One more to add to today’s list of catch reports.
After the windy spell, a lot of boats were keen to get out, us included. To give you an idea of just how keen we were to get out, I was up early and left the RQ marina by 07:30 – that’s a first and last. Conditions were ideal and the forecast spot on, although the rain turned up forty minutes early and brought a breeze with it.
We stopped off at a few of the close-in wrecks without much success until we hit one about six miles off. Drop after drop brought ling to the boat, the best of them not quite into double figures. Unusually, we found far more ling than cod and from the patter on the radio, other boats were finding the same. I didn’t want to keep many fish and we returned what we could except for the ones that the swim bladder had inflated and wouldn’t go back down to the wreck. Once even that was too many we left the ling filled wreck to leave the fish in peace and in a nomadic search for a wreck with some cod on. One one of them I dropped a big pirk and pair muppets vertically down at first then sideways as the only couple of mackerel of the day turned up. The fish preferred these mackerel baits to the lug we dug last night.
Steve found our best cod of the season so far, weighing in at 8 ½lb and taken late at the end of adrift a long way from the back of a wreck.
By early afternoon almost every boat in the north east was sitting in the patchy sunshine off Tynemouth piers as we weaved between them to fish the rough ground at Souter. This wasn’t a productive move, except for a monster granny fish and the ever present scotchies.
Heading back to the river by 4PM Steve practiced his filleting skills on a healthy box of fish; and even drew an audience as we waited to refuel and lock-in.
The results have been patchy with either barren wrecks or reasonable numbers and sizes of fish. It’s been a while since we could get out for a proper session and hopefully this is just the start of many.
After the windy spell, a lot of boats were keen to get out, us included. To give you an idea of just how keen we were to get out, I was up early and left the RQ marina by 07:30 – that’s a first and last. Conditions were ideal and the forecast spot on, although the rain turned up forty minutes early and brought a breeze with it.
We stopped off at a few of the close-in wrecks without much success until we hit one about six miles off. Drop after drop brought ling to the boat, the best of them not quite into double figures. Unusually, we found far more ling than cod and from the patter on the radio, other boats were finding the same. I didn’t want to keep many fish and we returned what we could except for the ones that the swim bladder had inflated and wouldn’t go back down to the wreck. Once even that was too many we left the ling filled wreck to leave the fish in peace and in a nomadic search for a wreck with some cod on. One one of them I dropped a big pirk and pair muppets vertically down at first then sideways as the only couple of mackerel of the day turned up. The fish preferred these mackerel baits to the lug we dug last night.
Steve found our best cod of the season so far, weighing in at 8 ½lb and taken late at the end of adrift a long way from the back of a wreck.
By early afternoon almost every boat in the north east was sitting in the patchy sunshine off Tynemouth piers as we weaved between them to fish the rough ground at Souter. This wasn’t a productive move, except for a monster granny fish and the ever present scotchies.
Heading back to the river by 4PM Steve practiced his filleting skills on a healthy box of fish; and even drew an audience as we waited to refuel and lock-in.
The results have been patchy with either barren wrecks or reasonable numbers and sizes of fish. It’s been a while since we could get out for a proper session and hopefully this is just the start of many.
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