Bristol Channel - Cracker

Old Smoothound · #1 06-05-2006, 04:04 PM

Hi Guys,

First trip out with my mate Shaun this weekend. We had a great laugh.

Early start as usual, launched at Beachley went to our high water mark and dropped 8 baits over the side, squid rag worm and a bit of old black lug.

Not long before we had the first of many fish that day. Nice Conger of about 12lb. Then loads of funny little rattling bites that we could not connect with.

Shaun landed the first Ray of the day circa 8lb, while I sat back enjoying the scenery of Avonmouth and its surrounds. Then my first decent fish came to the boat another nice ray of about the same size. More of those pesky little rattling bites we could not hit!

We moved off to our spot on the sand banks and fished for Billy Bass, but he did not show, we did land some more good sized Rays, best went nudging 14lb and a nice Dover Sole of about 1 ½ lbs. Sadly he had swallowed the hook so he will end up in my frying pan tonight…! We finally found out what was rattling our rods….Whiting! Small Whiting of maybe 5-6ozs or so. Pesky little blighters! They all went back safely to grow on a bit for next time.

We had loads of other bites and offers, I lost count of the number of Strap congers and Thornies we had. But we did manage some plump little codling as well.

All fish with the exception of The unfortunate Dover Sole went back to fight another day.

We had sat all day in searing heat little wave to talk about…then at 4.30pm dark clouds started to build on the Welsh side of the Channel, and boy did it rain! We had to take cover in the cuddy as we had no wet gear…..!

So last pull on the anchor at 6.00pm and off we went for a couple of hard earned scoops at Shaun’s.

Nice day and as usual great company.