topeing and a lap of the island

[monkey nuts]

after a long chat with my m8 about whether to go codding or topeing i talked him in to taking advantage of the tiny tides as i had doubts about the cod on a tiny tide and we've got enough still in the freezer
so we head out yesterday to a mark south of the island for some tope and a bass or two, so after feathering up some lovley joeys at the needles we head off to the deep.
as we got near we could see we had company and after a short look around we found a spot which we liked the look of and anchored up spot on.
with in few seconds we found life , and baite were getting munched but not taking the hook ???. after 1/2 hour my rod went and i lost it *+/?. then collins rod went next and in came the first tope of 40lb ish after a very good account of its self,
then i start my all day conger bash with a nice 50-60 lb beast, every time i hit the bottom my live mackerel got munched and in came a conger after conger, i must have had 10 or more conger on the side of the boat most of them been around the 20-30 lb mark, which was getting a bit anyoying as a i realy wanted a tope but still good fun , while i was pissing around with the conger, collin and alan landed few more tope all in the 20-40 lb bracket plus the odd conger, as slack water came i changed tactics and tryed for a bass, and it payed off , nothink big but 1 of 3 lb for dinner and 1 of 1 1/2 lb which went back. then collin tryed my deadly trick and landed a black bream of 1 1/2lb and alen got a reward of a 16 1/2 lb pollock on a live mackerel. then the tide turned and we mover to the other side of the deep.
it started very quite and stayed quite for a hour or two , then my live mackerel was smashed and as i picked up my rod and tightened the clutch i felt some thing i would say was massive , huge in fact and must have taken a easy 70-100 yrds of line off my reel b4 i started to gain some line back, after a long battle it turned and head right at me then gone .......................gutted.......no i mean real gutted. some how it spat the hook, guess it was cos it got some slack line as it ran at me. god knows what it was but it was impresive and very strong. il never know now , so il keep sulking...lol
after reeling in and sulking for a bit i re baited and found my self a conger......doh. then the sea started to cut up a bit so we head back home and went back nab tower way so we got a better ride home.all tope were released and all conger were released at the side of the boat.
but on the way past bemberidge we saw a somthink iv never seen b4 in these numbers . a mass of mackerel feeding on the surface, thay must have been a shoal the size of a footie pitch all jumping around going mental. i wished i had my fly rod
my back is bit saw today after that scrap...lol but what a days fishing, bring on the next set of tiny tides.
my camara/phone is buggered at the moment but alan is going to e-mail some over during the week so il post some l8er

cheers john

[mithrandir]

Sounds like a great day out, unlucky on the one that got away, but I bet that scrap got the old ticker pumping.

[pingu]

sounds an awsome session

if it helps our club has a rule that anything you miss is a doggie, ok sometimes a hard fighting doggie, but you never feel so bad when you loose a dog than anything else

nicetrip though as I have still to land a conger tough


dave

[Norfolkboy]

Nice one John, shame about the beast that got away.

[monkey nuts]

not quite the piccys i was hoping for but still hears some of the catchs

no idea about the marking on it , id say its a very lucky fish and its escaped a net somewhere




all the conger were let go at the side