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 'Good Fish' pictures and stories

December 2006 - Sorry you can only photo dead Congers and all of mine went back alive and kicking. We had a lot of good specimen Congers around the 40lb mark, which certainly put a bend in the rod and a smile on the face. Then the other days when we did have Cod I left the camera at home. That's life!

November 2006

The Undulate Rays are still showing during the Cod season. I was convinced that this one was a good, 20lb Cod, in a fair bit of tide, probably for the first 10 minutes of the fight. Then it became less characteristic of a Cod and it became more apparent it was something else. This Specimen Undulate of 15lb 8oz proved to be the best fish on the Ashlett November competition. After weighing and a fair bit of time recovering in the spring tide, she kicked nicely to swim back down and fight another day.

October 2006

Fish in the Solent - Saturday 7th October found Due South 'inside' dodging a fair bit of wind, a F6+ Westerly. We tested a bank just off Sowley and caught in very quick succession five good Thornbacks. The best and first happened to fall to my mackerel strip bait and was a tad under 13lb, while the majority went to Kev Witt's baits, who showed the rest of us how to do it with fish of 6-8, 8-0 and 8-2. He then followed these up with three spotted Rays up to 4-0. Brian Jones had the best Bass on the comp at 4-8 and the most species. Who say's the Solent doesn't fish? Most fish fell during daylight but the water was extremely coloured.

Meanwhile during the evenings the hot spots in the Solent continued to produce some spectacular specimen Dover Soles. The best weighed in for Ashlett SAC was a cracker of 3lb 7.75oz by Steve Davies fishing on his own boat 'Deputy Dog'.

September 2006

Neil caught this cracking Bass on an evening sortie on Rob Thompson's new boat 'Shogun'. Neil offered up a mackerel flapper to tempt this Bass that pulled the scales to 11lb 10ozs.

July and August 2006

This 20 minute scrap turned out to be a tail wrapped 20-8 Tope, just sizable, but worth all the effort, as this was another competition. Tope fishing was great fun this year when we could get close to St Catherine's Point, weather permitting.

June 2006

Eric from Kiddlington SAC found a good Huss among the smaller species that were surrounding a piece of rocky outcrop or an unmarked wreck, maybe, off of Brook.

May 2006

A lovely May evening where the fish fell over themselves to get to the baits. Here another Black Bream around 2lb is released by Andrew King.

March 2006

  As you can see, this odd looking fish took a whole squid on pennel 6/0's. Can you tell what it is? Caught a mile from Freshwater reef, this Three Bearded Rockling turned out to be the best specimen on the first Ashlett SAC Boat competition for 2006. It is the first Three Bearded Rockling that I have ever seen live or caught myself so in the absence of any other pictures, here it is. The Rockling was kept alive in a bucket all day; proving that it is a very hardy fish indeed. After weighing ashore at 1lb 3.5 ozs, I released it at Lepe. Note a potential British Record was caught and released out from Langstone quite recently by a young lad. It is a pity they could not tank it and release it the next day; remember the information that we provide is very useful to our Marine Scientists.

January 2006

Bit of a cheat this one but the Shirley Warren Club had a good day just before Christmas with a variety of fish, here is what they were really after, and it went to the winner of the day as he added his 17lb Cod to a Conger of 30lb plus Pout Dogs, Whiting and Poor Cod.