Friday 7th-Langstone boat trip

[Lookfar]

Hi folks,
With Lookfar in dock for service, I hitched a lift aboard a friend's Warrior 150 for the day. Arrived at Eastney slip around 8am to find Moby and Dreamcatcher (Strikeliner) just getting ready. The harbour was dead flat, like a mirror, so we were a bit surprised to get out to sea to find a good chop running. By the time we were five miles out onto the Dean Tail wreck, we were looking at scattered whitecaps, deep swells and a strong force 4 across the tide. The day was suddenly looking like being a hard one and the wreck didn't want to give up its fish either. They were there on the sounder but just a scad and a pout from several drifts soon had us moving on.
With a big tide and three aboard, we'd decided to stay inshore so we trundled steadily east to Medmery with Dreamcatcher sitting in our wake. The wind eased and the seas thankfully dropped off a bit as we went. The whole day was like that, the wind would shift a few points and blow hard, the seas would lump up and then just as quickly it would ease off again. On Medmery, we got weed. Great fronds of kelp rolling along the seabed. It could be fished through but there was little about, just a couple of dogs, a stray mackerel and a scad. As the tide eased, we moved out to the 36M hole. The charter fleet were already out deep and reporting a few bass and an early cod. The tide was perfect, just fishable, and we had a few dogs and pout before it eased too much. John then added a lovely little strap conger with vivid black fin edges while I was picking up a series of jumbo scad on hokkais fished above the main trace. A surprise starry smoothhound puppy, all 6-8oz of it, added to the species tally as the tide turned and started to push again. I boosted it further with a small spotted ray on the uptider (working surprisingly well in 130ft of water) but John capped the day with a cracking bass of dead on 6lb.
By now the tide was back up to speed, the 12/20 rods were folding under the weight of lead and we opted to head back inshore. Leaving Medmery to the kelp monster, we went instead to a muddly hole off Chichester that's good for ray and catches surprisingly little tide, so doesn't suffer as much weed hassle on bigger tides. On the way, we were joined by a small finch. There were a fair few flying around and this one was clearly knackered. It tried a number of resting spots, in the cuddy, on the bow and rather precariously perched on the outboard cover before it finally flew off. I hope it made it
Settled into our final mark, the tide was pleasantly light and the first dogs soon showed. Then I had a good solid pull, tightened in and a heavy weight kicked back and was gone. I stayed down and in seconds it was back. A few yards of line went out from under my thumb in a series of heavy jerks, I gave it a few more seconds then lifted into it hard. Over went the rod, a few solid thumps and it was off again. Two whole squid had been stripped from my pennel rig. I was gutted, convinced I'd just missed a decent cod.
Not much happened for a while and I'd just about stopped whinging when the rod went again. A carbon copy bite, jerk, jerk, thump. This time I hit the swine. Not a cod, a 5-6lb strap conger, over mud! I was happy with that, and even happier to know that my mystery fish had probably been the same thing. The others meanwhile had been busily adding to the species tally with a thornback and a surprise common hound. All too soon it was time to haul anchor and head back. The bass boats were busily working the ebb in Langstone and as I was left aboard while John fetched the trailer, I had a quick but fruitless dabble with a few feathers.
We finished the day with ten species, including that stonking bass, a pretty good tally for October and a grand day out. Now I want my own boat back and a chance at those cod!

Steve

[Fishing Forum Admin]

We finished the day with ten species, including that stonking bass, a pretty good tally for October and a grand day out. Now I want my own boat back and a chance at those cod!

Brill day there and lovely read

[Rob M]

Amazing report!! Shame about the (missed?) cod, but well done on the conger!!

Rob

[pingu]

nice one wishi did boats ;-( sounds great :-D

[Norfolkboy]

Well done

[Lookfar]

Hi folks,
There's a picture of our temporary passenger on the sea-fishing.com website, in Anglers Gallery-Nature. Anyone ID it? I'm really poor on bird identity (even Mrs M has to wear a name-tag )

Steve

p.s can anyone explain, in very, VERY simple terms, how I put pictures from file into my forum reports?

[Fishing Forum Admin]

Hi mate

Picture Posting on the Forum

[Charter Skipper]

Great read,cracking day by the sound of t...