Quiet day 4 July 2020

[My Alibi]

Oli and I left Amble marina at 07.00. Quite misty conditions, no wind of course and a flat sea. We tried our luck around Seaton Point. It was a big tide - 4.9m, and drift of 1.4 knots, but wasn't too bad. Just 1 or 2 small codling, so after 15 minutes we used the rest of the ebb tide to push on up to Craster where we hoped for clearer water. The big northerlies during the week had really messed up conditions. It was marginally clearer, but the fishing was slow. It took me over an hour to land 5 codling up to 2lb, and I only managed half-a-dozen coleys. Oli was about the same, but he did get a nice pollock of around 3lb in addition.

There was very little bird activity, which suggested no baitfish. Nor did we see much on the sounders. It was going to be a tough one to find any fish around when it was like this.

To try and find clearer water we went out 6 miles to Craster skeers. It was clearer - perhaps 6-7 feet viz, but still few fish around. We'd suffered from an electrical problem while out there, and with the help of Steve from SD Marine on the phone managed to rectify it - the positive isolator was faulty - so we called it quits and headed in, stopping at 2 wrecks en-route, neither of which had anything on them.

Back at the marina, as the other boats came in, it sounds like they'd all struggled too. With northerlies forecast for tomorrow, it doesn't look good for the rest of the week, even though things switch to westerlies. We might give it a go later in the week as I've got some time off work. Fingers crossed!

[jonny_s]

Shame about the lack of fish, still nice to read a report though. I fished the beach and pier last weekend with little to show other than tiny flatties. Haven't seen any mackerel at all yet, are you seeing many from the boat?

Jonny

[My Alibi]

Hi Jonny,

At least we were not the only ones. But to be fair, I chatted with 5-6 other boat owners who'd been out that day and who had blanked. A couple of weeks ago, we were getting plenty of mackerel, and big uns too, but we have noticed that the inshore water has been discoloured recently from these northerlies. You may have noticed that there is less bird activity around, especially the gannets which specialise in mackerel. We were out yesterday afternoon, and I'll write up that report now, but we only had 6-7 mackerel all day, and we were out on the wrecks where the water is much clearer. No gannets diving, even 6 miles out. We did find seals out there though, which is a bit unusual. We did see lots of terns, puffins and razorbills flying past us on their way back to Coquet island with beaks full of fish, so we can only assume that they are having to go further offshore but are being successful, so there is hope yet.

Maybe, with the winds shifting around to the west by next weekend it will bring the fish back in. Good luck !!

Adrian