Becky M Newsletter

Monday 30th August, 2004

Once again the weather Gremlin struck and I had to juggle trips around to fit. When we are able to get out there are fish every where, it would appear that they are gathering up getting ready to move off. Hopefully it will also mean that the winter species are also doing the same.

You may, or may not be aware of a government move to introduce a license fee for you to go sea angling.

This has come about I believe through the government delving into the profits derived from recreational angling, and seeing it as yet another way of extracting even more monies from us.

A figure of £500 million per year is being cited to come from recreational angling, of this figure some £100 million would have already been taken in tax, and now the government want to introduce yet another tax upon us by way of an angling license.

Apparently (as I interpret it), it is being done to “sponsor research” into the economic contribution of sea angling.

Surely if any contributions were to be made it should come from those who are taking out from the environment, and causing huge amounts of unseen damage to the ecosystem, and yet they are not putting anything back to repair the damage that they create.

In my opinion the perpetrators of this are the marine aggregate company’s (we have all seen their dredgers), who are strip mining whole areas for sand and gravel. These areas are where the ecosystems spawn, and yet these areas of the seabed are being systematically destroyed by these operations.

Yet another operation in our area that we see being used are the heavy beam trawlers, some of these operate in inshore waters, who by their very design are crashing over the seabed causing huge areas of destruction.

In both cases permission is granted by DEFRA, a body who is supposed to look after our environment.

I know that it would appear as if I have got up on my high horse over this subject, in fact I have, but I feel that the powers that be only want to go for the soft option, and leave the powerful conglomerates alone.

If these destructive practices were to be curtailed in some way, and provisions for artificial reefs and the like put in its place, as they have in America and Australia, then I am sure that sea angling in general would benefit, and anglers would then be in a position to believe that something is being done.

Tight Lines,

Dave.

Monday 23rd August, 2004

I must apologise for the lateness of these jottings, but I have been bogged down doing my accounts for the past few days, not that there is a lot to do, but not having fingers that can move as if they were in “River Dance” I find typing a pain in the butt.

The weather is up to its old tricks again, and the forecasters are getting their predictions mixed up again, they seem to be a day or so out either way at the moment. Forecasting a piss up in a brewery could be difficult for them it seems.

Anyway when we have been able to get out the fishing has been reasonable, with the Black Bream still providing the bulk of our catches.

From now on it would be a good idea to bring some bait along with you, (Mackerel and Squid will do the trick), as the Mackerel shoals seem to have broken up already due to the unseasonable weather. I know that it is early, and they might regroup and hang around, but don’t bet on it. If you need me to organise bait for you don’t wait until the night before expecting me to get for the following day because I can’t. Give the Tackle Box a ring and place your order, and Duncan will get it to me the following morning.

As I was saying last week, make sure you have got your hooks etc. ready for the winter, I recommend that you get a selection ranging from 2/0s for the Whiting, up to 7/0s or even 8/0s for your Cod fishing using multiple Squid baits, and even 10/0s if you are going to be using whole Cuttlefish. Anyway give Mike Taylor of UK Hooks a ring on 01983 868687, and he will be able to fill your needs.

Tight Lines,

Dave.

Monday 16th August, 2004

Once again this last week has been fairly uneventful as far as big fish are concerned, but we have at least been catching, with medium sized Black Bream making up the bulk of the catches on Becky “M”.

There are still a lot of Tope around, and towards the end of this month we should start to see the bigger ones being hooked. They do give a good scrap, and if you scale down to 20lb class gear, or even 15lb class, then you will have a scrap to remember, and when they are released and swim away it makes you feel good as well.

Quite often people, when they come out this time of the year tend to use too big a hook, and spend all day catching Dogfish, (because in my opinion they have to put a big bit of bait on to cover the hook), if they were to scale their hook size down say from a 3/0 down to a 1/0, they would not only greatly increase the different species that they would catch, they could just as easily hook into a bigger fish, as they will take a small bait just as readily as a big bait.

At this time of the year, when we are in these doldrums we all start to think towards the prospects of the autumn fishing, so now would be a good time to check out the tackle that would be brought into use for the type of fishing that we intend to do, and to start asking questions like:-

* Are your hooks still in your tackle box from your last cod trip? * Have you got enough heavy nylon trace line? * Have you got those new cod hooks you said that you would get at the end of last winter? * Do you still want to fish with nylon as your main line, or have I convinced you into buying braid? * Have you thought about using a lighter rod?

Personally I feel that the days of the 50lb class rod for coding in the Needles area are long gone, there are so many good 30lb class, or even 20/30lb class rods around now that the old rods have become dinosaurs.

If you have any doubts about any of these questions, or you are not sure, then please ask me for advice when you are next out on the boat, or even give me a bell one evening, and I will try to point you in the right direction. I might not know all the answers, but I will try to give you the best advice that I can.

I still have some spaces left for the Bank Holliday week-end.

Tight Lines,

Dave.

Monday 9th August, 2004

Another quiet week passes, but as I said in my last jottings August is well know to us as being a quiet month. There have been plenty of fish about, but nothing spectacular enough to set these pages alight.

The West Wight Charter Skippers Association, had a meeting last week where we discussed the forth coming British Cod Championships, (24th/25th November), and one of the items that was discussed was the entries for the comp. It had been proposed that there would be a draw for boats a fortnight before the comp, and every entry would drawn and placed to a boat and they would then be notified as to which boat they had been drawn.

After sounding out a cross selection of previous entrants, we got the impression that to go along that route wasn’t a good idea and that we could loose out on a lot of entries. This was because when we changed over from being the Needles Cod Championships to the British Cod Championships, we were unsure what the response would be for a two day competition. So we filled our own boats with our own crews first, then carried on filling other the other boats as we needed them.

This year people can enter either as individuals, or in groups of up to four, but we will still be drawing for boats a fortnight before the event, hopefully we will be able to satisfy every competitor on the competition, they will then be on that boat for both days.

If anyone requires an entry form they can either down load it from the Associations web site which is:

www.westwightskippers.co.uk

or they can contact me.

Tight Lines,

Dave.

Monday 2nd August, 2004

This last week has been relatively quiet seeing me only out a couple of times. On Monday we done an inshore trip where we managed to find some medium sized Black Bream and the usual rake of summer species, Dogfish, some pack Tope, and of course Mackerel.

Tuesday I headed round to fish Freshwater Reef area in the hope of contacting a few Smalleyed Rays, but all we encountered were some postage stamp sized ones, so it was off out to a deeper mark, but only to find the same. The best fish of the day fell to Steve Dean who hooked a nice Tub Gurnard weighing about 3 lbs.

Friday I had a family group, and we had a play around catching some Mackerel for the kids before anchoring up to catch a few Black Bream, then we returned so as they could have their Bar-B- que .

On Sunday I had a boat full of novices, but with the help of my mate Terry, they listened and learned ending up having a great day out, and wanting to return again in the winter for a crack at the winter fishing. Their first fish apart from the Mackerel was a Bass so that got them off to a good start.

Now we are into August, a month that always seems to put us into a bit of the doldrums, with the fishing being a bit slack, and both Skippers, and Anglers having to put just that little bit more effort into their fishing to get the results. Still nothing wrong with that, plus I have a couple of things that I want to try out this month, so watch this space to see if I was able to succeed.

Tight Lines,

Dave.