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Saturday looked fishable, so Oli and I headed up to the boat at Amble. We were going to let conditions dictate where we fished as the tides were smallish, but the drifts would be heavily influenced by the brisk westerly wind. We headed up towards Craster, giving Speirsy a wave as we passed!
We gave it a couple of hours, but the drifts were fast, - 1.5 knots - which made bait presentation tricky. The fish that were around were in no mood to take real bait, and instead preferred the movement of synthetic lures, but even in shallow water this presented challenges. As it was, there were not great numbers of fish around. Oli picked up a pollock that was close to 5lb, and there was a handful of other codling up to 4lb, but the majority were small. There were not even many coalies. But we also noted far fewer birds working the area.
So we headed further up, stopping close to Newton haven, but there was a heavy presence of seals, so we motored on to Newton rock, and fished the hard ground down to 65 feet, and also the kelp beds close to The Faggot. The underwater rises were very productive. The old addage about fishing where the the birds are is very apt. There were loads of terns and guillemots, and a few puffins feeding on the sandeel baitballs being thrown up to the surface by predatory fish underneath. The cod seemed to be feeding on crabs and squat lobsters, and you can see a crab in the mouth of one of the codling, but were also clearly interested in the sandeel imitations we sent down.
The wind had eased by now, and it was a lot easier to manage the lures. There were numerous codling in the 3-4lb bracket, as well as pollock of 2-3lb. The coalies were well-conditioned fish, muscular and powerful and gave great sport on light tackle, with a typical 2 pounder scrapping harder than a codling twice its size. Oli ended the day with 30+ codling, as well as several pollock, while I only managed 20 codling or so, with a couple of pollock and 15-20 coalies. We only had 2 mackerel all day, but to be fair, we weren't really targetting them. Everything went back anyway.
All in all, it was a fun day out on the water, in the sunshine, in shorts and t-shirts, with a few fish to boot!
We gave it a couple of hours, but the drifts were fast, - 1.5 knots - which made bait presentation tricky. The fish that were around were in no mood to take real bait, and instead preferred the movement of synthetic lures, but even in shallow water this presented challenges. As it was, there were not great numbers of fish around. Oli picked up a pollock that was close to 5lb, and there was a handful of other codling up to 4lb, but the majority were small. There were not even many coalies. But we also noted far fewer birds working the area.
So we headed further up, stopping close to Newton haven, but there was a heavy presence of seals, so we motored on to Newton rock, and fished the hard ground down to 65 feet, and also the kelp beds close to The Faggot. The underwater rises were very productive. The old addage about fishing where the the birds are is very apt. There were loads of terns and guillemots, and a few puffins feeding on the sandeel baitballs being thrown up to the surface by predatory fish underneath. The cod seemed to be feeding on crabs and squat lobsters, and you can see a crab in the mouth of one of the codling, but were also clearly interested in the sandeel imitations we sent down.
The wind had eased by now, and it was a lot easier to manage the lures. There were numerous codling in the 3-4lb bracket, as well as pollock of 2-3lb. The coalies were well-conditioned fish, muscular and powerful and gave great sport on light tackle, with a typical 2 pounder scrapping harder than a codling twice its size. Oli ended the day with 30+ codling, as well as several pollock, while I only managed 20 codling or so, with a couple of pollock and 15-20 coalies. We only had 2 mackerel all day, but to be fair, we weren't really targetting them. Everything went back anyway.
All in all, it was a fun day out on the water, in the sunshine, in shorts and t-shirts, with a few fish to boot!
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