Charmouth

[Chopper]

Still recovering from the previous weekends exercise, team DILLIGAF and one other decided at the last moment to head off to Charmouth.

We got to the beach and set up, one of the lads had a go at feathering for the Mackerel but didn't have any luck. My first cast of the evening produced a little tub gurnard and as the light faded Pout city was in full flow.

The tide was just turning to come back in when I decided to put out a Poor cod that I had deep hooked earlier on in the night, out it went about 25yds.

After about half an hour the rod arched round, I picked up and hit the fish. Loads of slack line at first but managed to catch up with it, a few head shakes and soon it was on the beach. Picking it up you could see that this fish had recently spawned and was underweight.

It measured 25 inches from its nose to the fork of the tail and weighed 7lbs 10oz.



After a few photos I walked it back out in to the surf and let it regain some strength I watched as it seemed to just brush past the waves and sulked back out into the depths.

Watching it swim from the shallows tasted better than any batter that would have ended up on it.

After that it was more Pout and Poor cod and just before first light I had a little butterfly small eyed.

We fished through until light and I had one other Bass which was just under sized. Not a bad evening to be out and to slowly return to some normality.

Tight Lines,

Chop

[Leigh Cocker]

Lovely job mate, Twas a cracking fish :)


I've just dragged my ass out of bed ...so tired after the last week !!

[pingu]

nice one there
glad to see a fish of there again

dave

[10lber]

Well done on the catch and release.Superb fish. Others could learn alot from your approach to the fishing in the 21st century. I,ve seen smaller bass than that in a plastic bag ready for the pot. Always a head shaker in my opinion. There is really no need to keep any sea fish that are not shoal fish i.e mackerel.So well done and like you said Tastes so much better.

[nickthenovice]

Each to their own opinion but I have to disagree with yours 10lber.
I know that we fish primarily for sport BUT our sport fishing was derived from the need to put food on the table and therefore see no wrong in taking the occassional fish of what ever edible species for the pot. I think a 7 lb bass would be always a fish to put back in the sea as its obviously prime breeding stock but anything between 2.5lb upto 5lb would be fair game and certainly taste a lot better than the "undersized" farmed fish that you see in the supermarket on the fishmongers slab.

Hope this post doesnt start a deluge of response as it's meerly my opinion and I know others thoughts will differ from mine.

[nickthenovice]

Cracking fish there Chopper, well done mate!

[Chopper]

Thanks for the replies.

I have to agree with Nick also, this fish as you said is prime breeding stock and the more fish of this size returned the better in my opion.

I also see nothing wrong in taking fish up to 5lbs.

Each to thier own.

[BaggieRich]

Well done Chopper, superb fish.

My Bass rule is exactly the same as yours... Anything insize and under 5lb is fair game as long as there's not much planned for tomorrows dinner. Only ever had four fish over 5lb to test the theory though!

[fishypaul]

thats a lovely bass chopper,well done mate

[Rob M]

Nice bass and report, well worth the trip!