Sandown Bay where we enjoyed a nice sunny day largely undisturbed by fish apart from the inevitable doggies. Gordon managed a couple of bream but that was all. Some of this lack of success was self inflicted as there was a strong tide run and I persisted with leads that were too light – a lesson learnt

On day two we turned left towards Selsey and had a much more productive day. We fished the tide up and caught a variety of fish – or rather Gordon caught a variety of fish while I kept the dogfish population of the area occupied. (As an aside I am a real convert to barbless circle hooks – it makes the whole unhooking process really easy and I don’t seem to lose fish using the hooks. I use a Dremel to grind down the barbs) Using squid head as bait , Gordon had bream, an undulate and thornback ray, an 8lb smoothound and a 2.5 lb bass ( duly returned). I finally caught a nice thornback and a smoothound to join in the fun. Really nice to get a couple of days out on the water .”

This is the month we usually expect plenty of bream and smoothounds, and the first mackerel. Tope follow soon after. Well that’s the theory. There are bream on the usual marks but smaller than expected and fewer in number. Maybe it was the unseasonably cold April with north westerly winds prevailing.

Where would these pages be without Dave and Caroline’s reports to keep us motivated.

“Well we didn’t anticipate getting out today as forecast was looking changeable, but as we woke early and the weather looked good we shot off for a few hours. 1st drift I had a pollack about 6lb and Caroline had a cod. 2nd drift I had an 18lb cod and was ensuring Caroline was well aware that I actually had the biggest fish..
Oh how I wish I had shut up for the very next drift she had one of 24lb and then went on to land another 24lb fish..
We spent 3 hours fishing, came back with 14 cod and a Gurnard. Had lots of Pollock which went back and also the smaller codling went back. Great to be out.”

We are all frustrated by the poor weather and poor fishing this year. Don’t forget, Southsea Marina Fishing Show on 30th April which if last year’s event is anything to go by, will be great fun – and free!

Plaice are beginning to show in the usual places, but not many chances to catch them!

Dave was out on 3rd:

” As the wind/direction has not been good to us of late we decided to head west for a change. Our party of 3 boats (Jambo – Fish On – Jenny G) headed for a mark we had not fished for a while. We all got into fish ranging from: Dog’s – Whiting – Pout and Skate (4). Alan won the prize for the smallest fish of the day…. The biggest was a thornback at 16lb 8oz, however Andy on Fish On said his was 17lb but he would say anything to beat me!!!!! Not a good day but at least we managed to get out.”

Sunday 17th was kind weather-wise but not so great fish-wise. Like many others I chose to stay inshore after plaice and bream, and caught neither. Plenty of whiting and dogfish though! Plaice are still around in ones and twos, and the first bream are being caught but not in good numbers yet. Further out expect to find rays, strap conger and the usual hangers-on. I heard of two late cod caught, and a stray mackerel so anything can happen.