Post by dean on Jul 30, 2014 20:24:16 GMT 1
Oystercat 26 July 2014
I'm not sure how it keeps happening, but, when ever John Elvins decides on a date for a trip 9/10 the weather comes good. Saturday was no exception - that said, when I checked the forecast at 5am when I woke up it was showing the wind threatened to blow up to 15mph in the afternoon.
With this in mind, at 6:30am, with everyone onboard I offered the option of either sticking with the original plan of heading to Lundy or we could yield to the weather forecast and go bassing instead. It was unanimous, we were to stick with plan a and make our way down to Lundy.
Normally we see dolphins within 10miles of the island - but, for some reason we only saw large numbers or porpoises. Also as we approached the 6mile limit we made our way through 5 or 6 trawlers towings just on the 6 mile limit, some closer still on the eastern side.
As there were only 4 of us onboard we were able to fish the steep sided pinnacles of the hens and chickens. Normally, with 7-8 onboard when one person gets snagged on these steep sided rock, they often drag everyone else into them also, with 4 onboard we had enough room to move around to keep the others fishing.
First drop produced a 5lb Pollack for John Elvins
Second drift produced a few 6lbers for me and John Bevan.
We continued catching a similar stamp of fish for a hour or so before the tide picked up enough to start snagging us up. We then moved to the south end of the island to a rocky ridge which is out wide from the island.
The drift here was very slow but we still scored very well with fish coming in regularly between 3-4lb and the odd 5lber thrown in along with the odd ballen and cuckoo wrasse.
Richard Bincott 4lb Pollack John Bevan 5lb 8oz Pollack Dean Gifford adding colour with Cuckoo Wrasse
With more than enough Pollack for all of us we headed back to the sheer rocks to see if we could tempt a few bigger fish but if anything the stamp of fish dropped.
Plan changed to look for a few bass, so after a 20min or so bait gathering stint on the stanley bank which provided 30 or so launce, some joeys and about a million weaver fish we ran off and tried a couple of places including horseshoe rocks, diamond bank and oysterledge but we didn't get any bass.
We were back in around 6:45pm, after fueling up and filleting our catch we finally left the boat around 8:30pm - 14hrs after we all boarded.
Thankfully the weather didn't cause any problems, with the water being like a mirror all day. Some really interesting sights down there including porpoises feeding all around the boat, puffins going about their business and something pushing white bait up around the boat, but try as I may I couldn't get what ever it was to hit a spinner.
In all a really nice day.
Dean Gifford
I'm not sure how it keeps happening, but, when ever John Elvins decides on a date for a trip 9/10 the weather comes good. Saturday was no exception - that said, when I checked the forecast at 5am when I woke up it was showing the wind threatened to blow up to 15mph in the afternoon.
With this in mind, at 6:30am, with everyone onboard I offered the option of either sticking with the original plan of heading to Lundy or we could yield to the weather forecast and go bassing instead. It was unanimous, we were to stick with plan a and make our way down to Lundy.
Normally we see dolphins within 10miles of the island - but, for some reason we only saw large numbers or porpoises. Also as we approached the 6mile limit we made our way through 5 or 6 trawlers towings just on the 6 mile limit, some closer still on the eastern side.
As there were only 4 of us onboard we were able to fish the steep sided pinnacles of the hens and chickens. Normally, with 7-8 onboard when one person gets snagged on these steep sided rock, they often drag everyone else into them also, with 4 onboard we had enough room to move around to keep the others fishing.
First drop produced a 5lb Pollack for John Elvins
Second drift produced a few 6lbers for me and John Bevan.
We continued catching a similar stamp of fish for a hour or so before the tide picked up enough to start snagging us up. We then moved to the south end of the island to a rocky ridge which is out wide from the island.
The drift here was very slow but we still scored very well with fish coming in regularly between 3-4lb and the odd 5lber thrown in along with the odd ballen and cuckoo wrasse.
Richard Bincott 4lb Pollack John Bevan 5lb 8oz Pollack Dean Gifford adding colour with Cuckoo Wrasse
With more than enough Pollack for all of us we headed back to the sheer rocks to see if we could tempt a few bigger fish but if anything the stamp of fish dropped.
Plan changed to look for a few bass, so after a 20min or so bait gathering stint on the stanley bank which provided 30 or so launce, some joeys and about a million weaver fish we ran off and tried a couple of places including horseshoe rocks, diamond bank and oysterledge but we didn't get any bass.
We were back in around 6:45pm, after fueling up and filleting our catch we finally left the boat around 8:30pm - 14hrs after we all boarded.
Thankfully the weather didn't cause any problems, with the water being like a mirror all day. Some really interesting sights down there including porpoises feeding all around the boat, puffins going about their business and something pushing white bait up around the boat, but try as I may I couldn't get what ever it was to hit a spinner.
In all a really nice day.
Dean Gifford