25th/26th June. At last! a few Bass starting to show, let's hope the pair trawler's have left some decent fish for us. Will get out on a few dedicated Bass trips these coming weeks I hope, when the weather's fit. (East wind's again, lost half of Sunday's trip, had to retire to the pub with the lad's.) Fished the Skerries on Saturday for a poor but interesting mixed bag, a couple of Plaice, School Bass, Whiting, Red, Tub, and Grey Gurnard, Mackerel, Doggies Sandeel, Pout, Garfish, Pollack. 12 species in all.

July 2nd/3rd. Lumpy weekend again, small tides, no Bass but managed a reasonable 2 day's fishing for the lad's, given the conditions. Saturday we found some nice Bullhuss on a reef mark up to 12lb. All female's, all were in pup, so all were returned (as were the Conger's). Sunday we anchored one of our wrecks that has been kind to us over the last few month's, and had Conger up to the mid 20'slb's, the big Eel's eluded us. Pouting by the lorry load, 'Wreck Rat's' one of our angler's called them, and a few small Pollack. Where is all this wind coming from? It's been with us for most of the season so far and is forecast to continue until Friday this week. Let's hope we get some better weather soon. A few piccys of the lad's weekend. Click to enlarge.

Weird Crab. One of the Pouting had a Crab in it's belly, I've been scrabbling around rock pool's and beach's since I was old enough to stand up and have never seen anything quite like this one. I don't seem to be able to find a reference to it, so If anyone can identify it, I would be extremely grateful. It's only 2" across It's back and has lost a lot of it's colour, (reddy brown) and some of It's leg's. The eye's which appear to be on the corner's of it's carapace (shell) are actually on 'stalk's', like a Hermit's, but they swing back into two 'groove's'. Click on this link to some picture's of it.                         

August. Fishing very poor, as always' we seem to have plenty of Mackerel, most day's the Whiting are in abundance with the bit's and pieces that we always' pick up. We can normally anchor for Skate on the back of the bank's at this time of year and find a few, this year so far, they have been non existent. The commercial pressure on the inshore fish is never ending, one crabber out of Dartmouth is reputedly fishing 6 miles of gill net's for Ray on every neap tide, this is in addition to the 500 pot's that they normally fish. I reported that we found a good shot of Bass on an evening tide on a very small sand bank out of Dartmouth one recent evening, we caught 14 Bass and had 12 takable fish (between 8 angler's) the next morning we returned to the same mark to find 7, yes SEVEN commercial fishing boat's slaying the Bass, this was apart from the multitude of private boat's that had heard of the fishes arrival. This all happened on a weekday, not a weekend. The consequences are that we have had a maximum of 3 Bass on a tide since. Today 06th. August. in desperation to give our crew a pull on their rod's we anchored a reef mark that has always' given us reasonable Bull huss along with countless doggies, today we struggled to catch 1 doggie and not a lot else, one of the problem's we face on a daily basis is fishing along with up to 6 trawler's in the bay, they are apparently fishing for Cuttlefish which give them a good return on their effort's (£6.50p per kg) but of course they will catch everything else that is swimming in the same water, with Plaice fetching £3.30p per kg they make a nice little bonus for the fishermen, and this is probably why they forget themselves and regularly 'slip' over the line into the no trawling area on the Skerries bank. We are only seeing the odd Plaice in our catches', but to be fair, as we are in the middle of the 'Grockle' season, we have not had the 'proper' angler's to properly fish for them. This will be addressed this weekend when we have the Northampton Bus Angling club down for the weekend. The lad's are good angler's, and can normally catch Plaice if they are there. I will let you know. Also some of the lad's are staying on next week and if the weather is fit we will be going Sharking. Watch this space.
Sat. 13th. August. Fished in very windy condition's which were not ideal for catching Plaice, wind's were force 5-6 S.W. with a lot of heavy shower's. We managed 9 Plaice to only 1lb. 4oz, with a good one (2-3lb) lost at the side of the boat. A few bit's and piece's of other fish, the normal Gurnard, Whiting, Mackerel etc. Sun. 14th. Aug. Fished hard with good bait for just 2 Plaice, both small. The lad's decided to abandon the Plaice fishing in favour of a species hunt competition, at the end of the day, 3 of the team's of 2 on the boat were on 10 species each, and they had to extend the fishing to bring their competition to a conclusion. We had angler's fishing tiny hook's with scrap's of bait in an attempt to catch something obscure (this was in 130 foot of water) eventually the competition was won and the lad's bought a frustrating weekend to a close. These guy's have fished with us every year for the past 5 year's and although they were a couple of week's earlier than they normally come, they have never had fishing so poor out of Dartmouth. I think we will see them again next year, but if thing's continue to decline at the same rate over the next 12 month's, they will not bother again and we, as well as Dartmouth will be the loser's. A lot of our angler's are telling the same story of poor fishing at Port's around our coast, where traditionally they have always' had good fishing. Why do some of the Weymouth boat's steam 50 mile's, and some Plymouth charter boat's 35 mile's to fish the Skerrie's bank. Their local fishing must be finished if they have to put in that much effort. Monday 15th. Aug. Got out on our Sharking trip, fished a tide that in retrospect was probably too small for good result's. Did not catch or see a Shark all day. Two thing's I will remember of the day are that EVERY wreck between Dartmouth and the area we chose to fish, which was 14 mile's off, was gill netted! we did catch some nice size Whiting on the small rod's, but we could have done that much closer to home. On the way home we came across a family group of about 20 Dolphin's that were in high spirit's leaping out of the water and generally showing off in a way that only Dolphin's can, we had a Mother and calf swimming in unison under the bow of the boat, one of our guy's took some brilliant video of them, unfortunately with an analog camera, not a digital. If I can find a way of converting it, I will put it on the web site. Every one on board that day will remember that sight for the rest of their live's, how can our Government's allow the pair trawler's and the gill netter's to kill these magnificent animal's. I just cannot understand it. The U.K. Government has the power to extend the pair trawling ban out past the present 12 mile limit, but it chooses not to, this is only to appease the French, who only see Dolphin's as predator's on THEIR fish. 16th.- 19th. Nothing out of the ordinary to report, good weather, lot's of fish but with nothing of any real quality. A couple of nice Pollack, and a good sighting of a Sun fish the highlight of the week. Thank's to Chris Varlow for the pic of the Sun fish.

