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Crew today Tony with guest KeithB .......
Due to other circumstances Keith found himself without a boat today so happily joined us as guest on Slinky Kate.
A little later than usual meet at Royal Quays 4.30am
gave Tony an extra 30 minutes lie in due to him having driven back from his holidays yesterday afternoon.
Unfortunately being a Saturday the wind was switched briskly on again, however it was due west and presented us with hard drifts rather than big seas ....
After the last few weeks catches (small by comparisson) we set off today with a simple target ........ "catch a fish"
out to a favourite spot not too far from the piers, dropped the lines and watched them stream down drift. At this point the wind was blowing stiff westerly and the river on the ebb also running stiff westerley ... it soon became obvious this speed of drift was impossible to cope with.
Oh well, not the early take we had hoped for but to be honest we had already accepted that due to conditions today we would be forced to fish the hard ground, so, off we went south ..... and the wind increased !
Stopped about a mile or so off but still the wind was battering us as we tried to hover over a small outcrop on the bottom but ended with snag after snag.
OK its not going well but lets keep at it, patients always wins the day.
We moved in to almost casting distance from the shore to get just a bit of cover and, although the snags were now not there, the fish were the same, conspicuous by their absense ........
At this time I was beginning to think of this report and what I might write, it seemed the report may simply contain a sunrise picture ....
So there we were, bottom of the tide the wind blowing a hooley 2 hrs into our trip and not a bite detected .....
Ok time to drastically change ........ so we all sort of looked into the distant north.... and decided the 7 or 8 mile trip was our only hope ...... so off we trecked North bound.
Just as the tide was on the return to the flood we came acoss some fine looking contours below (at about cullercoates) so decided to give it a try.
Almost Instantly Tony was in to the first Codling of the day as I quickly grabbed the camera. No sooner had the shutter clicked and Keith too was into his first of the day. We thought wow this is the place, but ..... unfortunately nothing else decided to pull our strings.
At least we had some fish and I had a couple of pics ....... so we carried on steaming, off we went to St Marys area.
We have a few spots in the area marked as favourits so in desperation went straight to the main spot.
What a good move this proved to be as fish after fish of a good stamp came aboard, to Tony and to Keith that is but unfortunately not to myself, this was maybe my blanking day
I was already preparing the report in my head.
This particular spot is well known to us for producing fish at the "spring run" around easter, good hard fighting fish but rarely over 3lbd. Here we were today with several fish coming in over 6lb some over 7lb and one to a nice 10lbd (weighed) for Keith. Suddenly I joined the party and landed a nice 5lb codling, thats it ,the report was shaping up in my mind.
We tried a number of our marks and caught on most of them until at about 10.30am the wind notched up a bit (I would say more than doubled in windspeed) and fishing became impossible, at which time we called it a day and headed back in, satisfied that this had been a successful day with many good clean and weighty fish ........ a superb day.
Many thanks to the crew in difficult conditions today, but it all turned out good in the end ..... and not a wreck on the sounder all day ...
Just a few pics of the day ....
the sunrise as we fuelled up ...
and out of the piers
At last a fish, Tonys first of the day
And another for Keith
And another for Tony
Then the stamp of fish begins to Rise with this nice specimine from Keith
At which Time Tony decides to try fishing on a very light spinning set up
and catches a coddie on it
Then this fine 10lb specimen for Keith ....
And finally and at Last, just to show I too was there !
All in all a great day although the start was slow, but the stamp of fish was exceptional in both size and quality .....
Thanks for reading
Norm
Due to other circumstances Keith found himself without a boat today so happily joined us as guest on Slinky Kate.
A little later than usual meet at Royal Quays 4.30am
gave Tony an extra 30 minutes lie in due to him having driven back from his holidays yesterday afternoon.Unfortunately being a Saturday the wind was switched briskly on again, however it was due west and presented us with hard drifts rather than big seas ....
After the last few weeks catches (small by comparisson) we set off today with a simple target ........ "catch a fish"
out to a favourite spot not too far from the piers, dropped the lines and watched them stream down drift. At this point the wind was blowing stiff westerly and the river on the ebb also running stiff westerley ... it soon became obvious this speed of drift was impossible to cope with.
Oh well, not the early take we had hoped for but to be honest we had already accepted that due to conditions today we would be forced to fish the hard ground, so, off we went south ..... and the wind increased !
Stopped about a mile or so off but still the wind was battering us as we tried to hover over a small outcrop on the bottom but ended with snag after snag.
OK its not going well but lets keep at it, patients always wins the day.
We moved in to almost casting distance from the shore to get just a bit of cover and, although the snags were now not there, the fish were the same, conspicuous by their absense ........
At this time I was beginning to think of this report and what I might write, it seemed the report may simply contain a sunrise picture ....
So there we were, bottom of the tide the wind blowing a hooley 2 hrs into our trip and not a bite detected .....
Ok time to drastically change ........ so we all sort of looked into the distant north.... and decided the 7 or 8 mile trip was our only hope ...... so off we trecked North bound.
Just as the tide was on the return to the flood we came acoss some fine looking contours below (at about cullercoates) so decided to give it a try.
Almost Instantly Tony was in to the first Codling of the day as I quickly grabbed the camera. No sooner had the shutter clicked and Keith too was into his first of the day. We thought wow this is the place, but ..... unfortunately nothing else decided to pull our strings.
At least we had some fish and I had a couple of pics ....... so we carried on steaming, off we went to St Marys area.
We have a few spots in the area marked as favourits so in desperation went straight to the main spot.
What a good move this proved to be as fish after fish of a good stamp came aboard, to Tony and to Keith that is but unfortunately not to myself, this was maybe my blanking day
I was already preparing the report in my head.This particular spot is well known to us for producing fish at the "spring run" around easter, good hard fighting fish but rarely over 3lbd. Here we were today with several fish coming in over 6lb some over 7lb and one to a nice 10lbd (weighed) for Keith. Suddenly I joined the party and landed a nice 5lb codling, thats it ,the report was shaping up in my mind.
We tried a number of our marks and caught on most of them until at about 10.30am the wind notched up a bit (I would say more than doubled in windspeed) and fishing became impossible, at which time we called it a day and headed back in, satisfied that this had been a successful day with many good clean and weighty fish ........ a superb day.
Many thanks to the crew in difficult conditions today, but it all turned out good in the end ..... and not a wreck on the sounder all day ...
Just a few pics of the day ....
the sunrise as we fuelled up ...
and out of the piers
At last a fish, Tonys first of the day
And another for Keith
And another for Tony
Then the stamp of fish begins to Rise with this nice specimine from Keith
At which Time Tony decides to try fishing on a very light spinning set up
and catches a coddie on it
Then this fine 10lb specimen for Keith ....
And finally and at Last, just to show I too was there !
All in all a great day although the start was slow, but the stamp of fish was exceptional in both size and quality .....
Thanks for reading
Norm
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