IOW. Hamstead Ledge tomorrow.

[Ianpick]

It looks like the weather will give us a morning fit to fish tomorrow, hopefully.
My fishing mate and I will be going on a little trip out of Yarmouth Harbour, to the right and up towards Hamstead Ledge, a very well known spot.
Rumours of codling are rife but only small ones. Still it would be nice to see a cod somewhere other than Sainsburys, so catch and release most likely. This year's 3lb fish are next year's 6 lbers. Well they would be if the commercials all got towed out to sea and scuppered.
I also have a first hand report from another angling acquaintance that he caught a bream last week.........excited doesn't come close.
Squid and frozen blacks are on the menu tomorrow so I'll post my catch report now.
Dogfish.
I'm looking forward to just getting out after the torrential rain and gales of the past weeks but if anything interesting happens I will update.

 

[Thrasher]

Tight lines Ian.

 

[Mr Fish]

Good luck!

 

[Wolf]

How did it go Ian ?

 

[Ianpick]

It was a great trip yesterday. It was quite cold at around 7.30 and the sea had a bit of a chop on it but nothing serious. By 2.30 when the tide turned it had become glassy with a bit of a swell, comfortable all the time.
The codling failed to show which was no surprise at all.
However we did manage a good number of fish with whiting, pout, congers and dogfish making up most of the number.
Mike also had a thornback and a spotted ray and a surprising brace of spider crabs.
I bought an Alcock Aerialite centre pin reel a while back, because it looks nice, and fiddled around with it to make sure it worked properly. I caught a conger with it. I may try it on a pier one day but it'll rarely be anything other than a conversation piece.

We all learn something new every day and a couple of things are worth noting.
I have a 12' rotomoulded open boat which weighs 112kgs, not heavy for the size of it. On the back is a Tohatsu 15hp motor which weighs 50kgs or there abouts which is a heavy lump of metal and a 5 gallon fuel tank and me.
When moving at slow speed the boat sits nicely and is very easy to manoeuvre, as I accelerate the bow lifts at quite a steep angle so I can't see what is in front of me until I get to about 10mph when she gets up on plane and off we go. It will then stay on plane if I slow to about 8/9mph as long as I give it a blip every now and then.
I had fully filled the fuel take the day before. It's never had that much petrol in it and was heavier than usual.
As I came out of the harbour yesterday and past the pier I gave it some welly expecting to get up to speed and on plane in a matter of 50 yards or so.
Not the case. The boat would not accelerate to more than 10mph and remained bow high.
Am I going out on a boat with a potential engine problem? Obviously no.
I stopped, checked the trim, the prop, revved it in neutral to see how the engine behaved. All exactly the same as usual and nothing else appeared abnormal.
After some thought I realised that the extra fuel, maybe a couple of gallons more than usual, was making the boat too heavy at the back and stopping me lifting up and doing the usual. I sat on the floor in the middle of the boat, shifting some weight forward, and tried again. Normal service was resumed, onto plane and away I went.
I'm going to put a big heavy thing in the anchor locker at the front and see what difference it makes.

It was cold first thing yesterday and I had prepared well.
Except I'd forgotten my pisspot.
In an ideal world you don't need one but too much tea before leaving made it inevitable that I would.
There was nothing I could improvise with, so over the side it had to be. Not easy with five layers of clothing to get past, knees leaning on the side of the boat.
Serious lesson learned, if the sea had been at all lumpy I would have had to pee on the floor of the boat.

 

[Trampster]

Nice report Ian!

 

[Mr Fish]

It was a great trip yesterday. It was quite cold at around 7.30 and the sea had a bit of a chop on it but nothing serious. By 2.30 when the tide turned it had become glassy with a bit of a swell, comfortable all the time.
The codling failed to show which was no surprise at all.
However we did manage a good number of fish with whiting, pout, congers and dogfish making up most of the number.
Mike also had a thornback and a spotted ray and a surprising brace of spider crabs.
I bought an Alcock Aerialite centre pin reel a while back, because it looks nice, and fiddled around with it to make sure it worked properly. I caught a conger with it. I may try it on a pier one day but it'll rarely be anything other than a conversation piece.

We all learn something new every day and a couple of things are worth noting.
I have a 12' rotomoulded open boat which weighs 112kgs, not heavy for the size of it. On the back is a Tohatsu 15hp motor which weighs 50kgs or there abouts which is a heavy lump of metal and a 5 gallon fuel tank and me.
When moving at slow speed the boat sits nicely and is very easy to manoeuvre, as I accelerate the bow lifts at quite a steep angle so I can't see what is in front of me until I get to about 10mph when she gets up on plane and off we go. It will then stay on plane if I slow to about 8/9mph as long as I give it a blip every now and then.
I had fully filled the fuel take the day before. It's never had that much petrol in it and was heavier than usual.
As I came out of the harbour yesterday and past the pier I gave it some welly expecting to get up to speed and on plane in a matter of 50 yards or so.
Not the case. The boat would not accelerate to more than 10mph and remained bow high.
Am I going out on a boat with a potential engine problem? Obviously no.
I stopped, checked the trim, the prop, revved it in neutral to see how the engine behaved. All exactly the same as usual and nothing else appeared abnormal.
After some thought I realised that the extra fuel, maybe a couple of gallons more than usual, was making the boat too heavy at the back and stopping me lifting up and doing the usual. I sat on the floor in the middle of the boat, shifting some weight forward, and tried again. Normal service was resumed, onto plane and away I went.
I'm going to put a big heavy thing in the anchor locker at the front and see what difference it makes.

It was cold first thing yesterday and I had prepared well.
Except I'd forgotten my pisspot.
In an ideal world you don't need one but too much tea before leaving made it inevitable that I would.
There was nothing I could improvise with, so over the side it had to be. Not easy with five layers of clothing to get past, knees leaning on the side of the boat.
Serious lesson learned, if the sea had been at all lumpy I would have had to pee on the floor of the boat.

Yep, always used to find it was better to have a fair bit of weight towards the bow, otherwise it was sometimes a struggle to get onto the plane

 

[Wolf]

Nice one mate well done, write up made good reading

 

[chesilpete]

It looks like the weather will give us a morning fit to fish tomorrow, hopefully.
My fishing mate and I will be going on a little trip out of Yarmouth Harbour, to the right and up towards Hamstead Ledge, a very well known spot.
Rumours of codling are rife but only small ones. Still it would be nice to see a cod somewhere other than Sainsburys, so catch and release most likely. This year's 3lb fish are next year's 6 lbers. Well they would be if the commercials all got towed out to sea and scuppered.
I also have a first hand report from another angling acquaintance that he caught a bream last week.........excited doesn't come close.
Squid and frozen blacks are on the menu tomorrow so I'll post my catch report now.
Dogfish.
I'm looking forward to just getting out after the torrential rain and gales of the past weeks but if anything interesting happens I will update.

Be lucky mate!