Weekending 19th February

True to form Trident SAC coincided with a F6 - F8 SW forecast again on Saturday, so we cancelled. What a horrible day it turned out to be too, even watching the two Senior teams winning the rugby at Fawley was a test. I managed to get a couple of jobs on White Maiden started in the morning, no rush now.

A few boats got round on Sunday. Inshore two solo skippers found one Cod each but it was quiet. On the Thursday last week another skipper found the Congers a bit further out, while on the 10 to 12 mile banks there is some excellent fishing still to be had if the tides and forecast allow for it. Look out for Ryans Blonde Ray below, in this weeks Thursday echo.

Tightlines, Les.

Weekending 12th February

On holiday this weekend watching England beat Italy (just) in the Roman snow! The lads that fished this weekend on the big tides close inshore, round the Needles Light, found it a bit quieter, with the odd Cod and Conger. It's better if you can get offshore, like in next weekends smaller tides. This is a great time for Spurr Dogs and recent years have seen some exceptionally large females released in February, along with some good Blondes. The forecast this weekend is already putting the trip in doubt though for the necessary distance sortie.

Tightlines Les.

Weekending 5th February
 
Yesterday, (Saturday) I took a local crew out on the coldest start I have possibly ever had, with temperatures showing -6 degrees! The deck was iced up and we needed to pour on warmer Solent sea water to clear it off. Once out round the back we found the Channel was like a mill pond with a slight and chilly breeze but the sunshine took the edge off that. The first stop produced a Conger for Kev of 26lb plus a dogfish and after ninety quiet minutes, I gave the option for a move. It was a small tide and I was torn between the Whiting inside me or the bigger fish that I assumed had started to move offshore, outside me. In the end we went out deeper. The move worked as the lads caught another seven Congers between 15lb and 25lb and a nice Ray. Mike is seen doing the Conger on the right. On the last drop Ryan who persevered well latched into this very pretty Blonde Ray of 21lb. A lovely fish. All the Congers and the Ray were returned to fight another day.

Tight Lines, Les

Weekending 28th January

 
Yesterdays (Saturday) crew found the conditions good for this time of year. Not as cold as promised, no frost, a bit breezy from the North, so only small waves when inshore, and a nice bit of sunshine. The first big fish broke me off, this was later caught by Dave in the stern, with my trace hanging out of the Congers mouth. I messed up another heavy bite. Off the wire and now on braid the next big hit felt like it was hooked on, so basically ignored I my own advice when fishing big baits, and struck and missed. You must give line and be patient and feed the fish. A few Whiting came on the feed at the end of the flood, the first being shown by Colin here. Alan caught a reasonable one maybe a tad larger but generally the Whiting were playing hard to get. At the start of the ebb a very big fish, nodding and fighting just like a Cod, broke Mike's leader, as he tried to stop it taking line. So all in all, if you take out the forty odd Dogs fish and Pout, not the best fishing but we had a chance and who knows what Mike lost, it was big.

Inside of us was Eric on 'Wight Rebel' who found two Cod for his crew around the 12lb mark, John Skeggs on 'Last Laugh' found four Cod for his crew plus Whiting. Another boat near John lost a huge Ling, well over 20lb, initially believed to be a Conger, which was left in the water while a tangle was sorted, only for the Ling to shake the hook, as it was noticed, not to be a Conger! They even up anchored to chase it down the tide but the big Ling went back down again. They also has plenty of Whiting to 4lb. Stainless Steve, had a Spurr Dog, a Smooth hound, a Cod and good Whiting in the same area.

You Just got to get out there and test the ground.

Looking forward to next week, Tightlines, Les.

Weekending 21st January

Too breezy this weekend so I used the day well and changed my engine oil, oil filters and spark plugs on both engines while still on the moorings. It was gusty which didn't help much but not too cold and I never dropped anything. After a quick test drive out to the end of the river and back I was home watching the Rugby. Hanging off the back of the boat for 5 hours was more akin to gymnastics than engine maintenance, I was shattered.

John Skeggs on 'Last Laugh' fished the Needles on Tuesday for three nice Cod and some big Whiting, so they were still around then. He also tested the Solent last Sunday with a crew that needed to get out, and they pulled a nice Cod out of there too, so fingers crossed for next week.

Tightlines, Les.

