Becky M Newsletter

Monday 28th June, 2004

First of all I must apologise to Nigel for giving him the wrong surname, it should have read Nigel Chapman, and not Collins as I had called him. Still it could be a good alias for him in the future if he should ever need one.

Well there is not a lot to report this week, in fact I was going to just write STORMY WEATHER and leave it at that, but I have managed to get afloat a couple of times this last week, we managed to find some Tope up to about 20lbs and a few Black Bream, along with some Bass, but nothing to get excited about.

To day I was able to get Andrew Wright his first double figured Tope, and his first ever Undulate Ray, a nice fish of about 14lbs, which was returned after being photographed, which is always good to see.

It looks as though STORMY WEATHER will interrupt most of this coming weeks trips, which is a shame as the West Wight Charter Skippers Light Line competition is due to be held on Thursday, hopefully we will get it in okay.

Tight Lines,

Dave.

Monday 21st June, 2004

What a week this last one has been, I was supposed to have been out mid channel for a couple of trips, but the weather forecasts have proved to be different to what had been predicted, so we have been pottering around inshore.

Having had some success with the Bass earlier I thought that we could give it another go, so with that species in mind off we set, but to no avail, we tried everywhere but they had gone, so it was back to the drawing board once more. It is a good job that the Black Bream are still around otherwise we would be in the deep soft and smelly.

The week end wasn’t much better either, Saturdays trip was supposed to be a light-hearted day out, but the weather fluffed up a bit with some sharp squalls making it uncomfortable for my inexperienced crew, so they elected to go in early.

On approaching Hurst Point I saw a couple of boats drifting around and manoeuvring rather erratically so I kept them in my sight as it was beginning to get a bit choppy in the area where they were. As I got closer to them I saw that they were with an upturned yacht and there was someone in the water hanging on to it. I was able to manoeuvre the Becky “M” into a position where I was able to get my mate Terry to throw a line to the person in the water, and we were able to get them onboard, wrap them up in “tin foil” get a hot cupper into them and return to Yarmouth. So that made for an exciting interlude for my crew, and we were able to thwart a possible disaster on the day.

Sunday was much the same as Saturday but without the dramatics. We did find some Black Bream, Bass, and some pack Tope to keep us occupied, but with the change of the tide the weather fluffed up, but then we had some heavy rain and that flattened the seas down.

I was pleased to see in Boat Fishing Monthly this month that young Alex Frampton was awarded the Junior fish of the month with the Black Bream of 4lbs 2ozs that he caught fishing from my boat, well done Alex, he won a 20lb class rod for that. Watch out “Frambo” he will be giving you lessons next.

Unfortunately the weather is looking crappo for the next few days, so it looks like a maintenance week ahead for me.

Tight Lines,

Dave.

Monday 14th June, 2004

This last week I have had a change from fishing for the Black Bream, and I have reverted back to fishing the reefs for the Tope and the Rays, with the possible option of picking up a Bass.

Tuesday started off well with Nigel Collins latching into a nice Bass of just under 8lbs which got everyone’s hopes up, but apart from the baits being ravaged by Tope that was all we could find from that particular mark. I then tried another mark some distance further out, but with a combination of the wind rising, the strength of the tide and a relatively inexperienced crew it was just too much for them, so I moved into one of the inshore reefs for the remainder of the day.

There we managed to find some Tope, the usual infestation of Dogfish, and a couple of decent Painted Rays.

Thursday was much the same as Tuesday, but without the Bass, nor the running around looking at different marks, but we were again able to find some Rays, nothing big though, and the Dogfish were persistent if nothing else.

Friday was blown out so nothing to write about there.

Saturday I was supposed to be going out over the hill so as to speak, with a “Bunch of Motlies,” but the weather forecast changed that idea, so we settled for some inshore fishing.

Andy Francis managed to find a nice Bass of around 7lbs, with Ian Burnham getting in on the act with a couple of 5 pounders and Andy added another one of 9lbs to his total later on in the day. Wes Karl managed the best fish of the day with a Bass of 9lbs 14ozs. In all we had a great days fishing, but there was a lot of tackle lost due to the roughness of the bottom as well as some good fish, in fact there were more fish lost than caught, which isn’t a bad thing in a way.

Anyway the “Bunch of Motlies” went home happy, and so did I!!!

Tight Lines,

Dave.

Monday 7th June, 2004

The inshore fishing continues to be good, although we haven’t seen the four pound plus female Black Bream for a couple of weeks now. They must have all laid their eggs and moved of into deeper water now, leaving way for the smaller ones to come in to breed.

This last week saw me heading down to Poole as myself and Wight Sapphire had been invited down there for the annual Poole Species Hunt. I was going down to defend the crown for being top boat last year. In the company of Terry and Bob, we sampled the delights that Poole had to offer, you know the sort of thing a meal, and a glass or two of Irish wine, very nice it all was as well. We were able to meet up with a few of the local skippers who made us very welcome.

The start of the competition was at eight thirty, and as it was only one of each species to be caught including mini species we were able to fish alongside the harbour wall right from the off. Unfortunately we only managed to find one mini specie and then we were off chasing all around Poole Harbour and Swanage Bay for the rest of the day. The two teams that I had onboard were Poole Dolphins A Team and Poole Sea Angling Centre A Team. I am grateful to the help that Phil Higgins provided to me, but even though both teams tried their hardest it just wasn’t our day. Poole Dolphins came out as the winners on my boat, and I believe seventh overall.

Congratulations to Andy with Random Harvest on being the top boat on the day, and thanks also to Melc Collins for inviting both Bob and me down for the competition, and for all the hard work that he put in for it to be a success. I must also say that the “Evil Weevil”, (alias Trevor Small) tried to influence us the night before, but failed, Still it was nice to meet up with him again.

Our own Association,( the West Wight Charter Skippers) have their own Light Line competition being held on the 1st July, and there are a couple of spaces left on Becky “M” if anyone is interested. The top prize on the day is £500.00.

This last weekend saw us again trying for the Black Bream, but the tides were all wrong for us to find many of them, plus there were a lot of sandy coloured Dalmatians about so in the end we had a drift around for some Mackerel and things, which made an interesting end to the day.

Tight Lines,

Dave.