Category: SMAC (Page 10 of 11)

The summer fishing seems to have extended well into autumn this year, with the mackerel staying with the spratt shoals right up to the end of October before fading away. The amount of baitfish seen on the fishfinders is spectacular, attracting mackerel and bass. This is probably why the dolphins are being seen inshore here and bluefin tuna not so far offshore too. Every day that I have been out over that last two months I have seen large flocks of gulls working within a mile or two of shore, and if you like catching school bass on light gear you can catch a fish almost every cast, some of them actually into the “keeper” size of over 42cm.

Bream have stayed on the Blocks and rocky marks into early November, and looking back at my log I don’t see I caught many this late in previous years, although I probably wasn’t targeting them. I have always been interested in fishing methods used in other countries and this one caught my eye recently: fishing for yellow snapper (very like our black bream in habit) groundbaiting with oatmeal – or what we call porridge oats. I gave the method a try and it certainly produced some nice bream. Best bait was fish strip or prawn, not the usual squid strip. It wasn’t a scientific test because there was no other boats nearby using a different method to compare, but if you want to see the technique in use here’s the original video:

 I was expecting more whiting by now and some are showing but not in the numbers we can expect as we move into winter. There are some good sized fish around – Lee Marshfield shows one that will produce some nice fillets.

Further out some nice bull huss have been caught – shown here a 12lb Bull Huss to Andrew Law fishing from Moonshine, and one of similar size for John Jones.

There have been plenty of good bass caught and Ben Lumsden showed his dad how to do it:

Finally – cod. Yes, some have been caught but there’s a reason why they are called Solent Unicorns – because they aren’t very common. One boat reported catching four but that is unusual. One or zero is far more likely. Tim Andrews did a very good job of making this one look sizable, but the game was up when we saw the weight in the Cod Cup listings – 5lb 6oz but still good enough to be in second place behind a 5lb 7oz fish caught by Tony Callard earlier.

The Cod Competition has been postponed from 14th November to 21st November, so that gives the cod and whiting a bit more time to organise themselves into turning up.

The first week of October has been windy so when the forecast was for a calm weekend a lot of local boat anglers grabbed the opportunity and headed out. The mornings were initially very misty but within a few hours the visibility improved. The strong winds of the previous week had left murky water and a bit of a swell but otherwise all we had to contend with were strong tides, plenty of weed and an easterly wind. Nothing is ever quite right is it?

Birds can still be seen working over shoals of baitfish being attacked from below, but the attackers are now shoals of small bass as most of the mackerel have now dispersed.

Bass fishing on the banks has been superb with good catches of quality fish. Kev Johnson and his bass are our Featured Photo above. An unusually high number of bull huss have been caught on local marks. Although bull huss are not unknown, they are more commonly caught on deeper marks. Dave Ford caught two of 12lbs and a very nice small-eyed ray of 11lbs.

In previous years, larger bream have moved offshore leaving hordes of tiny bream behind to shred our baits. This year we have been catching good quality bream right into October – fish strip fished near or on the bottom seems to work well. Here’s a nice bream caught by Jim Atkins.

It’s always nice to see dolphins – thank you Dan Lumsden for sharing this photo, taken near Medmery Bank

After several frustrating postponements our inaugural Open Species Competition was held on 5th September. It was superbly organised by Chris Ellis, a veteran of many international species competitions, his wife Hayley and Steve Kelly. The competition was also sponsored by Sea Angling Classic, whose founder Ross Honey was very helpful with advice and support on the day.

Winner of the competition was Bill Arnold with 11 species, Chris Ellis was second with 9 and there was a tie for third places between Alan Isaacs and Darren Price both with 8 species. We hope to run this competition again in 2022 with a two-day event so watch out for further details.

There is a full write-up of the competition in the current issue of Saltwater Boat Angling (pictured).

Chris Ellis in his boat Miss Molly heads out of Langstone Harbour entrace at the start of the competition:

Over the last few weeks we have seen an unprecedented influx of mackerel into the Solent and Eastern Approaches, with gulls working above feeding shoals up to a mile in length. This combined with the good weather has meant a lot of anglers have been able to stock up with winter bait with ease. The mackerel were of a consistently large size so were great for eating too. Bass could be found feeding below the shoals, and bass were also very active feeding over the banks further offshore. Some anglers were also treated to an escort of porpoises within a couple of miles of shore. They are commonly seen further offshore but they had almost certainly followed the mackerel shoals closer inshore which is less usual, but not unknown.

Have a browse through the photo gallery below.

« ‹ of 7 › »