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Oli and I left Amble marina at 10.00 in the sunshine, and headed up to Craster. With the tides being quite large, and still on the ebb, the drifts were fast, and heavier 10 oz leads were needed. It was one of those days when one drift would produce great results, and the next drift over the same ground would yield hardly anything.
Water clarity wasn't great at around 8-10 feet, but the temperature was now registering 11.2 degrees, so getting closer to that which mackerel prefer. We used a mixture of frozen prawns and lures through the course of the day, with the prawns getting best results. There were a mixtures of fish around, pout, coleys, codling and an occasional pollock. The codling were larger than those we had the previous weekend, with only a handful under a pound. We measured my heaviest fish which tipped the scales at 6lb, and I had several more around the 4lb figure, and plenty in the 2-3lb range. All went back except a badly-hooked fish.
Around midday, a pod of dolphins passed through, heading south and close inshore, and there were gannets circling, but not diving.
In the afternoon, we motored up to Newton and fished the reef around the red can. Again, every drift was different. The best codling was about 4lb, and there were loads of decent coleys in the kelpy bits.
The wind picked up, and with wind against tide it was a bit of a lumpy ride back. As we were passing Dunstanburgh castle there was a report on the vhf about an overdue diver in the vicinity. The Craster inshore boat had been asked to assist but it was Oli who spotted the diver and pointed him out to the dive boat. I think very highly of the lads and lasses of the RNLI who drop everything to respond quickly- the Seahouses boat had earlier been called out to look (and found) and overdue yak, and there was another call from a broken-down yacht off Amble.
I ended the day with around 30 fish, and Oli a few less than that. There had been a lot of baitfish around on the screens, clouds of them in fact, to the extent we put down small sabikis to see if they were coleys or sandeels. There were coleys among them, but we didn't land any sandeel, so couldn't really say what they were.
Water clarity wasn't great at around 8-10 feet, but the temperature was now registering 11.2 degrees, so getting closer to that which mackerel prefer. We used a mixture of frozen prawns and lures through the course of the day, with the prawns getting best results. There were a mixtures of fish around, pout, coleys, codling and an occasional pollock. The codling were larger than those we had the previous weekend, with only a handful under a pound. We measured my heaviest fish which tipped the scales at 6lb, and I had several more around the 4lb figure, and plenty in the 2-3lb range. All went back except a badly-hooked fish.
Around midday, a pod of dolphins passed through, heading south and close inshore, and there were gannets circling, but not diving.
In the afternoon, we motored up to Newton and fished the reef around the red can. Again, every drift was different. The best codling was about 4lb, and there were loads of decent coleys in the kelpy bits.
The wind picked up, and with wind against tide it was a bit of a lumpy ride back. As we were passing Dunstanburgh castle there was a report on the vhf about an overdue diver in the vicinity. The Craster inshore boat had been asked to assist but it was Oli who spotted the diver and pointed him out to the dive boat. I think very highly of the lads and lasses of the RNLI who drop everything to respond quickly- the Seahouses boat had earlier been called out to look (and found) and overdue yak, and there was another call from a broken-down yacht off Amble.
I ended the day with around 30 fish, and Oli a few less than that. There had been a lot of baitfish around on the screens, clouds of them in fact, to the extent we put down small sabikis to see if they were coleys or sandeels. There were coleys among them, but we didn't land any sandeel, so couldn't really say what they were.
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