Madpolka Kids "Breeze It"

This year I had promised my children, Polly (8 yrs) and Maddy (6 yrs) that we would organise a trip on a charter boat that they could join as well. The original trip had been planned for July but was a casualty of the weather, so it was with huge relief that I came off of the phone on Sunday night from Dave Pitman (Atlanta, Weymouth) to hear that the conditions for the rearranged trip on August Bank Holiday looked set fair.

I'm not sure how keen the kids (and wife) were at the 5 am start to get to Weymouth ready for the 8am departure but having arrived the excitement soon started to build.

Now despite the forecast of fair weather by the time we got to the morning it was blowing a good force 5 and was frequently touching 6 throughout the day, with a steady fine drizzle for most of the morning. Dave offered us the opportunity to fish out beyond the bill although this was likely to be a bit uncomfortable and with the children on board we elected to try our hand at a species trip fishing close in to the east side of the bill out of the wind and the weather.

With just the four of us on board what is already a roomy boat we were in luxury and quickly set about rigging some rods for mackerel for bait. We did the usual drifts off of Portland Harbour breakwaters and again I was completely hopeless and blanked. Polly managed a single mackerel, but with plenty of worm organised by Dave and some large and party sized squid we decided to set off for the first mark.

Polly is primed and ready for her first fish

Dave anchored us off a finger of broken boulders and weed in search of wrasse and other small rock species. There was little or no tide so the boat was lying with a very strong wind and we needed to wait for the tide to bring us round to the right position to be on the fish, so we had a cup of tea and waited for the fish to bite. As we swung on to the mark we started to get lots of small bites but no fish. As Dave had kindly supplied us with size 6 carp hooks these must have been very small and Dave suspected they were probably Goldsinny Wrasse. The wind was so strong however we were only on the mark for a few minutes at a time and Dave suggested we move a little further along the bill where the increasing tide would have flattened out the swell.

We were quickly in position and with small sections of rag worm on the small hooks the fish quickly started to come aboard.

Maddy shows off a nice Wrasse

Within about 10 minutes everyone on the boat had caught fish and were experiencing regular bites. We caught both Ballan and Corkwing Wrasse, and had several "Topknots" which were an odd and rather slimy rock fish I have never seen before.

With the wind and the movement in the boat Maddy was finding it difficult to detect small bites so Dave rigged her a small spinning rod with a float and a strip of mackerel to provide her a visual method of fishing. As Polly went on catching wrasse Maddy watched the float intently. We all jumped when we saw a Gar fish leap out of the water just behind the float but it didn't hook up. A few minutes later, and with a fresh bait, the float went under and the rod end nodded wildly and Maddy reeled in this nice Gar Fish.

We stayed at this mark cacthing consistently until a little after lunch time. As the tide increased we also started to catch a number of small Pollack and Maddy took some more Mackerel on the float. With a now reasonable number of Mackerel for bait Dave suggested that we go and try a mark in the middle of Weymouth bay where we could get Dogfish and possibly a Gurnard to add to the tally of 6 species already captured. We set off having already caught over 50 fish.

At the new mark we were soon amongst the fish again with 2 Dogfish quickly boated. We went on to have several more and also picked up a few stray mackerel at the same time.

Polly shows off her prized 'Sand Shark'

Dave put the float rod out again for Maddy, although she was now more interested in reeling in the fish that Dave was hooking on his line! With Maddy focused on the float, my wife Karan (who didn't want to be photographed in a force 6 drizzle!) decided to try her luck. She quickly caught us up in numbers of fish and also took the prize for the most species caught (6 to her self). She capped the day off with a very nice Red Gurnard which brought our species tally to 8 for the day.

For the record, Polly had the most fish on the day whilst Maddy caught the largest Wrasse and the only Gar Fish. I, well I performed a little better than in the Flamer competition but think I was probably still at the back of the field!

Polly models Mum's Gurnard

So having caught plenty of fish we set sail for home just as the sun came out for the first time in the day, typical!.

Dave put on a brilliant trip for the kids fishing in calm water all day, catching fish all day and never needing more than 4 ounces of lead to fish straight down. This is definitely something we shall do again but hopefully next time in better weather conditions!

Maddy gets driving lessons from Dave!

Contact - steve@madpolka.co.uk

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