& species - no Tuna ! Abbotsbury 21/22nd July 2011

[scottish_and_mental]

Decided to venture down with my brother and his 2 kids to have a go at a few mackerel and hopefully add a species or 2 to my waining list for 2011..
Forecast was for heavy rain inbetween showers but on the advice of my brother "it will rain everywhere else and miss us!" i got in the car and headed to the mecca that is Abottsbury ..
We arrived about 5 pm after stopping at Blandford ( where it did chuck it down ) for supplies of munchies and gathering another dozen sets of tinsel lures from the post office in Abottsbury village ..
I had no intention of catching more than a couple of mackerel - 1. for the species hunt 2. for bait that night ..


First cast and Paul was in with some real beauts - 14-15 oz seemed to be the average stamp of fish
With sandeel and mackerel wraps plus some black lug and half a pound of donated fresh rag i decided i would try for a ray on one rod and anything smaller on worm baits ..

poor cod -


Pout,Poor cod and dogs made up the majority of the catch but over high water slack i just happened to shine my main beam on the water too see LOADS of fish casually swimming up and down no more than 20 feet out
They looked like smutts to me - quite long and thin with large pectoral fins but there were also smal lgroups of other fish that looked like mullet or bass .. I have to say i've never seen anything quite like it and tried lobbing out various hermit and worm baits at them - mostly freelined and when i got a rattle i got all man united just to find a silver eel on the end .
( picture on brothers digi cam - to follow )
A new species for the list so all wasn't lost but after over an hour of headlight hunting the tide picked up and the fish all vanished !
Daylight and a single 2 hook rig was sent skywards baited with bunches of rag ..
nothing much was happening and even the spiders were behaving and not eating my rigs , tho i did lose one hook ..
A feew little rattles saw me reel in species number 6 for the trip in the form of a lovely little

red gurnard -


and an hour later a better bite that looked like a mackerel or shoolie bass had hijacked the bait produced the first black bream i've ever seen come off Abbotsbury -



2 pm and we were all cream crackered so wind burnt and tanned we headed back to the car and off home

in the end the tally was

20 odd decent mackerel 3 dogs 3 pout 2 poor cod 1 silver eel 1 red gurnard 1 black bream - a good session and some good points too

[Fishing Forum Admin]

nice mixed day mate

[Rob M]

What a great session! Nice one

[dovorian]

Good fishing as always S&M.
I hope to get a few more species this coming leave.
All the best.
Jason

[pingu]

nice one there
was it hard hats and tinsel fligers wall to wall of ok

dave

[Spahill]

marathon sesh with variety - well done that man!

[fishypaul]

good sesh steve , well done mate

[MRG2000]

Nice fishing Steve, well done indeed ....

[jaycee1968]

well done steve wish i could of made it

[scottish_and_mental]

Originally Posted by pingu

nice one there
was it hard hats and tinsel fligers wall to wall of ok

dave

there were a fair few fishing mate but the majority were older chaps and rather well behaved .. a nice old boy to my right must have been well into his 70's and he hooked 4 mackerel but we couldnt resist topping his catch up with some of our bounty .
I gotf ree worms from some guy so its all swings and roundabouts

looking forward to next weekend and another marathon session ..