25th.-28th. Aug. Regatta time again, as many of you will already know, we are used as the Committee Boat for the Dartmouth Regatta outer course racing. Always' fun, and a break from the non-stop Mackerel fishing trip's that we tend to do at this time of the year. 29th. Aug. Out fishing again, Mackerel, Pout, small Conger and Pollack. Looking forward to the next few week's when we start seeing the return of our Serious Angler's. 3rd. September. I was hoping to post some picture's of the Tall ship's that were due to leave Torbay for Santander today at 1pm. We had a charter to take 12 member's of the International Yachting Fellowship of Rotarian's around to Torbay to view the start of the race, force 6 easterly wind's put a stop to that. This is the life of a charter boat skipper, another payday gone and a lot of disappointed customer's, ourselves' included, it would have been a great spectacle. We had been looking forward to this trip for week's. 5th.- 9th. Sept. Had a bunch of Guy's staying on board with us all week. We were hoping for a few decent day's on the Plaice fishing off of the Skerries Bank, this is the time of year when the Plaice should be showing in good number's, well they didn't, the best day we had was only 11 fish between 9 angler's. The wind's were a bit Easterly, and the tide's a tad big. The Angler's weren't the best in the world, but they weren't that bad either. I do not ever remember struggling this much to catch fish in early September before. The fisheries' authority's have upped the Sole quota for the beam trawler fleet by 188% last December in the Western Channel area, (our area) and the Plaice quota by 80 ton's. This was against all scientific evidence and advice. Last year we averaged 30-50 Plaice per trip on a good day in the Autumn season, this year's number's speak for themselves'. We have seen a dramatic decline in our catch's ever since the raise in quota's. I had an interesting conversation with a Trawlerman who fish's for Sole out of Brixham (Beam Trawler) he told me they were catching plenty of Sole but not many Plaice, he said they were ONLY getting 100-150 stone of Plaice per trip. So that's 14lbs per stone 100x14lbs = 1400lbs, 150x14=2100lbs of fish, if you average the Plaice at 1lb in weight each that's 1,400 individual fish, or 2,100 fish if they land 150 stone, at 1lb-8oz each, that's 1000 fish. A trip for a Beam Trawler is an average of 6 days, so multiply 1000 Plaice by the number of Beam Trawler's that fish out of Brixham (47) and other port's along this coast (don't forget they are not actually fishing for Plaice, they are only catching them as a bycatch to Sole) and you get...........Sod it! I'm going to the pub. Here's a picture of a Granddaddy Lobster we pulled out of a wreck we fished during the week, it was all tangled up in lost nylon fishing net and line. We cut him free and liberated him. A small Conger for Ollie, some Pollack, and one of our local trawler's fishing along the Skerrie's Bank in Start Bay. Lobster pic

