Norman
Well-known member
Brief report .... 
Well, of no making of my own (the tide , I promise) it was deemed that an early rise and meet up was required ....... 3.30am at the Royal Quays Marina ......
Myself and Keith Today as Tony and Steve had other things to attend to .....
We were a little unsure for time today as we both had other things on, a wedding party for keith to attend in the evening (all the best bert :thumbup: ) and a family get together for myself, again in the evening.
Past history shows that after a day out fishing from 3.30am you tend to fall asleep in the evenings, so with this in mind and also the knowledge that for the last three weeks we have caught well early on only for the catch to fall off and spend the next 4 hours hunting for fish ....
So there it was , a challenge to ourselves, catch well early then an early bath to recover for the rest of the day.
We were not dissapointed, after leaving marina at 3.45am and passing piers about 3.55am, we both had fish in the boat by 4.10am, before the sun had risen or even popped its circumference over the horizon.
Again, as was a couple of weeks ago the sounder very clearly showed lines dropping to the sea bed and being retrieved with clouds of fish on the feed close to the bottom and in mid water.
The clouds we suspect were mackerel and coalie since we dug into many of these, but , as is the norm, where the bait fish are the predators are as well and it was a fish a drop (with most being returned as they were scotchie, coalie or small codling).
Unfortunately the wind was fairly strong in the north west which although it didn't push up too much of a sea it certainly made the drift very fast.
So fast in fact that we had to work both our rods as a team, Keith baiting both sets of kit as I turned the boat and set up for the next drift
It was a catch frenzie with codling, cod, ling, flattie, scotchie, coalie and mackerel all in numbers.
No doubt today what was the best take ..... fresh crab, as keith was initially doubling my catch rate until I too turned to crab.
Then, as often happens, it went quiet ......... (This coincided with the use of the last of the crab but was it or was it not just a coincidence :question
We moved 1/2 mile to another wreck but still quiet with just the odd take, by this time it was 7.00am ..... so thats when we decided to cut and run, a good catch of 12 good keeper codling to 5.5lb and a ling of about 7lb in the boxes, meant we could go back after enjoying a fishing frenzie a good catch put fillets in the freezer and refresh ourselves for the night to come .......
Met up with Richie and Jason on Stingray and fished together for a while till they decided to go further offshore ..... look forward to the catch report lads.
Just a couple of pics of the day, didnt take many as the sea was a bit lumpy the fish were in a frenzie and there was just the two of us on board ..... there are a few clips of video to come but I`ll leave these till later as once again not a lot to put together at the present time.
picture before sunrise of our first two fish at about 4.10am ... sun not peeping over quite yet ..
sun just rising about 4.30am
no sooner had the sun risen then it hid behind some building cloud ........ but the ray effect looked good
thanks for reading ...
cheers
norm
Well, of no making of my own (the tide , I promise) it was deemed that an early rise and meet up was required ....... 3.30am at the Royal Quays Marina ......
Myself and Keith Today as Tony and Steve had other things to attend to .....
We were a little unsure for time today as we both had other things on, a wedding party for keith to attend in the evening (all the best bert :thumbup: ) and a family get together for myself, again in the evening.
Past history shows that after a day out fishing from 3.30am you tend to fall asleep in the evenings, so with this in mind and also the knowledge that for the last three weeks we have caught well early on only for the catch to fall off and spend the next 4 hours hunting for fish ....
So there it was , a challenge to ourselves, catch well early then an early bath to recover for the rest of the day.
We were not dissapointed, after leaving marina at 3.45am and passing piers about 3.55am, we both had fish in the boat by 4.10am, before the sun had risen or even popped its circumference over the horizon.
Again, as was a couple of weeks ago the sounder very clearly showed lines dropping to the sea bed and being retrieved with clouds of fish on the feed close to the bottom and in mid water.
The clouds we suspect were mackerel and coalie since we dug into many of these, but , as is the norm, where the bait fish are the predators are as well and it was a fish a drop (with most being returned as they were scotchie, coalie or small codling).
Unfortunately the wind was fairly strong in the north west which although it didn't push up too much of a sea it certainly made the drift very fast.
So fast in fact that we had to work both our rods as a team, Keith baiting both sets of kit as I turned the boat and set up for the next drift
It was a catch frenzie with codling, cod, ling, flattie, scotchie, coalie and mackerel all in numbers.
No doubt today what was the best take ..... fresh crab, as keith was initially doubling my catch rate until I too turned to crab.
Then, as often happens, it went quiet ......... (This coincided with the use of the last of the crab but was it or was it not just a coincidence
:questionWe moved 1/2 mile to another wreck but still quiet with just the odd take, by this time it was 7.00am ..... so thats when we decided to cut and run, a good catch of 12 good keeper codling to 5.5lb and a ling of about 7lb in the boxes, meant we could go back after enjoying a fishing frenzie a good catch put fillets in the freezer and refresh ourselves for the night to come .......
Met up with Richie and Jason on Stingray and fished together for a while till they decided to go further offshore ..... look forward to the catch report lads.
Just a couple of pics of the day, didnt take many as the sea was a bit lumpy the fish were in a frenzie and there was just the two of us on board
..... there are a few clips of video to come but I`ll leave these till later as once again not a lot to put together at the present time.picture before sunrise of our first two fish at about 4.10am ... sun not peeping over quite yet ..
sun just rising about 4.30am
no sooner had the sun risen then it hid behind some building cloud ........ but the ray effect looked good
thanks for reading ...
cheers
norm
