A few months back when we heard our mad keen fishing mate Ian was coming over from his adopted home in Australia a date was put in the diary for a charter boat session primarily to have a few laughs but hopefully to land a few fish as well. A much needed day off work was booked and yesterday, for once, the weather played ball so six of us – Kee, Ian, Dee Bill, Doc and myself – headed out from Lymington on the good ship Shogun skippered by Rob Thompson.The general plan was to fish a couple of wrecks and sandbanks off the back of the Isle of Wight and see what species we could pick up.
We were shipshape and ready to go around 8:30 in the morning ……well, most of us were shipshape and ready but there was one notable exception!!
From Lymington marina we headed out into lovely conditions in the The Solent and it did cross my mind it would have been nice out there on the kayak! We passed Hurst Castle and headed on towards The Needles…
The engines were shut about a mile off the back of The Needles and it was feathers down to bag up on mackerel – it didn’t take long with enough to live bait, dead bait and eat pulled up in no more than 15 minutes tops……
Tried to get a picture of them in the live tank as well but didn’t come out so good……
Before long we were over the first wreck mark, Dee and Ian fishing with mackerel live baits and the rest of us on soft plastics hoping for a pollack. First drift was uneventful but second time round Dee had a hit on the live mackerel and up came this nice pollack…
A couple more drifts proved fruitless so Rob moved us on to another wreck which again was uneventful so the decision was made to head for some sand banks and try for a few bass. Four rods went down with live baits and two with soft plastics and on the first drift Dee was in again with a bass followed shortly by Bill with a slightly bigger fish…
That was it for the bass here though Doc did have a decent bite and when the bait come up it was cut cleanly in half…… it was widely suspected a tope had nabbed it. We moved once more to a mark further round the back of the island, again over some sand banks, where we anchored up for some dead baiting using fillets of mackerel. There was a nice tide requiring over a 1lb of lead to hold bottom. With baits down and a couple of beers on the go it wasn’t long before Bill was into something a bit different that was pretty much a dead weight in the tide. A ray was suspected and we weren’t wrong, though maybe it wasn’t the species expected, when up came a rare small eyed variety…
Kee was next off the mark – mackerel aside – with a dogfish leaving Doc and myself bringing up the rear on the fish front! The tide had slackened off by now so less weight was needed to hold bottom which was pleasing. Dee was probably having the best day so far and it was about to get better when he was in again and this time to something a lot better which was a good test for his 12lb class rod……
After a decent tussle he was rewarded with this beauty of a blonde ray which weighed in at 19lb – a very respectable fish…
Nice mouth on it too…
As I say Doc and I were not having much luck but at least Doc was getting the odd bite and for a few seconds he had a run on his mackerel but it soon went dead and on retrieval he was missing both hook and bait – the suspect again being a tope!
Kee was feeling the effects of his antics the previous night but that didn’t stop him catching and whilst he was sat recovering he had a tentative bite on his mackerel fillet which actually resulted in the best bass of the day…
Time was getting on and before we knew it, it was time to head back to port …… but with a stop off on the way. Rob had noticed on his trip the day before a lot of school bass activity at the back of the island where they were chasing fry and suggested a bit of fun plugging for them on the way in. Sure enough when we got to the same mark the sea was boiling with bass attacking a bait ball of fry from below and birds working at the surface. With plugs and lures at the ready we fizzed them out and as hoped we were getting hammered by them pretty much immediately and at last I saved a blank with a steady stream of bass in the 1.5 – 2lb bracket similar to the one below…
It was great sport for an hour in terrific conditions and in the end we literally lost count how many we actually caught but it was a mental hour for sure.
At near on 8 o’clock though it was finally time to head back round The Needles, through The Solent and back into Lymington harbour……
A fantastic twelve hours on the water in great company as always and especially good to catch up with Ian on his trip here from Australia. The only thing appropriate to do after such a day was to finish it off with a couple of cheeky beers – it doesn’t get much better than that.
Until next time…
Hooks, Lines & Sinkers 