Took advantage of the big tide's to get some maintainance work done on the boat, we have to antifoul twice a year along with numerous other job's that crop up from time to time. the latest job in hand was to replace a cutlass bearing on the starboard prop shaft. The port side will need to be replaced soon, I noticed that the sacrificial keel is getting very tatty with the aft section missing completley. This will have to be sorted over the winter. Another saying which rings true in the boating world: 'A Boat is a hole in the water surrounded by wood, into which one pour's money.' never a truer saying. 24th. Sept. Another weekend of big wind's, had the Royal Oak fishing club down from Stoke on Trent for a 24hr. trip, went out Saturday morning into best part of 20 knot's of Easterly wind so ended up fishing in the river mouth for just a few Mackeral, back on the mooring by dinner time. Lad's were all in the pub by 2.30pm. 1st. 2nd. 3rd. October. Dartmouth fishing festival, an annual competition we look forward to every year. The crew we take out have been fishing the festival for over 20 year's and have seen some serious change's. The number of entrant's in the 80's was over 800. Last year there were 288, this year we had 180. This was is some part due to the forecast, which was very poor for Saturday and Sunday, with winds easing Monday. The forcasters were right for a change, and that was exactly what we had. The lad's had a couple of bouncy day's in fairly big tide's, caught quite a few fish, but again nothing of any real quality. We caught a nice Whiting on the Saturday and a decent Pouting on the Sunday which we didn't think would stand a chance at the weigh in, so the lad's elected to stay out, fishing instead of coming in early to weigh in their fish. On the Monday evening at the prize giving it turns out that both of these fish were the largest of their species caught, and would have won a prize. Why we can't have a phone in number to check on the biggest fish weighed in so far, is beyond me. It would give the anglers a target to chase and would stop a lot of fish being killed just in case they might win a prize. On the Sunday we chose to fish an inshore reef for Conger, two very big fish were lost, and the biggest of the one's we landed was 28lb's. Was this big enough for a prize?, should we kill it just in case?, no one wanted it to eat, where could we find out what the biggest landed so far was? Well, we couldn't, there is no system to do this, so we decided to keep the fish alive in a net bag alongside the boat untill the weigh in that evening, and then carry it in a bin bag to be weighed, after which it was put back into the River, hopfully to find itself a new safe home. Battered, bruised and a little miffed I'm sure, but still alive, not like all the other Conger that were weighed in over the 3 day's. One guy fishing from his own boat was intent on winning a prize at any cost, and caught about 150 Wrasse to get one big enough to weigh in. Any angler will know that just catching a Wrasse is probably enough to kill it (the pressure change) how many of them fish died? Without any doubt he would not have been fishing for them if it hadn't been for the potential prize at the end of it. Next year I will campaign AGAIN to get the 'phone in' system adopted by the organizer's. Click the link if you want to see all the result's. All the big Bass that took the prize's were caught up in Lyme Bay on the wreck's with live bait's by the 'commercial' rod and line angler's. They just weighed in the biggest fish before they took them all to Brixham market.


Saturday 22nd. October. .Found a small weather window in a very windy week, took out a small group to fish the inshore ground's, as seem's to be the pattern of late we can catch plenty of fish but the bigger fish seem to be well offshore still. We were hopefull of finding some Codling among the Whiting on the deeper bank's, but didn't. We caught some Whiting, Mackeral, Scad, and Gurnard before we went off to fish one of our favorite wreck's as the tide eased. A dozen or so reasonable Pollack, and a shed load of Pout with a bonus Bass followed, with the wind's ever freshening from the West we headed back in by 4.30pm. A fun day, and a bonus to actually get out at this time of year. As the water temperature drop's over the next month or so, we should see some bigger fish moving inshore.

 

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