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Only my second ever Trigger Catch and release, boy this one fought well 3 lb 1.5 oz

Dan and I could not resist the combination of a small tide and good forecast to try anchoring a wreck on Sunday Rowing out to the boat at 0700 there was no wind and a flat calm, fully loaded and off we go. the usual call on channel 6 gave us a brief chat to Martin on Madness looking for bait fish. Passing the chains we go up to 20 knots to the chosen mark, after recent trips I decided to not even try for mackerel, we would use frozen and catch some pout at the wreck. On the ebbing tide we were soon at the wreck. Big anchor down and settle on the tide. According to No 2 son I got lucky, we were 57 meters in front of the wreck in 40 metres of water. a couple of baits down on 12 oz leads, and we wait!! 😀😀 Fish on. That was the start of a busy session on the increasing ebb tide, mainly conger and one stroppy Tope. Baited feathers kept us supplied with poor cod and pout for bait and occasionally we got up to 2 rods each. 😎 The small tide meant that we could fish through, but did go up to our largest leads for about an hour [1 rod out each and Bacon Butties on] As slack water approached so did a Swanage diving boat called "Wight Spirit" The skipper asked me to call him on 6, "here we go" says Dan [remembering some history with dive boats] He asked me what our intentions were, when I told him we were going to re anchor for the flood, he asked if he could put divers down on slack. after I told him that it would ruin our fishing he moved off to another wreck close by, what a nice skipper, Many thanks we moved a little early and it took a while for the flood to start, no problem as we were now getting lots of medium size Tope. 😀😀 Just as the Lasagne was cooked and ready to eat, we swung into place and the congers started to feed again, catching and T barring weighty fish off, while trying to eat our late lunch is just the sort of Multi tasking we like. 😍 No monsters this time, the only one weighed went to 39lb in the net, allowing 2lb for the net, its a 92% specimen. But my god did it make a mess of the boat. It reminds us why we usually leave them outside of the boat. We had at least 10 eels each averaging 25/30 and half as many Tope that were a little smaller. Nice warm day with a dropping warm wind Just my sort of day.😍😎

So we hit the solent again at 9am this morning. The two terrible cousins and me the skipper come dogs body. Fishing was real slow today. Harry started proceedings with his first conger ever, it put some muscle on his arms, but unfortunately a rogue wave smacked it into the swim platform just inches from the net. It came off, gutted. All that hard work. Time ticked on and the tide slackened. I then saved my blank with a teenie pout, 1/4lb if I was lucky. Slack water and the wind picked up. Leo blanking and Harry letting him know it ... how cruel kids can be. But then, a fresh mackerel bait was deployed and bingo..... Leo was in, a fight that made his rod leave his fighting pad and gave him a good smack in the privates . He held in there and was rewarded with a PB bass of 53cm and 4lb 2oz in weight. It was gut hooked unfortunately so it had to come home. Quickly dispatched it was put in a bag and a last cast (drop down) was had. No more fish I’m afraid. No tuna either ...... always next time eh !! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Dean and I decided to take advantage of the small tides last weekend and make for the offshore bass marks & wrecks First stop was at Brownsea Castle to stock up on livelies, after half an hour we decided that wasn't going to work so off we went to see if we could get some mackerel. First drift at our chosen banker mark off Swanage saw us getting as many joey's as we needed in quick order. Bait sorted we then sped off to our bass mark some 18 miles offshore. Half a dozen drifts and zilch, nobody at home other than Tope which bit off our light lines and cuttlefish that ate the head off of every other bait we sent down (kept one cuttle for home) Moving on we went to several wrecks non of which gave up anything to write home about. Our tally for the day was several jumbo pout, red gurnard, one solitary 6/8lb pollock a couple of tope and cuttlefish. We ended up closer to Portland than Poole and some 20 odd miles offshore covering around 80 or so miles in total for not a lot. Lessons learned are that wrecks don't fish that well on mean neaps and that we need to invest in new rods as our current line up of aging equipment no longer seem to work......................well at least that's our excuse to go shopping

Martins photo of Kingfisher

A brace of 18lb peas in a pod

Went out with member Geoff at 9am yesterday and drifted off Bournemouth pier towards Boscombe pier. Plenty of small plaice mainly well undersized. A few small bream and half a dozen tubs. Managed a gar on float at second attempt - first one didn't hook up. Three good maccy on the lazy line and later a further two. Wind made it a little uncomfortable so a move was decided - Hello another take on the three small feathers - another maccy and a bonus herring. Slow motor to the harbour and tied up in the Wytch for a bag-full of weed and nothing else so it was back to Cobbs for fuel and a wash down. a pleasant day afloat with plenty of action on the drift. Geoff managed a couple of keeper plaice too.

