species hunt

Dave, & Dave,
Looks like this is our challenge for 2004 ...... a boated bass, taken and photographed from an unknown area. LOL
 
Dave, Mickey Quayle and some of the other Shields lads regularly get wads of sandeel / launce just off Sheilds pier. I reckon stopping off and targetting them before going out would result in a bucket or 2 full. As for keeping them alive I think I\'m right in saying and aquarium pump will aerate the water sufficiently to keep them going for a good while.
 
I bought a bait fish trap last summer from Askari. Brilliant piece of kit. 8 quid or so. if you dangle it off the bottom baited with a bit of mackeral/sardine, you can catch loads. If you put it ont the bottom it fills with crabs!

We used in some of the deeper rockpools on the west coast. 2 to 3 hours and at least 30 shore crabs every time, to about 3\" in size, of which we were getting at least 5 showing signs of being ready to crack.

top this with loads of prawns too, which were a champion livebait. Hook em about the third boody segment, little bit of elastic at the end of the tail to hold em secure. with a few sequins they are a killer for plaice/flatties. the little buggers wriggle away, keeping the sequins moving and knocking a bit of sand up.

caught bass with them from the rocks by hooking 2 or 3 together the same way, chucking em out and retreive slowly.

It was so successful I\'m buying a couple more from askari this summer.

As for the aeration of the bucket, theres someone one on ebay selling battery powered aerators at the minute at under a fiver a piece
 
air pumps:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3654378976&category=27414

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3653842250&category=27414

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3653886753&category=27414

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3655475500&category=27414

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3655040760&category=27414
 
If everyone is really up for this, then during the species boat comp, i will make or buy a large tank like the ones my mates uses for keeping his crabs and whites alive, it can also be used for sandeel as long as fresh water is added....but hay we would have lots of sea water out on the baot lol..

All it is, is a hold all plastic box about 20 inch by 20 inch and 8 inch deap, add a battery pump (pet shop about £8) for the air and water movement, top up with water and there you go, as long as it\'s out the sun you can keep eels and maybe mackerel alive for xxxx amount of time.It keeps whites alive for upto 6 weeks so hay worth a bash...total cost about 1hr work £8 pump and £3 box :)


just an idea
 
I\'ve tried the various cheap clip on the bucket type ariators and to be honest they are a waste of time, they easily break and wont keep more than a couple of sandeel live for any length of time due to the large amount of oxygen they require. There is an floating areator avaliable shaped like a doughnut which floats on the surface and vaporises and cools the water as well. Another option is those containers (like a small creel) full of holes which stay outside the boat on a lengh of rope.
Mark them prawns are good for Bass and great sport when floatfished.
 
Rich you\'ve set the rabbit off here :P What a response .

What about this , we will ( Rich ) make a tank and leave it on the deck and as Dave said feed it with a hose trailed from the stern which will feed the tank while the boat is in motion . The surplus will just overflow and run out of the scuppers - job done . Rigging up a 12v feed for a pump would also be a piece of cake .

Anyone good at catching sandeels and launce ?
 
send the bairns out \'rockpooling\' the day before the comp with nets. At low tide the pools around hauxley are lifting with prawns.

I\'d imagine a cheap air pump should be alright for 24 hours with just prawns in a bucket.

When we have used em, they just been in a little \'sandcastle\' bucket (!), about 20 in a bucket that size alsted about 3 hours till they pegged it, so 2 gallon bucket and a pump might be ok over night.

While they are there, and as we are all going livebait mad, what about hermit crabs??

would gobies, and the like work as livebait??
 
Tope mate, you\'ve tried the aerators and they didn\'t appear to work. The amount of oxygen you get into the water is dependent on how much you agitate the surface, the pumps don\'t actually blow it in (Apologies if it\'s Grandma and eggs) maybe the pump wasn\'t set up right? I do know it is a text book way of keeping live bait, obviously never done it meself though. I\'ll have a skip around the www
 
How, just had a quick google on Live Bait and apart from loads of sites on how to look after Nightcrawlers (Jeez) found a couple of sites giving off bad science. They are reckoning the Oxygen is released into water by the bubbles, I say tish and piffle. Any good Aquarist knows that the majority of Oxygen is exchanged at the Water/Air barrier (the surface) and bubbles are only a means of surface disturbance which increases the rate of exchange as a result of git scientific things.

