Becky M Newsletter

Monday 25th October, 2004

I don’t know, I just never seem to be satisfied.

Last week I was moaning that I never had a booking, and the weather was set fair enough that we could have fished. (Well I did on the Sunday and enjoyed myself out there. There were even some Cod caught, not on my boat unfortunately, but a couple of the boats managed to find them.)

As I said in my last jottings I was looking forward to this last week as the tides were looking good for getting out and going for the Cod, and then the weather took another turn for the worse and it was back to the usual, strong winds and rain once again.

Tuesday was the only day that I was able to get out, and then we were restricted to fishing in sheltered waters down at Newtown, where we managed to find a few bits and pieces, Dogfish, Channel Whiting, Bass, Pout, and Smoothound.

I noticed that there are still a lot of spider crabs around, and that they are really wrecking any baits that they are coming across. Hopefully they will disappear when the water temperature drops.

You must all be getting really frustrated, as I am, with these constant weather patterns that we are experiencing at the moment. It just isn’t letting up, I see that we might get a bit of an eye for Tuesday, and then there is another system coming in from the west for Wednesday. v I don’t know, it’s enough to make a “Bishop to burn his Bibles” and look for another job.

I wonder, how many are there of you out there, that are glad that you hung onto your right arm, and didn’t give it up to do my job?? Quite a few I bet. It’s great when everything is right, but it gets a bit harder when the going gets tougher. Still just think how much fatter those Cod will be when we do get the chance to get out there amongst them, they should be nice chubby chapies.

I only hope that we will get a settled period for our British Cod Championships in November. If we get a similar result to the one that we got last year then it will be great. If you haven’t booked on yet, and you would like to have the chance of becoming the British Cod Champion, and win a £1000.00, then give it a shot, who knows, you could be the winner.

There is still time for you to enter, and the other competitors are a great bunch, some of them have supported the competition ever since it started twelve years ago. Not only that, if one of you who are regular crew out with me were to win it I would be chuffed to the Vicars Knickers. I only hope that you are on my boat when you do it.

Well that’s about it for now so with a bit of luck I will manage to get more than one days fishing in this next week, until then,

Good fishing,

Dave.

Monday 18th October, 2004

Well this last week-end turned out to be very pleasant weather wise, the only pity was that I never had a booking all over the week-end, so I done some essential maintenance on Saturday, and said sod it I am going fishing myself on Sunday.

So in the company of my mate Terry, and his mate Paul, we set off to have a busman’s holiday so as to speak. We got out past the Needles and anchored up on one of my inshore marks, and baited up for Cod.

Even though there some Cod were caught on some of the other boats, we didn’t make contact with them ourselves, we might have had an enquirery or two but if they don’t take the bait then they don’t count.

The highlight of the day was when I had a take in the main run of a 4.8 meter tide. With the best part of a hundred yards of line out, and my rod arced over like it was never going to be straight again and I was grunting and groaning like a good’n, and Terry was there, giving me words of encouragement, and advice. (It is at this stage if it is a customer, that I am giving them some earache, so for those who have they will be pleased to know that I have also been on the receiving end). So after all that it turned out to be a Thornback Ray of about 10 lbs, and I made a right performance out of it. Well I don’t get the chance to do much winter fishing.

The only downside to the day was that when I went to get the anchor up it was fouled up with something and I had to cut it off. I am hoping that one of the local lads will be able to retrieve it for me later.

Tomorrow I have got some of my regulars on, so I am sure that they will find Cod, as a couple of them are known to have golden objects when it comes to fishing, so I am relying on them to hook into the first of the winter species. I have always found that the first one is always the hardest one to catch, once that one is in then the rest will follow.

That’s about it for this week, but I am set to be out quite a bit now so with a bit of luck I will have some more to report, and some pictures to back it up.

Tight Lines,

Dave.

Monday 11th October, 2004

Hello once more, my apologies for the lack of Jottings for the last couple of weeks, but we took a few days off and enjoyed a mini break away in Yorkshire. It made a pleasant change to drive more than a couple of miles without changing gear, nor did we fall off the edge of the world as I had been led to believe would happen when you reach the edge of the horizon. It just went on and on. It wasn’t so strange in England as I thought it might have been you had the same type of weather over there as we have on the Island. It was windy there as well!!

So back to the fishing. I have only done one trip since my return, and that was between blows when there was an eye in the weather. I thought that it would be time to try for the winter species, so I set off to fish one of my winter marks, but after a while we had to move as the whole area was wall to wall Dog Fish. I tried several other marks, but the end result was the same, with the exception of a small Conger Eel.

I must say that it was a very small Neap tide with very little tide pull, so the baits were just laying in a heap on the bottom, and must have looked totally uninteresting. I also noticed that some of the anglers were using trace’s of about five foot in length, and that they kept catching each other, so I suggested that they should shorten them down to about three foot, because when there is very little tide their trace’s can’t stream out and away But not everyone took this free advice, and they consequently ended up getting tangled up with each other all the time. In the end I went back into the Solent, just to find a bit of tidal movement, this move paid off as we managed to catch a few late Black Bream, and a Bass.

It is a point worth considering that your trace length should be of a length suitable to the strength of the tide that you are fishing in so as to give you the best advantage. If for example it is a small tide with very little pull to it then you wouldn’t need to have a heavy lead to get your bait down so in turn you wouldn’t need too long a trace to present your bait. The opposite would be the best option in a strong tide. Well that’s my theory anyway, and I have found it to work.

Another thing that I noticed is that anglers are still using in my opinion too lighter trace when we are fishing for Cod at this time of the year. I cannot emphasise it enough, in the winter months you need a good strong trace of at least 80 lbs B.S. nylon because anything less can be so easily bitten through, most of our winter species are well provided for in the denture department, and I don’t rate nylon covered wire as an alternative as it just curls up and becomes useless. I want my anglers to land their fish, not loose them because they didn’t have a strong enough trace. Don’t forget we the (West Wight Charter Skippers Association) have got the British Cod Championships on November 24th/25th with £1000.00 each day for the heaviest Cod weighed in, and £1000.00 for the most Cod caught over the two days, so get booked on if you want to have a chance of winning.

Hopefully these easterly winds will soon ease back and allow us to get back out there again, in the mean time check you gear over, sharpen your hooks, and make sure your knots are good.

Tight Lines,

Dave.