Leigh Coward caught this 46lb tope from Peter Churchill’s “Moonshine”
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To commemorate the launch of Dave and Caroline’s charter venture, DoinTheDo, we are running a competition though June 2018 to find the best photograph featuring fish!
First prize: a full day fishing on DoinTheDo, donated by Dave and Caroline
Runners-up prizes: DoinTheDo Swag bags containing DoinTheDo goodies, donated by Dave and Caroline.
How to enter: send your photographs to news@boat-angling.co.uk either as a Catch Report or separately as a competition entry. We will also have scouts out looking for likely winners in the local Solent Facebook groups!
What we are looking for: imaginative photographs showing the beauty of fish or the joy of fishing. Try different angles, close-ups, action shots, fish in the water – anything that shows fish and fishing at its best.
Entries close at midnight on 30th June. Winners will be notified the following week.
Good Luck!
From Josh this weekend, it went 34lb!
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.
Sea Angling News Online is available here
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
Roland and I went out early on the previous Sunday with a range of baits. Initial thoughts to see if there was any Bream about. First stop was in Bracklesham Bay – a couple of marks providing very little so off we went to Boulder Bank.
Over the space of the following 3 hours of the Ebb Tide we had 5 Smoothies on crab to 12lb, the ubiquitous Dogfish, and a few Bream bites giving just the one around a pound.
We went back to Bracklesham to see if there were any change – but no, nothing and the cold wind had increased, so went in. Note to self- don’t go out in T shirt and shorts and leave the warmer clothes in the car! Still, the smoothies gave some good sport and we’ll go back again soon to see if the Bream are easier. Above is Roland with one of the Smoothounds.
Next Sunday Roland and I went out again (with appropriate clothing as it took half the day for the cloud/mist to burn off) . As last week we headed west from Hayling towards Selsey
With a range of fresh baits – bit costly as freezer broke in the week and I lost a load of bait – so had to buy new we headed out reasonably early. Early for us but with a dozen boats over at Selsey before us, we were not alone and not really early either. Luckily found one of my marks still free amongst the raft of charter boats.
Fishing the Ebb all day on the Boulder we had about 15 bream to 2lb and 9 Smoothies to just under 15lb. The bream were active all the time during the tide and the reason we only caught 15 is more due to ineptitude than the fish not biting.
The smoothies were a range of sizes the smaller ones taking squid, the 5 larger ones, all double figure fish, taking crab. Add in a couple of dogs each, not too many luckily and in general a reasonable day. All spawning bream returned to provide future years sport hopefully and the smoothies tricked in all day but had 3 in 10 minutes as the tide dropped off and we managed to lose a couple as well, bit over eager on the striking.
So good day and got back in time to cut the lawn and keep the FPO happy (well relatively).
Regards….Philip
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
The May SMAC meeting featured a boat safety talk by Brian Masters representing the RNLI. The audience included SMAC members, ECA and other guest who packed into the Marina Bar to hear Brian and take advantage of the Life-jacket Clinic run by RNLI Volunteer Richard Hills. Although the audience was composed of experienced boat anglers, Brian who was an excellent speaker, took this into account and we all learned something new. He also showed us some very interesting and helpful videos of RNLI rescues, and what actually happens when you fall in the water with and without a life-jacket.
The RNLI are promoting life-saving actions to take if you fall in the water, and my own takeaway was that once you overcame the initial Cold Water Shock effect, you only have a limited time to save yourself because after your body temperature drops 2C, you pass beyond the phase of “useful consciousness” and are then totally reliant on rescue. Brian shared some great tips and I am sure everyone went away much better informed on sea safety issues.
The RNLI were very generous with their safety freebies, and in return SMAC and guests raised £94 for RNLI funds. We are very grateful to Brian and Richard for turning out as volunteers, and to the RNLI for being there if we need them.
A lovely starry smoothhound for Peter Churchill, skipper of Moonshine. To book, contact Peter on 02392 787295