Portland trip 28/29 may

[showmythefishy]

The trip had been planned for a while, ive been researching different marks around portland for the past month or so as im fed up with the whole chesil beach treck up n over all that shingle. with all of the marks around the area it was hard to make a definate choice and was still in two minds untill i actualy got to weymouth and saw the waves on chesil beach, the wind was blowing hard from the southwest which made my mind up in an instant. on my various trips around the interweb i kept comming across a mark called church ope cove, the cove itself is east facing and is somewhat shelterd from a south westerly wind.
because i didnt know where i would be fishing i pretty much emptied my bait freezer and took a good mixture, baits taken were , launce sand eel, squid, peeler crab, frozen lug, mackerell and slipper limpet i was also going to get sum rag enroute but found out that dennings tackle is now an antique furniture shop!!
anyways......
i arived at church ope at around 10am sat morning, parked up oposite the museum, unloaded the car and instantly wish i hadnt brought so much with me! lol.... so off i trotted looking like a pack horse. the 1st view of the cove was amazing, from the cliff path you can see all the rocks to the sides with beds of weed and then all of the sand patches which is where you want to aim to get your bait. the whole place just screamed fish to me. i could also see a couple of people down in the cove spinning around the rocks both sides of the cove.
the steps down into the cove were'nt too bad but i was already not looking forward to walking back up them to get home!
once down in the cove i dumped me gear on the beach (which is made up of big limestone stones above the high tide line and then smaller pebles below which then in turn gives way to sand) and went to have a chat with the people already fishing. the guys to my right were polish i think and didnt really speak much english but 3 small pollock was what i managed to hear out of the broken english. the guys to my left were southafrican and alot easyer to understand, they had a few small wrasse and had only been there around 20mins so things were looking good.
to start with i decided to set up my spinning gear and fire out the dexters wedge to try and find any snags in the centre of the beach, all seemed pretty clear, the odd bit of weed but nothing too bad and i managed to foul hook a small sand eel so that went in my bucket of water to use later. after about 30mins or so of spinning and feathering with not much to show for it i got my bottom fishing gear set up, low tide came and went and i hadnt caught anything and i hadnt seen anyone else catch anything either. as the tide turned the wind picked up, i carried on fishing on the bottom untill about mid tide, at which point 2 guys in wet suits, flippers, masks and spear guns came strolling down the beach, off they went into the water, i watched for a while as they dived and took a mental note of areas they seemed to stay for longer (after all, if they are staying in one area there must be something of interest there) an hour or so passed and the 1st diver came back to sure empty handed. i had a quick chat and found out that after about 10meters the whole cove is pretty clear and sandy with the odd patch of weed, most of the fish were hiding in the fringes of the weed and rocks but there were some sand eels circling around the sandy patches between the weed closer in. as we were chatting the other diver came back in with a 4lb ballan wrasse which he had caught from the rocks and weed on the right hand side. i dont agree with the methods they were useing to catch the fish but it was nice to see a fish like that and finding out what was under the water.
as high tide aproached the wind picked up even more, the sea was turning quite rough and i was having trouble holding bottom so i went back to firing out the dexters in the hope of a bass, while i was having a lil smoke break the wind knocked over my rod and as it hit the limestone beach i knew id be looking at replacing a few rings on closer inspection it was just the tip ring and one of the intermediate rings that will need to be replaced, luckily the rod in question is a twin tip so i changed from the 1-3oz to the 4-5oz tip whacked on a heavyer weight and the feathers and carried on fishing. high tidecame and went and still no fish, i decided to get out onto the rocks on the right hand side and feather from there. only thing i could hook into was weed and rock, on my way back to my base camp i lost my footing on a slippery rock and landed on my arse with a thump!! my rod went tip first into the rocks, bruised and sulking i went back to base camp and sat down with a cup of tea and some grub and hoped that darkness would bring the fish out of their hiding places. at about 8pm i got my self sorted for the night ahead and started to fish hard, one rod with a decient sized bait on a dropper pennell rig on the other i had a dropper wishbone rig with size2 hooks, i varied distances and tryed to search out the fish. as darkness came the fish started to play ball, a few small rattles on the the rod with the small baits, my 1st fish of the day... a small pout, i put that fish into my bucket to use as live bait and recast to aprox the same spot, as soon as the bait hit the water the rattles started again and then a bigger pull, two pout both around 1lb, 1 went into the bucket to use as bait the other went back into the sea, again i rebaited and tryed to hit the same spot.the rattle waited untill i had put the rod back in its rest this time but i left it so i could get the other rod sorted out with the smaller pout, a gentle lob out and hoped that a nice bass would find it whilst swimming around. back to the other rod again 2 more pout, smaller this time and so it went on, with a couple of small bass to add to the tally. i packed up at 1am to get a couple of hours sleep. high tide in the morning was at around 5am so i wanted to back up at 3am to fish it properly.
i woke to the sound of my alarm on my phone, made a cuppa and got my bait back out into the water the rattles came almost instantly.... the pout were still here surely there must be something out there feeding on them????
i used the bigger pout that i had caught over lowtide and filleted it to use on the pennell rig and again gave it a gentle lob out in the hope of bass. the pout kept feeding untill just after hightide but as it got lighter the bites were getting less frequent. tierd and aching i started to pack up at around 8am...... altho i really wasnt liking the thought of going back up all of those steps. i counted the steps on the way back up 145 of em!! altho i lost count in the middle so it may be a few more or a couple less, i do know i had to stop a couple of times and that by the time i got to the top i was knackerd!!! i cant help but think that if the tides and weather had been better the fishing would have been really good, as it was with the tides all wrong i had still had a good sesh all be it with smaller stuff but i was happy with the result.
well thats it, my little adventure, i hope this hasnt bored whoever reads it but i thought as its my first proper post to the forum id make it a decient one.

catch ya all laters

Mark

[Maddison_Twatter]

Great report . Well done. Wouldve been good to av seen a few pics
As the venue sounds cracking

[andystone]

nice read.

[pingu]

greatreport
a long session there
pity o the bass

dave

[MRG2000]

Cracking report ,well done that man .....

[showmythefishy]

i did manage to take a few pix on my way down into the cove and from the rocks looking across to the left hand side of the cove but i dont know how to upload them im afraid. any help would be great

Mark

[showmythefishy]

ok managed to work out how to upload pix. dont know how to resize tho...... sorry if they are a bit big! i'll try to resize in my next post on here

Mark

[MRG2000]

Originally Posted by showmythefishy

ok managed to work out how to upload pix. dont know how to resize tho...... sorry if they are a bit big! i'll try to resize in my next post on here

Mark

If your Pc is runing windows ,it will have Microsoft Office Picture Manager , open the image on your pc , right click ,then from the menu select OPEN WITH In the sub menu select Microsoft Office Picture Manager .

When the picture opens in picture manager ,select EDIT PICTURES from the menu on the top menu bar,the edit pictures menu will appear on the right hand side,select resize image (near the bottom),In the resize menu go to custom width x height ,pop 600 in the left box ,and the computer will resize to 600 x 768 ,ideal size for the forum.click save and upload .

They should then be this size ......



Hope this helps

[Fishing Forum Admin]

cracking read mate thanks

[fishypaul]

well done mate,looks a lovely spot