I remember how we looked forward to the "cod run" in May....then to the herring and mackerel arrival in June...then to the wreck fishing in summer.
Well...the weather has been awful, to say the least...for me the inshore cod run has not really happened unless you count the 1lb class and with it the numerous small coalies...I am yet to make up my mind, if that is a good or a bad sign.
The herrings have arrived very strangely and hard to find, but when we found them, they were good, large and fat. Strangely we had millions of sprats with them in the river and the mackerels` stomachs where full of sprats.
The mackerels did not disappoint this year and are plenty and large.
The ling are also not too disappointing and have shown on the wrecks from early in the season...however...this might be due to the lack of cod. In previous seasons the cod didn't really give the ling a chance on the wrecks to sniff out our mackerel baits. So far, we never had a day with big numbers of wreck fish or big specimen...a lucky 17lb cod was the exception.
The wrecks are incredibly hard to fish with awkward currents and drifts all summer. The weather is just not settling...currents, big tides, winds, swells...you name it.
And the sea temperatures??? 13-14 degrees in summer?? And the air pressures...almost always under 995mB, both very bad for fishing !!
And when all seemed well....we repeatedly found ourselves on the good wrecks, drifting OK and catching very little!
The only good news is that we recently seemed to get better yields....but of course there is a wind and a swell coming our way tomorrow !
I don't know what other skippers and anglers experienced because there are so few reports but the skippers I spoke to say the same.
I personally think its the worst year so far that I have been involved with....by quite a margin and without the mackerels it would be a disaster !!
Well...the weather has been awful, to say the least...for me the inshore cod run has not really happened unless you count the 1lb class and with it the numerous small coalies...I am yet to make up my mind, if that is a good or a bad sign.
The herrings have arrived very strangely and hard to find, but when we found them, they were good, large and fat. Strangely we had millions of sprats with them in the river and the mackerels` stomachs where full of sprats.
The mackerels did not disappoint this year and are plenty and large.
The ling are also not too disappointing and have shown on the wrecks from early in the season...however...this might be due to the lack of cod. In previous seasons the cod didn't really give the ling a chance on the wrecks to sniff out our mackerel baits. So far, we never had a day with big numbers of wreck fish or big specimen...a lucky 17lb cod was the exception.
The wrecks are incredibly hard to fish with awkward currents and drifts all summer. The weather is just not settling...currents, big tides, winds, swells...you name it.
And the sea temperatures??? 13-14 degrees in summer?? And the air pressures...almost always under 995mB, both very bad for fishing !!
And when all seemed well....we repeatedly found ourselves on the good wrecks, drifting OK and catching very little!
The only good news is that we recently seemed to get better yields....but of course there is a wind and a swell coming our way tomorrow !
I don't know what other skippers and anglers experienced because there are so few reports but the skippers I spoke to say the same.
I personally think its the worst year so far that I have been involved with....by quite a margin and without the mackerels it would be a disaster !!
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