A Trip Down Memory Lane!

Well I'm getting a persecution complex now. I have had four trips in a row lost to the weather since October and I don't think it has been that windy compared to usual winters has it? I have consistently been 24 hours too late or early for every break in the weather so haven't had a look at a whiting or any of the fat winter run pollack I should be show casing on this web site.

However, so that the web site doesn't dissappear altogether, I thought I would fill the winter gap with a bit of nostalgia. The following are a selection of photos from memorable trips from the last 15 years.......when I have had a dig around in my folks photo albums I will bring you a selection from the 15 years before that!

Early 90's Wrecking

In the early 1990's most of my fishing was done in Cornwall in the Falmouth area. I was living in London but my family lived in St.Mawes and I was a member of the small but active St.Mawes angling club. A few of the members had their own small private boats but we also used to go regulalrly on local charters. The best of which was unoubtedly Ken Dodgson and his boat, Leo 2. Ken still operates out of Falmouth running a boat called Leo 1.

It was fishing made easy with Ken as we could walk down to the quay in St.Mawes and Ken would pick us up there before fishing the many wrecks beyond the Carrick Roads. On this particular trip we fished three or four wrecks and in addition to the Codling and Ling shown here we had Conger, Tope (all returned), Pollack, Wrasse, Dogfish, Pouting and Red Gurnard.

Fishing was easy on these trips as Ken always put you on fish and the tactics were either gills or fresh mackerel, nothing else needed!

You can tell that I had not yet invested in a decent set of waterproofs as my Jeans are sodden!

Tropical Treats!

I got married in 1995 and took this photo of a 70lb Yellowfin Tuna that was captured by an American chap on a party boat of of Nassau, in the Bahamas, whilst on my honeymoon (yep, my wife let me go fishing on my honeymoon!). We had spent about 4 slow hours trolling offshore on a boat with three fighting chairs in which 6 of us took turns in half hour shifts.

We had no bites in the session until we came back inshore to return to harbour. The skipper spotted a flock of birds and trolled through the middle of them. One of the reels screamed off and this American fella was in to the Tuna. It was fortunate that he hooked it on a heavy outfit as he looked like he was going to give out before the fish!

We returned to the Bahamas the following year and I went after my tropical trophy once more. This time there were no large Tuna but we had several Barracuda to the boat. I had two, one of around 15lbs and this one of around 25lbs. It is staggering how hard these warm water species fight when first hooked.

Mexican Mayhem

In 1997 we visited Mexico, staying some 40 miles south of Cancun. Here it was possible to charter a smaller boat (24 ft Carolina skiff with Bimini and large Outboard) which was reasonably economic with two or three anglers giving you much more fishing time.

I had two trips whilst there. The first was with my wife Karan when I caught this modest but welcome Bonito Tuna (or that is what they said it was, I wouldn't have a clue!). I also ended up fighting what seemed like a very reasonable fish that Karan gave up on. Sadly it proved only to be a Spanish Mackerel hooked through the dorsal fin!

The second trip I booked, I treated myself to a boat for myslef (Karan choosing to stay by the pool this time!). I did this so I could go bottom fishing as I wanted to actually try and catch some snapper or grouper and have a rod I could bait and strike myself rather than having the crewman do it all as seems to be the norm in this part of the world. Well it was clear after half an hour that the skipper was deeply unhappy at this as it was peak Sailfish season. So not wanting to get thrown over board we raised the anchor and off we went trolling again. Now to be fair we had four Sailfish hits in the next three hours, each time the beack clearly coming out of the water as the fish attacked the baits. The crewman was however unable to hook any of them and we returned to harbour fishless.

The skipper was very embarassed when we returned however as one of the other boats was showing off an 85lb dog tooth Grouper (or something like that) on the quay. This fish had apparently taken a sailfish bait that had sunk to the bottom of the reef when the boat stopped to sort out a tangle on another rod - just the fish I had wanted to catch!

Wriggling Pollack

When my father (Pops) retired in the late 1980's, he and my mother moved to Cronwall and he swapped his 18' fishing boat for a sailing boat. Now I wasn't sure about this but we still fished from the sail boat and had quite a few successes. There were a couple of very good marks close inshore which we used to fish at anchor for various types of Wrasse, dogs, pout etc when the weather was rough, but the best mark by some margin was definitely "the Wrigglers". This is a reef mark comprising two large humps of rock around half a mile apart on the Helford / Manacles side of Falmouth Bay. We started fishing this mark after I saw a write up about it on a web site and we had instant success with heaps of Pollack averaging 3-4lbs on small mackerel pattern gills.

As the years went by, jelly worms became more popular and we found that black with twin pink, red or orange tails were always the best. They didn't have to be huge (4" to 6") and when fished with a size 4/0 hook accounted for the same volume of fish as the gills but seemed to produce a better stamp of fish with the average being 4-6lbs.

