Post by Mumbles Motor Boat Fishing Cl on Jun 23, 2015 13:37:22 GMT 1
Oystercat fishing trip Saturday, 20 June 2015
By skipper Dean Gifford
In reality, this trip started on Friday evening. I was very kindly invited to join Paul (Captain Nemo) on his boat for the evening to have a drift about with the feathers. The sea state was a little sloppy but not too bad, and our long drifts across the bay found us a dozen or so mackerel in the 2 or so hours we were out.
Those who fish with me will note I always use a large 210 blue and silver pirk under my feathers. I often get asked do I ever get bass on the pirk... to which I reply not really, only 2 - 3 times in the 5-6 years I've been doing it. But what I do get often are small to medium size gurnard taking the pirk, many an angler look at me like I'm crazy and discredit it as a fisherman's tale. On Friday evening I showed Paul how greedy these little blighter could be. As I flicked the pirk towards an anchored buoy a gurnard no longer than the pirk, and far lighter had engulfed the large treble on the bottom of the flashy monster before it had time to hit the bottom.
Saturday
Saturday morning at 6:45am everyone was onboard Oystercay and briefed how the day was going to pan out. After collecting 2lb of eel from Swansea Tackle and Bait I was very pleased to see the sea state had improved greatly from the night before.
We made our way out to the Swigg, where after a few drifts we had more than enough mackerel to start the day's tope fishing.
We got to the mark a little earlier than I'd planned so we had to contend with the ripping tide; 24oz of lead was needed to prevent the forward baits tangling with the guys at the back. Things were quiet during the main run, but we were entertained by a pod of feeding dolphins in front of us along with the accompanying gannets that were making the most of an easy meal.
I always get everyone to start with cut bait, but after a 30mins or so we'd have enough smell in the water to move over to live baits. I could feel my live bait getting scared by something - I wound it 10-15ft off the bottom where it was taken by a pretty powerful fish that ran hard across the tide.
I could just start to see the pin, the lines attached to before the fish stopped its run and began coming back towards the boat. Unfortunately, before I could get it to the boat it bit through my 250lb trace - first time that's happened to me.
Next into a fish was Ben Mordecai - getting his first tope
I got this critter - hook must have slipped and I hooked him in the top of the head... was an interesting fight.
That was the end of the tope fishing, always seems to happen when you find lots of mackerel, tope fishing is poor!!
Once the ebb tide had increased in strength enough we headed out to have a go on the bass. After a few drifts we managed to find a reasonable shoal of fish with 5-6 fish being taken at the same time. Unfortunately, we struggled to keep in contact with them and over the next 3hrs or so we only managed 25 or so to 4-5lb, most were small (less than the 42cm we set as our minimum keeping size)
The last hour or so was spent in Oxwich where we had a few dogs and dabs - this gave us the chance to have a cup of tea and a sausage sandwich before running home.
We got back around 5pm - still had some mackerel and live eel left which is a change from last weekends fishing. If I'm honest after last weekend the fishing was just ok, but I think we were a little spoiled last week!!
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By skipper Dean Gifford
In reality, this trip started on Friday evening. I was very kindly invited to join Paul (Captain Nemo) on his boat for the evening to have a drift about with the feathers. The sea state was a little sloppy but not too bad, and our long drifts across the bay found us a dozen or so mackerel in the 2 or so hours we were out.
Those who fish with me will note I always use a large 210 blue and silver pirk under my feathers. I often get asked do I ever get bass on the pirk... to which I reply not really, only 2 - 3 times in the 5-6 years I've been doing it. But what I do get often are small to medium size gurnard taking the pirk, many an angler look at me like I'm crazy and discredit it as a fisherman's tale. On Friday evening I showed Paul how greedy these little blighter could be. As I flicked the pirk towards an anchored buoy a gurnard no longer than the pirk, and far lighter had engulfed the large treble on the bottom of the flashy monster before it had time to hit the bottom.
Saturday
Saturday morning at 6:45am everyone was onboard Oystercay and briefed how the day was going to pan out. After collecting 2lb of eel from Swansea Tackle and Bait I was very pleased to see the sea state had improved greatly from the night before.
We made our way out to the Swigg, where after a few drifts we had more than enough mackerel to start the day's tope fishing.
We got to the mark a little earlier than I'd planned so we had to contend with the ripping tide; 24oz of lead was needed to prevent the forward baits tangling with the guys at the back. Things were quiet during the main run, but we were entertained by a pod of feeding dolphins in front of us along with the accompanying gannets that were making the most of an easy meal.
I always get everyone to start with cut bait, but after a 30mins or so we'd have enough smell in the water to move over to live baits. I could feel my live bait getting scared by something - I wound it 10-15ft off the bottom where it was taken by a pretty powerful fish that ran hard across the tide.
I could just start to see the pin, the lines attached to before the fish stopped its run and began coming back towards the boat. Unfortunately, before I could get it to the boat it bit through my 250lb trace - first time that's happened to me.
Next into a fish was Ben Mordecai - getting his first tope
I got this critter - hook must have slipped and I hooked him in the top of the head... was an interesting fight.
That was the end of the tope fishing, always seems to happen when you find lots of mackerel, tope fishing is poor!!
Once the ebb tide had increased in strength enough we headed out to have a go on the bass. After a few drifts we managed to find a reasonable shoal of fish with 5-6 fish being taken at the same time. Unfortunately, we struggled to keep in contact with them and over the next 3hrs or so we only managed 25 or so to 4-5lb, most were small (less than the 42cm we set as our minimum keeping size)
The last hour or so was spent in Oxwich where we had a few dogs and dabs - this gave us the chance to have a cup of tea and a sausage sandwich before running home.
We got back around 5pm - still had some mackerel and live eel left which is a change from last weekends fishing. If I'm honest after last weekend the fishing was just ok, but I think we were a little spoiled last week!!
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