Leo and his PB bass. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Well, I found a local skipper to bring her back in the end... here she is on her dry stack this afternoon after her crossing from Jersey. #newboatfeeling!

Sounds like something in the Bible mark

I was fishing for Bream Steve, with a big bait over too. One of these followed the large bait in, then darted back down to the bottom. I dropped a bream rig down where it went and had it on within a minute, so I sort of fished for that one.

Check the Warrior owners website https://www.facebook.com/groups/warriorboats/, usually a few on there in that price range and you could do much worse. Terry.

August Fish of the Month winner. 1st Place Jan Tryska Red Gurnard 1lb 10oz 130% Specimen 2nd Place Charlie Chapman Bull Huss 14lb 0oz 117% Specimen £25 Voucher 3rd Place Mike Hall Red Gurnard 1lb 5oz 105% Specimen 8 Registered fish for August

Brilliant Charlie that’s one species that has managed to shake of my hook .....so never landed one [emoji36]

Sounds like a good day. Closer inshore the tide barely got going on the flood so a good call. Full marks to the skipper of Wight Spirit too in his sense of co-operation with other water users too 👍

Happy birthday Allan same age as me now😩😉🎂

AJ and I had some pilchard / sardines last weekend. Managed to turn a couple in to bass. R

If the boat hasn't got it already I do recommend volt meters on both batteries that can be seen all the time from the helm, my boat has them and it will quickly show up if one isn't being charged or in a poor state when the engines are off. I've fitted a 190w solar panel which with a MPPT solar charger does a great job of keeping the batteries topped up while at anchor/drifting. If you have room on the roof I'd recommend fitting one. I fitted a Bosch panel (same as on house roofs) about 6 years ago, chosen because it had been tested in salty air. No sign of any corrosion and vastly lower cost than the specialist boat ones.

I had mine changed earlier this year, as I had been running with my change over switch [inside the engine compartment] set to "Both" most of the time and because loads of gear goes on top of the engine box during a trip the switch stayed there. On two occasions I flattened the batteries and had to get assistance. The new control switch was fitted that has an on position, which prioritises after an engine start to recharge the start battery then swings on to the domestic pair. This means that the switch does not need to be changed during the trip and more importantly the start battery cannot be flattened by the domestic load. Great £350.00 well spent. Until last week when we slept onboard and found out that the auto switching does not work if you let the domestic battery voltage go too low. It charged the start battery but nothing to domestic. The switch does have an manual all battery position that allows normal charging. Good news that we could start the engine, bad news we deep cycled the domestic set again. It sounds like you may have similar switching , so be careful of deep cycling on the domestics. I only had a voltmeter on the instrument cluster that showed start battery volts, I added a second one that now shows volts of the domestic set [£9.00 Amazon and a little bit of wire and work]. Then last week I trickle charged the batteries as slow as possible. Yesterdays trip was good, fingers crossed I have not buggered up two large batteries Charlie

I like to blame a "rogue wave" when mis-netting too, classic excuse! [emoji23] Well done for getting out and enjoy the bass! R

Well done Neil Great report and the lads looked liked they had a great time thanks to you. 👍

Thanks Martin, I happen to agree 😍 Dry stack is in Gosport. Here's a vid of the cockpit area for those that are interested.

Right! There just aren't enough! But fear not, I have some on order 😉👍

But where are the RODHOLDERS 😋

Is there no prize given for best fish taken each month by a Junior within the club? If there is not, maybe its something the committee could give some thought too given it would add further encouragement for the youngsters to get out with a rod rather than wear out there thumbs on a playstation!