Author: Neville Merritt (Page 43 of 43)

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.

Got out 16th Feb like many others. Headed SW to the wrecks some 40 miles out, and appeared many had the same idea as majority of the well-known and well fished wrecks were all occupied. Carried on and along the way tried wrecks. Good to get an idea of which wrecks were filling up with the better sized fish and which were holding the small ones. Photo of Caroline with her first Pollack of the year from what will hopefully be a year of much wreck fishing, and hopefully fingers crossed the Cod will be back on the brittles.

Finally at Last we got out with a break in the windy weather. We decided to go out at 0500 on Neil’s boat (Jambo) and headed east. When we arrived on our mark the weather was perfect and we settled down for a good day’s fishing.!!!!

After a couple of hours when the tide turned the first Plaice come to the boat, then Neil got into something quite nice, on retrieving it towards the boat it was suddenly fighting harder, tearing line from the real and making unbelievable runs, Finally we caught site of what he had hooked!! Or not hooked!! A SEAL had taken the fish he was retrieving and was not going to give it up.

We managed to get it within 15 feet from the boat and finally Sally Seal won and swam off with Neil’s Catch. We estimated it must have been 25/30lb and considering he was fishing with 30lb line and a 10lb trace with a size 1 hook he did well to hold it for 15mins. No wonder the fishing was poor that day with her around!

It goes without saying we will not be fishing that mark again……

Sorry there has been so few reports this month – truth is very few people have manged a trip out because every weekend has been windy. The lucky folk are the ones who can snatch a day mid week if the weather shows a glimpse of kindness.

Steve is one of the lucky ones:

“I moved my new boat into Chichester Marina in September, just in time it seems for a 4 month runs of consistently rubbish weather….

Tuesday 16th Feb ended my landlubber status and my son, 12, and I finally got out beyond the winner bar.
Magical morning, clear skies,heavy frost on the boat and slipways, and an impression of an arctic ice breaker as we left the mooring. It’s a long trek from the marina to the Solent, but it does give time to set up and on an amazingly still, cold morning like Tuesday, the run out is pretty special.

Anyhow to the fishing. I ran to the outer Nab Rock mark first, arriving on low tide. I need to perfect my anchoring as I seemed to end up way off from where I intended, missing the ledge on the north eastern edge despite 3 attempts. 5 doggies and a big pout despite 6/0 hooks and huge squid/frozen lug baits. After 2 hours I decided to run across past the tower to have a look east of the Nab channel. Nice to see 4-5 private boats there already.

In 75 feet of water we set up one lug baited, one mackerel plus lug, and one huge dirty squid rig. The next 2 hours saw another 5 doggies, couple of undersized whiting, but to my sons delight 2 Thornbacks (both on the mackerel) and a strap conger (on lug, lip hooked fortunately). All great fun on 20lb class rigs and braid ( I will be investing in something a bit meatier however given the difficulty giving the bigger Thornback any welly as he hung In the tide).

By no means an amazing day, and either the Cod have gone or we just couldn’t locate or tempt them, but it certainly did the trick with my son given the constant action. Thanks to all here who contribute to this site which has been a great help in prepping for my introduction to the Solent.

I hope to have some more meaningful catch reports down the line. Hope to see some of you on the water this spring, 22ft Centre console, Blue Hull, white T-top, say hi.”