Scratching around off Selsey on Tuesday

[Lookfar]

Hi folks,
Some days are just a pleasure to fish. I launched from Eastney slip by 9am with Matt and Mark and the weather was just perfect, clear skies with just enough breeze and haze to stop us frying all day long. Mark had got there early and trapped a few hardbacks, so next job was some tope baits off Dean Tail wreck. There was very little chop, so we could run around for most of the day at pretty much top cruising speed. We could pick out the wreck buoys from miles away, as well as the small boats and the charter already drifting there. A scattering of mackerel came aboard plus quite a few fingerling size scad. Mark was admiring these as perfect pike baits for winter, while a few went into the livebait bucket in case we ended the day bassing on reef.
Next job was to drop the MkII lobster pot, a monstrous construction I knocked up out of a wrought iron gate, which had been modified with hinging closures on the pot entrances and was occupying most of the available deck space. We dropped it on the western edge of Bullocks patch baited with some ancient freezer-burnt mackerel then drifted across the reef with baited feathers to produce a couple more mackerel for the day's bait supply. There was quite a lot of tide and I was a bit concerned that we'd not be able to get onto our first choice of mark, the 36m hole. However, I dumped out most of my 200m of warp and the anchor held after a short drag to leave us fishing in 130ft on the eastern slope of the hole. Matt and Mark had both feathered a few more mackerel while I faffed about getting us settled and fillets were soon on their way into the depths on tope traces. It was glorious out there, warm and sunny with just a ripple on the water and a cool breeze. I got Matt sorted with a hound rod and it was clear that they were around, with a couple of knocks removing his squid/crab baits. I was first off though, a dullish weight on a tope rod already loaded with the 1.5lb sinker but still too lively to be a doggie. It turned out to be a small spotted ray. Very soon after that Matt connected with his crab-stealing tormentor. Only on his third trip ever, he was having some troubles handling the rod, particularly with keeping a tight line while pumping. For a brief while Mark and I thought he'd dropped the fish. Then we noticed that the line angle was heading uptide. Turned out to be a far better fish than the fight suggested, a 10lb common smoothhound that didn't wake up and go mental until it was in the net. Right in the middle of the chaos, with me filming the whole thing from the cuddy, Mark's drag started screaming as a tope took off with his bait. That was a pack tope of 6lb or so, gave me chance for a picture of a tope and a hound together though I doubt it'll come out as we were in a complete pickle by this stage.
It was shaping up to be a red letter day, but from there the fishing faded away. There were still fish around, but few and far between. Mark picked up a starry hound around 6lb and I nailed a small tope after a number of mackerel fillets got chewed up. We put down groundbait in a dropper (which we lost when the ancient braid parted) then in a perforated tin, which Matt obliging hooked and hauled back up to the surface on his 12/20. It was one of those days where there was no real pressure, though. We'd already had a couple of nice fish and everyone was well relaxed. I put out a float for gars which fascinated a seagull. It spent quite a lot of the afternoon sitting just downtide of the float, chasing and pecking it whenever I drew it back uptide. As the tide died completely, a couple of doggies showed up. We were getting chewed up on the squid baits so I put down rag/squid on fine hooks and produced a pin bream.
Once the flood kicked in and the baits started running back under the boat, we opted to go back over to Bullocks and see if we could find a ray or two on the edge of the reef. No joy there, but we added a few small ballan wrasse and a pout to the day's species tally as well as another pin bream. Hauled the pot in just before we came home, and to my complete delight it contained a spider crab and a goldsinny! Success!! I guess I should state the obvious here - the Goldsinny went back . No such luck for the spider crab, who came home for tea.
Back at the slip, the jetskis were out in force. Totally mindless, we had to recover with the boat bouncing around on the rollers due to the wash they were creating. One recovered just after we did and in their usual fashion, blocked the top of the slip with the vehicle then naffed off. I was amused to see that it then stuffed the next two jetskis to arrive for launching. Quality folk.

Overall, a cracking day. The sea never got above a mild chop, the sun shone and we had ten species and the first 'double' of what's been a pretty dire season on Lookfar.

Steve