Craig
Well-known member
Hi all, just a quick one from our trip to Looe...
We headed off on the Sunday (26th) around 8.30 full of enthusiasm and optimism, we arrived down in Looe after a breakfast stop at Kettering and a fuel stop somewhere around Bristol way. Once there, we got unpacked and had a walk around then found the place we were eating at this evening, somewhere called the smugglers Cott, and very nice it was too! After a meal we all retired for the night with high hopes for the next morning even though we'd all been following the weather reports and it wasn't looking as promising as we would have liked.
Monday morning we all met down outside the front of the hotel to a gentle breeze, but we could see a few trees on the top of the hills were getting a good away on. I had to walk to get the van with the gear in it and saw the main bay looked good, the only problem was that I hadn't figured what the open sea looked like.
I met the rest of the lads down at the quay side to lead the boat (swallow 2). Boat loaded so I parked the van back up and got back so we could set off.
We headed off and got tackled up for some drifting over the reefs. The skipper told us it would be abit rough out there but we all said we could handle it and that was the last we thought about it, for about 10 minutes, then we knew what he meant! As we headed west to get some shelter there was a good 4-5ft swell, and as we later found out, this was constantly building as the day went on. He had atleast given us the option to come back in at lunchtime if we wanted due to the weather but we left that decision til nearer the time....
So the fishing, it started with 3 fish in 3 drops for me, pretty much unheard of! I managed a whiting, a pouting and a Pollack all within about 15 mins of starting fishing so I was looking forward to a great days fishing. We drifted a few reefs to start the day, with only pouting coming aboard so we moved a few times and just couldn't find the Pollack or anything else other than pouting for that matter, we tried all varieties of lures, leaders, depths, etc... Nothing seemed to be doing the trick for us. So we put a longer move in to get to some fresher ground for us, this proved to work as another Pollack came aboard along side more outing, and the pouting weren't small either, they put a good bend in the rod, just a shame they weren't what we wanted.
This is where it started to go slightly awry for us. One chap goes down at 12 feeling sick, he gets sea sick badly sometimes so to be expected, then the skipper says do we want to head back, we have a chat and all say stay out as the sea sick man says he wants to stay out so we can all keep fishing, brave man!
Our window to get back in was closed by 12.45 so we were stuck out here til nearly 6pm now!
I'm next to start feeling not so great, around 2pm, so I get my head down and have a nap for an hour, when I wake up, the skipper is walking into the wheel house so I ask how things are going, to which he replies, well there's one rod snapped, ones just been sick and ones having a sleep as he looked abit green! So out of the 6 of us, 4 of us are feeling about ropey to say the least! So I try fishing again, feeling great for now, I get some gear sorted and within 5 mins I'm off back for another lay down (I know this shouldn't work but if I stand/sit up I feel really bad but as soon as I lay down I feel fine), that's where I stayed til we started to head back. The others are all in varying degrees of fishing enthusiasm by now, mostly at the point of giving up as they're not feeling as good as they'd hoped. This is where we all agree we should have taken the offer to go back in at lunchtime! During my naps in the afternoon there were some good congers caught at anchor and a few other bits. And that's about it for the boat fishing for the day, we headed back for about 6pm, and on the way back the 4 who never get seasick all admitted they all felt I'll to some extent, which wasn't surprising considering the seas we were out in, something we're not used to fishing out of West mersea.
Once back of solid ground, we all got showered and changed then met for an evening meal, this time was an Indian takeaway for everyone and chips for me as I still felt abit delicate.
After food it was getting late so a couple headed off to bed, a couple headed for a beer and me and a mate went for a smoke, as we sat out the front of the hotel, the other two came back and mentioned seeing loads of fish in the river.....
We couldn't not have a look could we!?
Off the four of us go, to see some fish, and I mean alot of fish! With a few ideas and arguments as to what they were, we decided what better way to find out..... So off I went with a mate on the half hour round trip to get a red from the van.
On our return we find one of the others has stayed out waiting for us. So three of us decide a midnight lure session is a good idea, well, three of us and a big ginger cat, still not sure where it came from but kept us company all night.
We fished for a few hours and had plenty of the feisty little fish, turns out this who thought mullet were wrong, they were bass! And strangely enough, it was very easy fishing as the fish wouldn't leave the light so we could see them all the time aswell as being able to try and target certain ones by drifting the lure towards the one we wanted, absolutely amazing fun! Who'd have though there fully grown men would be having so much fun catching bass at silly o'clock in the morning! We were casting the lures upstream an retrieving it across the bass while changing the speed to change the drift and attempt to target the better fish in the shoals. It was a great 2-3 hours fishing, shame the others didn't stay out as it was great fun. They weren't even that fussy, we had them on sg Sandeels, 4" lures from the boat fishing, and even a couple of nips at some metals. There were so many of th, I think they would have taken anything as it seemed very competitive when they went for the lure with atleast 4-5 fish after it every time we hit the feeding zone.
