First one out the box and its a monster

[lazy hooker]

After a cancelled trip on White waters 4 the other week...sorry richard....I had a telephone call of mike last weeekend to ask if i was free on Friday...couple of calls and rearranged that little inconvienience called work.

Trip was arranged by another member andy (andycole) his mate andy and paul (Captain Cod)...oh and Mike of course (Charter skipper).

alarm sounded at the ungodly hour of 3.00am and after a coffee shot off down the motorway re-enacting a welsh version of the cannon ball run to Milford Haven where we met up with Andrew the skipper of White Water IIII...top boat evolution 30 which was our ride for the day so off with the mooring lines and we slipped out of the Haven with a great sunrise behind us.



First stop was for bait...even that was great fun 4 or five at a time on my tiny maximus had me chuckling like that Mr Wilson character...alright probably a bit scarier, but after a couple of drifts we had more mackeral than we could shake a stick at...alright so we didn't have a stick but we did have a good amount!
then off steaming again in a nice force 3-4 with some good swells to our destination 30-35 miles off shore and started to chum. 4 rods were rigged with bottles as floats with the baits suspended at varying depths ( deeper the further from the boat) we all picked a number and waited for the first run and for Andrew to shout a number off the top of his head.

During this wait i also tackled up a 50gram spinning rod and started to freeline slivers of mackeral in the chum for the garfish..boy are they monsters and fought like demons...don't think i had one under a pound.
Suddenly all hell broke loose as the rod furthest down the tide screamed off and Andrew shouted number 4!!! oh its me!!!!

Nothing had prepared me really, locked up and started to put pressure on under the expert eye of Andrew ...oh and Mike who seemed happy to mutter words of encouragement such as " come on stop faffing around with it"..in truth i think it was the fish faffing with me....then caught onto Mike's ruse as he mentioned to Andrew "first one out the box and its a monster"!!!

after an exhausting 25 minutes we had managed to boat it after it had run off 2 or 3 times after nearly being by the boat taking 50-70 yards each time... Andrew took full control of the shark on decks (which was repeated with everyone) making sure not just of our welfare but the sharks too....you haven't seen the amount of food andy cole can consume!!!!! and you never know if he fancies something a bit fishy!!!
well pleased it was measuered and weight given of 125lb which had left me destroyed and i'm 6' 1" and 15 1/2stone


next up was Andy who again landed a right lump and thankfully was left in the same aching sweating mess i was..although his was even bigger!!! measured and photographed it came in as 179lb!!!



next up was Paul who was led a merry dance



Went a bit quiet for a while so i got the spinning rod out and played with the garfish again...biggest was easily in the 2lb bracket..and a possible record....if we hadn't used it as bait!!!!!!


next up was Mike who after a couple of unconnected runs managed to boat one then Andy...oh hell you get the picture





just before having to steam back in i connected with another on a light 30lb rod close to the boat which led me around the boat, up tide down tide and fought just as hard as the one earlier...i was rewarded with my second guestimated by the skipper as 90-100lb...which i guess will always be called a 100lb especially after a drink of 2...


Had an absolutley fantastic day out on a superb boat with some great fishing and a good bunch...by the way i think we have a welsh version of "Bushey" from rex hunt in our midsts...not saying or showing the photo mike...but i am open to being bribed.

I must also mention Andrews care for the fish while they graced us with there presence...top class and ensured that all went away with nothing more than a bit of tooth ache. All fish were returned...you cannot take a shark on this boat in protection of arguably THE top shark fishery in the country at present...i'll certainly be saving the sheckles and will DEFINATELY be going after them again

john

[fullcreel]

Wow.
What a fantastic trip out.
Could you post links for that charter boat, actually that may be an idea, it may already be done tho, a series of links for charter boats around our coast

[KKK]

Some nice little fish there

[pingu]

wow what a day out

well done all

dave

[Leigh Cocker]

wow indeed !. very very nice fishing :)

[JustMark]

Brilliant day out. Thanks for sharing that.

Guess what's now gone to the top of my "Must Catch" list?

[lazy hooker]

garfish???

[JustMark]

Mackeral ;0)

[lazy hooker]

Originally Posted by JustMark

Mackeral ;0)

lol...seriously it is a really good day.The pictures don't do it justice, ontop of the fishing we saw loads and loads of dolphins...and not just on the move either a couple of times while we had the floats out you'd see a disturbance and 5 or 6 dolphins would swim past jumping about

we even had a good size blue swimming amoungst the floats and around the boat for a good hour trying to get one of the seagulls off the surface!!! great to see in such clear water.

and then there were manx sheerwaters, never seen them before and while travelling, there strangely penginish not quite flying but not quite still in the water they tend to flap accross the water while trying to get away from a boat bearing down on them at 20knots.

if i could work out how to attach video from photobucket!!!

[MRG2000]

A GREAT day out, brilliant company and banter ,great fishing .......and i managed to avoid havin my pic taken !(apart from the bushy pic which John will bribe me with forever ).....Andrew and White Water are the Number one boat for sharking in the uk,

So Whos up for a Forum Sharkin trip nxt year ??????