New Species and Personal Bests

Pollock have been plentiful whilst wrecking

May has been a memorable month for me. I've enjoyed a couple of wrecking trips as well as an afternoon drifting the Skerries Bank and new species and personal bests have, I'm pleased to say, come my way. Pollock have made up the bulk of the wreck captures, I've seen plenty of double figure fish caught and been lucky enough to catch the biggest - a personal best of 16lb. The odd cod and a few bass were very welcome also, along with some whiting and pouting. The Skerries Bank produced my first ever plaice and red gurnard and other anglers on board managed whiting, dogfish, bass, mackerel and launce. My trips have been with Spot On! Charters of Brixham, Devon. Ross the skipper, is friendly, knowledgeable and not afraid to burn fuel in search of fish. He comes highly recommended! Visit www.spot-on-charters.co.uk for information about Ross and his fantastic new boat. Away from sea fishing and back with my feet on dry land I fished Cheddar Reservoir for pike. It was a lure only competition and although I didn't catch enough to worry the top spots I did catch a few small jacks. More sea fishing planned for next month and if we get decent weather I'll also be trying for a surface caught carp. That's not forgetting that the rivers reopen on June 16th, so I'll be digging the barbel gear out too and heading to the Wye. I'll tell you all about it next time.

Round Two of the Chew Valley Lake Evening League

On Wednesday afternoon, I had booked myself on to the 2nd round of the Chew Valley evening league , its a friendly competition  run over 10 evenings on Chew and this year Blagdon as a Floating line only Comp at 2 per month starting in April and at £25.00 for 4 hours fishing  is real Value ,
I had drawn to fish with Tim Wellman a friend and Customer who unlike me had fished chew a number of times this year ,
We started with  a drift off Nunnery point on washing line set up, I was using 2 red dawlbacks and a black booby on the point as Tim had said the fish where up in the water, after 2 drifts although we had spotted rising fish we had not had a take so Decided to motor down to Herons green bay  ,
on the first drift across we both struck in to fish ,
We carried on for the next hour drifting across Herons but only had a couple of knocks to show for our efforts so thought we should try a different tactic drifting right across to the far side bank our thinking being boat pressure might have pushed the fish in the cover this bank provides ,
the results where instant we had 7 more fish to the boat in the next 2 hours ,
a finish at 8.45pm gave me 6 fish for 16lb 4oz good enough for 3rd place on the evening with
 John Humpries  on 19lb for first and Andrew Hedger 17lb for second , so in all a great evenings fishing roll on round 3 which is the 14th of may , Contact Woodford Lodge o 01275 332339 for more details,

Tim in to the  last fish of the Evening

April Allsorts

This dogfish took a squid bait....

April has seen me try my luck at carp, general coarse, beach, pier and rock fishing. I was also meant to have spent a day boat fishing over the Skerries Bank, but this was unfortunately cancelled due to high winds. I've not caught a huge amount to show for my efforts but it's been enjoyable none the less. Highlight has to be the day spent fishing from rocks near Torquay which produced lots of fish to light tackle set-ups. Wrasse, pollock, mackerel and a single dogfish all provided fantastic sport. The coming weeks ought to provide me with something to write about as I have a couple of boat trips booked with Spot On! Charters of Brixham, Devon. If the weather is kind I'll be heading out in to the English Channel in search of cod, pollock, ling, conger and maybe some plaice and black bream too. My fingers are crossed for light winds! Check back to see how things turn out.


....whilst ragworm tempted the wrasse