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As we occasionally hire a charterboat to accomodate most of us from the hospital, we chose this time to go from Hartlepool.
Due to cancellations, sickness etc, we found ourselve to be only 7 anglers and had good space on this impressive large, powerful and comfortable cat.
I know the skipper Dave for a few years now and really enjoyed the day fishing and talking to Dave.
We started super early and it was very misty. We hoped the mist would settle, but it did not. We fished the entire day in heavy mist.
the fishing was good, but very patchy. First we filled up with mackies and had no problems. Then we went to a wreck and in no time I had 4 ling. Nothing major but a very good start to the day. The wreck turned quiet and we went to the hard grounds. It was a slow day and Dave did not rest long on a particular drift. He moved a lot from ground to ground. We usually drifted only once or twice over a certain section.
The highlight came just before the slack water. First did Eddie and his friend both catch the only 2 sizable cod of the day on a Ruby/ custard 4 in shad....then -of course- most of us tied the same thing on (including myself) and on the re-drift David Brannigan has a take and labours it up. He had the stiffest of rods and the largest of reels and no-one of us guessed what was coming....I stood right next to him and joked how much he was playing up and labouring whilst the rod hardly bent....then Dave came with the gaff and up came this:
The biggest ling, I have ever seen ....and what a head....the size of a water melon...a body like an elephant leg....and a totally empty belly!!!
weighed in at 27lb!!
the biggest fish on Ali Cat 2016 and I cannot remember a bigger fish anywhere in the NorthEast this year. Indeed he would lead and probably win the Whitby autumn festival....Mistress of Whitby was fishing just next to us ironically.
Needless to say that this also was Davids biggest ever Ling.
The day went on as patchy as ever and we got mainly ling on board. I targeted big ling all day with big macky baits and was finally rewarded with two nice lumpy 14lb specimen.
On any other day those 2 would be enough to report but next to Davids Nessie-Ling they actually looked small
...and the 6-8lb ling looked like freshwater eels!
I had a good day with approximately 10 ling. The pleasing thing was that everybody caught a few fish and we had probably 40-45 fish in the end plus the mackerel.
However...we stopped at the same spot late on to catch fresh ones for test but ally struggled and only got a few.
What a nice day and what a ling!
Due to cancellations, sickness etc, we found ourselve to be only 7 anglers and had good space on this impressive large, powerful and comfortable cat.
I know the skipper Dave for a few years now and really enjoyed the day fishing and talking to Dave.
We started super early and it was very misty. We hoped the mist would settle, but it did not. We fished the entire day in heavy mist.
the fishing was good, but very patchy. First we filled up with mackies and had no problems. Then we went to a wreck and in no time I had 4 ling. Nothing major but a very good start to the day. The wreck turned quiet and we went to the hard grounds. It was a slow day and Dave did not rest long on a particular drift. He moved a lot from ground to ground. We usually drifted only once or twice over a certain section.
The highlight came just before the slack water. First did Eddie and his friend both catch the only 2 sizable cod of the day on a Ruby/ custard 4 in shad....then -of course- most of us tied the same thing on (including myself) and on the re-drift David Brannigan has a take and labours it up. He had the stiffest of rods and the largest of reels and no-one of us guessed what was coming....I stood right next to him and joked how much he was playing up and labouring whilst the rod hardly bent....then Dave came with the gaff and up came this:
The biggest ling, I have ever seen ....and what a head....the size of a water melon...a body like an elephant leg....and a totally empty belly!!!
weighed in at 27lb!!
the biggest fish on Ali Cat 2016 and I cannot remember a bigger fish anywhere in the NorthEast this year. Indeed he would lead and probably win the Whitby autumn festival....Mistress of Whitby was fishing just next to us ironically.
Needless to say that this also was Davids biggest ever Ling.
The day went on as patchy as ever and we got mainly ling on board. I targeted big ling all day with big macky baits and was finally rewarded with two nice lumpy 14lb specimen.
On any other day those 2 would be enough to report but next to Davids Nessie-Ling they actually looked small
...and the 6-8lb ling looked like freshwater eels!
I had a good day with approximately 10 ling. The pleasing thing was that everybody caught a few fish and we had probably 40-45 fish in the end plus the mackerel.
However...we stopped at the same spot late on to catch fresh ones for test but ally struggled and only got a few.
What a nice day and what a ling!
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