Weekending 15th January

Yesterday morning the ice was on the outside of the windows at first but when cleared off, it began to freeze up on the inside,  before I left my moorings to pick up Church Crookham SAC. It was their January Needles competition. This was the first genuine frozen 0800 start of the winter so far. We got to the mark just as the flood got away against a F4 maybe even a F5, coming straight at us from the South East. Luckily the sun helped take the edge off the cold breeze at a time when White Maiden swung from side to side on anchor. Not very nice for the anglers.

Fishing was slow but very fishable in the 85% spring tide. First to show was a small Thornback, followed by a few dogs but not a sign of a big fish. This signalled the trigger for plan A to maintain it's course with a pre-determined move at 'half time' when the tide was easier for the crew. We nipped out another mile, probably 30 minutes late with hindsight and found a bit more life but it was still fairly quiet. The barometer read 1034mb, possibly a reason for the slow fishing?

Paul added some nice Whiting, a 15lb Conger and Dogs to his small TBR to take the competition honours. Peter fished hard all day on wire and when a really big fish pulled hard away, very shortly into the scrap, the obvious monster simply let go.

Keith caught the first of the Whiting at the end of the flood on his Cod bait and is pictured right. Paul seemed to be the only one to find them consistently at the start of the ebb, which was frustrating for the rest. It felt like a fairly hard day as the fishing was slow and we we never found a Cod.

After talking with some of the other skippers, there was the odd double figure cod caught on some of the other boats. The previous day two boats caught 10 Cod between them while the wind was from the West. Today we had high pressure and Easterlies not a nice combination but sometimes we still buck the trend. Here's looking forward to another go at them next week.

Tightlines, Les Jones.

Weekending 8th January

After three hours of fishing, a few miles off, over the top of the tide for very little, we came back in a mile or so and soon found the fish feeding on the ebb. I managed to coax a 20lb Cod onto a massive bait of cuttle and squid, presented on two 10/0 hooks. The bite required plenty of time as I gave it lots of line. Next came Steve's Cod which believe it or not was not as big as it looks but more clever perfect camera presentation. This is Steve's 20th personal Needles Cod this season thus far. After the first two Cod, two Congers at around 30lb and a 15lb also fell to Steve's baits and just to prove that some of the bites being missed were Cod, I boated another one of 12lb. The other lads worked hard and stuck at it but on these high pressure days it is best to feed the Cod rather than strike early. Having said that, we all still lose them.

The squid and cuttle combination was deadly but is not inexpressive and very messy but works well. The trick is to get that ink leaking out down the tide. A good cuttle can be used for three drops. One Cod coughed up a sea slug which had a fluorescent hairy back. Here is a picture of the belly at about 70mm long it looked almost prehistoric.

 Thanks to Steve Forster, we believe this little bird to be a juvenile Black Guillemot, a member of the Auk family and not a member of the Diver family. Guillemots cousins include Puffins and Razorbills. We often see Guillemots in small 'flocks' swimming on the surface often directly above the mackerel and Bass, useful to know.

When i took my anchor back he Manager of the chandlery shop was a bit dismissive. Surely if you buy and test something and it doesn't work you can get your money back (see last weeks story on 2011 link below). Anyway after an extended conversation he agreed to swap the Delta copy (that looked like an anchor) for a Bruce (or Claw) copy anchor. I now have two Bruce copy anchors and White Maiden is better prepared now. After reviewing the August 2011 PBO article I found that the PBO team didn't even test a Delta copy. Is that because the results may have been too controversial? If you have one, you may as well throw it away. I noted that most sailing boats in our Marina use a Delta copy, Plough' or CQR type anchor. If only they spent more time anchoring in a bit of weather, rather than tying up in Marina's, they may not bother with them either. I suspect the original Deltas work much better.

Note I have added a new link, to Ben Creasers sea angling blog at his 'WightWaterAngling' website, check out my Angling Links page.

Reminder that I added 'Buoys' as a regular and useful link on my FrontPage. This links directly to the Greenwich Lightship data page at the National Data Buoy Center or NDBC. There are two buoys in our approximate sea area giving us live data. The Greenwich Lightship is about 40 miles, mid channel, SE from us and the Channel Lightship is about 50 miles, mid channel SW of us. To see the Channel Lightship data, enlarge the small chart and click on the square North of the Channel Island's. I use these to give me an idea of how big the sea maybe when I round the Needles Light, after a blow. Note the maths behind the wave height figure. Significant wave height, WVHT, is approximately equal to the average of the highest one-third of the waves, as measured from the trough to the crest of the waves. Therefore there could be much bigger waves out there, so be warned.
 
Happy New Year and Tightlines, Les.

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