I could be rang likesay ;)
 
I would have thought If you had a decent airstone, produce millions of tiny bubbles, theres got to be enough surface area for oxygen to exchange with the water????

especially on a moving boat as well

the only time I\'ve seen live bait held on a boat was in cornwall. A blue food grade 50 gallon drum in with a hose stuck in the top pumping sea water in.

it was full of mackeral who didn\'t seem to show any signs of deterioration.

One thing though, it was a damn site harder catching em a second time in a 45 gallon drum than it was over the side of the boat. I nearly fell in the barrel twice
 
The ones I\'ve seen in action Ell would probably just about manage to keep a jar of tadpoles alive. They are made of cheap brittle plastic so good my mate snapped off the air pipe trying to rig it up and when it was returned to the tackle shop the shop owner did the same to another one demonstrating how too rig it correctly,they might be ok for carrying a bucket of worms down to the beach but I can\'t see these lasting long out at sea. The floating one though works on the principle you describe agitating and vaporising the water surface.
Just had a call from a mate looking in on the site regarding trolling in 20-30meter and he suggested using a downrigger with the weight set about10ft above the sea bed rigged with a rapala on a long trace should work the plug in the bottom 3ft of water, could see some intresting catches.
How do you eat yours :P
 
the landing net on the boat was too big to go in the barrel. I wish I ahd that trip on video. It was a hoot. It got to the point when everyone stopped fishing just to take the mick out of each other as they played bobbing for mackeral. You can\'t grab em thats for sure. Some one eventually found a kids bamboo dip net down below. it worked sort of. catching a 10\" mackeral with a 6\" net even though its only in a barrel is not that easy.



there is a solution...

apperntly, the skipper \"should\" have had on board what could only be described a as a giant chip basket. This goes in the barrel BEFORE the fish. Just lift the big basket out and grab a fish - simple!

depending on how big your barrel is going to be, it shouldn\'t be too diificult to construct. My solution would be to buy the chaepest possible coarse fishing keep net, ideally one nearly as wide as the barrel. Shorten it if necessary, and away you go!
 
Message received and understood Tope Mate. The other suggestions I came across were as you said a continuous flow type set up.
 
Just seen this on the ices site should get the jucies flowing ;)

2.4.1 North Sea - ICES Division IVa,b&c
Bass are caught intentionally by angling as far north in the UK near Cape Wrath and at Dunnet Bay in Scotland. These
fish must be regarded as being towards the periphery of the species\' normal range. Commercial rod and line fishing also
takes place near warm water discharges from power stations on the Scottish east coast, particularly at Torness, and in
north-east England at Blyth, Hartlepool and Teesmouth. Trawl-caught bass are occasionally landed into the Yorkshire
ports of Scarborough and Whitby, and are also taken as a by-catch in nets set for cod and sea trout and occasionally by
directed angling on the Yorkshire coast. Along the English coast in IVc, from Norfolk southwards, bass are often caught
as part of a mixed fishery in drift nets (34 boats in 1996), fixed nets (71 boats), trawls (24 boats), longlines (6 boats) and
rod and lines (22 boats). Bass may be specifically targeted in the local estuaries and around wrecks and offshore banks.
The Thames Estuary is an important charter boat angling area for bass, although this sector has declined steadily in
recent years (less than 10 boats in 1999). The bass fishing season in this area normally lasts from May until October or
November.
 
loo at all the above..the smoke from everyones brains..i can smell it from the end of the pier.

Right species that we could catch and that i ahve seen caught off the tyne based boats.....

WINTER........cod,whiting,colie,pollack,pouting,ling,catfish,haddock,dab,bass,flounder,wrasses...hay stuff this you get the idea of it :)
 
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