It's amazing to be fishing in November in a light fleece, and it looks to be more of the same all this week. Bring it on!
Oli and I had an early start to catch the tide and make the most of the short daylight hours. In calm seas and light winds we made fast work of getting down to Cresswell, only stopping to admire a pod of around 30-40 dolphins leaping about, to find that all this recent calm weather had really cleared all the sediment and sand, giving great visibility down to 10 feet at least. This made lure fishing a distinct possibility, but as the morning progressed it became clear that the fish were being very picky as to what they chased. Anything white had the upper hand, and we soon worked our way through our stocks of white lures, white gummimacs, white hokkis and even considered white mackerel feathers for a while, except there are still hordes of coalies around willing to have a crack at any movement. Not that some of these coalies are to be sniffed at. The first pic shows Oli with a fish that we measured at 53cm, and which stripped line from his reel in the scrap to bring it to the surface. I had around 20 coalies, and Oli another dozen.
I caught just over 25 codling, keeping 3 fish for the table, while Oli had over 30 codling, his best being around 3.5lb. He did however catch over a dozen pollock, several of which were in the 5-6lb bracket. I had a similar number of pollock, but all under 3lb. When I used frozen prawns as bait, I found that pout would take these as well as the codling, but honestly, simple lures/jellies were most effective. Given the biggish tides, I had expected a little more movement through the water, but even though the winds were light they tended to guide the drift more than the current, which was not always ideal. There seem to be a lot of baitfish around too, hence the dolphins, and it may be that the cod are unwilling to chase anything that didn't resemble the baitfish. That said, the stomachs of all 4 codling tht we kept only revealed a few crabs, but no sign of sprats, herring or launce inside.
Sorry that you couldn't join us Jonny on your new boat, but I had a look at her in the marina and she looks fabulous. We're hoping to be out again one day next weekend and hopefully by then you'll be out too. See you soon perhaps!
Oli and I had an early start to catch the tide and make the most of the short daylight hours. In calm seas and light winds we made fast work of getting down to Cresswell, only stopping to admire a pod of around 30-40 dolphins leaping about, to find that all this recent calm weather had really cleared all the sediment and sand, giving great visibility down to 10 feet at least. This made lure fishing a distinct possibility, but as the morning progressed it became clear that the fish were being very picky as to what they chased. Anything white had the upper hand, and we soon worked our way through our stocks of white lures, white gummimacs, white hokkis and even considered white mackerel feathers for a while, except there are still hordes of coalies around willing to have a crack at any movement. Not that some of these coalies are to be sniffed at. The first pic shows Oli with a fish that we measured at 53cm, and which stripped line from his reel in the scrap to bring it to the surface. I had around 20 coalies, and Oli another dozen.
I caught just over 25 codling, keeping 3 fish for the table, while Oli had over 30 codling, his best being around 3.5lb. He did however catch over a dozen pollock, several of which were in the 5-6lb bracket. I had a similar number of pollock, but all under 3lb. When I used frozen prawns as bait, I found that pout would take these as well as the codling, but honestly, simple lures/jellies were most effective. Given the biggish tides, I had expected a little more movement through the water, but even though the winds were light they tended to guide the drift more than the current, which was not always ideal. There seem to be a lot of baitfish around too, hence the dolphins, and it may be that the cod are unwilling to chase anything that didn't resemble the baitfish. That said, the stomachs of all 4 codling tht we kept only revealed a few crabs, but no sign of sprats, herring or launce inside.
Sorry that you couldn't join us Jonny on your new boat, but I had a look at her in the marina and she looks fabulous. We're hoping to be out again one day next weekend and hopefully by then you'll be out too. See you soon perhaps!