Well then came the Storm Shad. Blue is the colour (these days I will also use purple, pink and white patterns but blue is still the best) and the 4" size good for large and smaller fish alike. These lures for a couple of summers were unstoppable and the average fish was considerably larger with fish ranging from 5lbs to 10lbs on any tide at this mark. There were also the occasional cod mixed in with the Pollack in the Summer.

A note if you are going to try this mark, the fish are normally on one of the humps or the other but never both in our experience. I haven't fished here for about five years as the family now live in Devon (hence the Plymouth trips).

Deadliest Catch?

OK, its 10 miles of the south coast of Cornwall in spring, not a force 10 in the Bering Sea in January, but it is commercial fishing!

In the local pub in cornwall most of the commercial fisherman would come for a pint at around 6 'o' clock and one of them was kind enough to invite my dad and me out for a day to see trawling in action. It was a fascinating experience with what seemed to be long periods of in activity doing a long run with nets out followed by a burst of frantic action to get the nets hauled and the fish gutted and sorted ready for market.

This trawler was a small in shore type being no more that 40 feet in length and operated by a skipper and one deck hand. Fishing was done day by day rather than going to sea for weeks at a time and the target was Lemon Sole.

The day we went, the skipper was dissapointed with the haul but to me it seemd like a lot of fish and an extraodinary variety of fish in the hold. This photo shows clearly a very fine angler fish which was some compensation for the lack of Lemons. The skipper said that large fish like that made extra money as they were popular with fish mongers and restaurants to make centre pieces for their iced displays.

Angler fish and others

Torquay Tempest

Having made the move to Devon it was time to try some new charter boats in the area. Pops and I booked on to an individuals trip on Kevin Tates' boat Dalora (he's now got a new catamaran called Anne Clare) out of Torquay.

The trip was in February and the weather forecast looked touch and go to say the least , especially as we were due to fish the 30 mile wrecks in the channel.

We boarded the boat at around 7.30 am with six other anglers and Kevin said he wasn't sure whether we would be able to go or not but we'd motor out to Berry Head and see what the conditions looked like. Well they looked atrocious with a steady force seven blowing off the land, and the sea looked decidely rough. But undeterred Kevin called up a commercial pal who he knew was out in the channel trawling and he confirmed that there was a long rolling swell further out but not the short chop we could see and conditions were quite safe with a forecast set to improve. Given the option we all voted to go and after getting used to the motion it was really quite comfortable (despite the driving sleet in the morning!).

The trip out was improved no end by the supply of hot bacon and sausage sandwiches provided and cooked by the skipper.

The mornings' sport was great for Pops and I who quickly had four Pollack a piece with a nice brace of double figure fish for me.

The fishing never picked up again after the turn of the tide with just the odd fish turning up.

One of the most memorable parts of this trip was one of Kevins' regular anglers who started to be sick as soon as we left the harbour. He proceeded to be ill for the rest of the day. Kevin said he would go out pretty much every month on a trip and was almost always just as ill. As he did not wet a line all day it is hard to see why you would put yourself though it!

Centre Fold Heaven

2006 finally became the year I got my name in print. It actually started in 2004 when I replied to a small column in sea-angler magazine asking if anyone would be interested in participating in a series of photo shoots for the magazine reviewing the latest Penn boat rods. Well I was staggered when I received my letter saying I had been successful and was booked on a Conger trip in September out of Dartmouth. Well, as seems to be my luck, the trip was cancelled due to the weather. The terms of the competition were such that if the trip was cancelled due to the weather it would not be re-run as there was not time in the magazines diary, and that was that. So I was very surprised to get a letter the following year saying it was going to be re-run. Once again however it was cancelled due to the weather. Well I was even more surprised when I got a call from Jeff Prest, features editor at the magazine, to say that they were going to have another go in August 2006 (it turned out that some of the other winners had been so vocal about dipping out on their prize the magazine had bowed to the pressure!).

It looked for all the world that the skipper was going to cancel again despite a reasonable forecast. However off we went and the weather was fine and sunny if a little breezy and we fished for Pollack followed by a lengthy session at anchor for conger. I had a couple of Pollack and a good half a dozen conger to the boat to around 40lbs. I think I was connected to several larger fish during the session but didn't land any of them - I suspect I was too impatient for this game! Any way, the story finally made it to print in March 2007 - and the wait was worth it as I was centre fold in the magazine!

Shimano Mission Accomplished

In 2006 I also managed to get my only Shimano mission accomplished badge to date. This came aboard Colin Pennys' Flamer III out of Weymouth. It was a beautiful calm and sunny February day and we had a had a reasonable number of single figure Pollack and a heap of Pouting. Then on our last drift my 12lb outfit doubled over and I had a tremendous first run from a signifcantly larger fish. The result was this nice Pollack weighed on my primative spring scale at 15lbs. The more I look at the pictures the more I suspect that had this been weighed on a digital scale it may have gone a little larger than that (or maybe its just the crafty way I am holding the fish at arms length for the camera!).

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