It was an amazing evenings fishing, just a shame the boat didn't produce but that's not down to the skipper, we know conditions weren't great and as capable as the skipper and boat are, we couldn't handle the weather we had let alone any more! Hopefuly we can book him next year for a few days as it's a beautiful boat with a very knowledgeable skipper.
Tuesday morning we got up and had breakfast then headed off to meet the skipper so we could unload the boat as the weather had turned even worse 25mph+ winds and bigger swells. That was sadly the end of our little fishing adventure this time, with a straight forward drive back, no real traffic or hold ups, just torrential rain as we left the South coast until we got past Bristol, then it was just bloody windy all the way back.
once we got back we decided the amazing total of 6 fillets between us and headed back home with a day free on weds for everyone. We had talked of fishing local but the weather was still going to be crap so we all sacked that off.
Shame the weather wasn't on our side but there's always next time!
We headed off on the Sunday (26th) around 8.30 full of enthusiasm and optimism, we arrived down in Looe after a breakfast stop at Kettering and a fuel stop somewhere around Bristol way. Once there, we got unpacked and had a walk around then found the place we were eating at this evening, somewhere called the smugglers Cott, and very nice it was too! After a meal we all retired for the night with high hopes for the next morning even though we'd all been following the weather reports and it wasn't looking as promising as we would have liked.
Monday morning we all met down outside the front of the hotel to a gentle breeze, but we could see a few trees on the top of the hills were getting a good away on. I had to walk to get the van with the gear in it and saw the main bay looked good, the only problem was that I hadn't figured what the open sea looked like.
I met the rest of the lads down at the quay side to lead the boat (swallow 2). Boat loaded so I parked the van back up and got back so we could set off.
We headed off and got tackled up for some drifting over the reefs. The skipper told us it would be abit rough out there but we all said we could handle it and that was the last we thought about it, for about 10 minutes, then we knew what he meant! As we headed west to get some shelter there was a good 4-5ft swell, and as we later found out, this was constantly building as the day went on. He had atleast given us the option to come back in at lunchtime if we wanted due to the weather but we left that decision til nearer the time....
So the fishing, it started with 3 fish in 3 drops for me, pretty much unheard of! I managed a whiting, a pouting and a Pollack all within about 15 mins of starting fishing so I was looking forward to a great days fishing. We drifted a few reefs to start the day, with only pouting coming aboard so we moved a few times and just couldn't find the Pollack or anything else other than pouting for that matter, we tried all varieties of lures, leaders, depths, etc... Nothing seemed to be doing the trick for us. So we put a longer move in to get to some fresher ground for us, this proved to work as another Pollack came aboard along side more outing, and the pouting weren't small either, they put a good bend in the rod, just a shame they weren't what we wanted.
This is where it started to go slightly awry for us. One chap goes down at 12 feeling sick, he gets sea sick badly sometimes so to be expected, then the skipper says do we want to head back, we have a chat and all say stay out as the sea sick man says he wants to stay out so we can all keep fishing, brave man!
Our window to get back in was closed by 12.45 so we were stuck out here til nearly 6pm now!
I'm next to start feeling not so great, around 2pm, so I get my head down and have a nap for an hour, when I wake up, the skipper is walking into the wheel house so I ask how things are going, to which he replies, well there's one rod snapped, ones just been sick and ones having a sleep as he looked abit green! So out of the 6 of us, 4 of us are feeling about ropey to say the least! So I try fishing again, feeling great for now, I get some gear sorted and within 5 mins I'm off back for another lay down (I know this shouldn't work but if I stand/sit up I feel really bad but as soon as I lay down I feel fine), that's where I stayed til we started to head back. The others are all in varying degrees of fishing enthusiasm by now, mostly at the point of giving up as they're not feeling as good as they'd hoped. This is where we all agree we should have taken the offer to go back in at lunchtime! During my naps in the afternoon there were some good congers caught at anchor and a few other bits. And that's about it for the boat fishing for the day, we headed back for about 6pm, and on the way back the 4 who never get seasick all admitted they all felt I'll to some extent, which wasn't surprising considering the seas we were out in, something we're not used to fishing out of West mersea.
Once back of solid ground, we all got showered and changed then met for an evening meal, this time was an Indian takeaway for everyone and chips for me as I still felt abit delicate.
After food it was getting late so a couple headed off to bed, a couple headed for a beer and me and a mate went for a smoke, as we sat out the front of the hotel, the other two came back and mentioned seeing loads of fish in the river.....
We couldn't not have a look could we!?
Off the four of us go, to see some fish, and I mean alot of fish! With a few ideas and arguments as to what they were, we decided what better way to find out..... So off I went with a mate on the half hour round trip to get a red from the van.
On our return we find one of the others has stayed out waiting for us. So three of us decide a midnight lure session is a good idea, well, three of us and a big ginger cat, still not sure where it came from but kept us company all night.
We fished for a few hours and had plenty of the feisty little fish, turns out this who thought mullet were wrong, they were bass! And strangely enough, it was very easy fishing as the fish wouldn't leave the light so we could see them all the time aswell as being able to try and target certain ones by drifting the lure towards the one we wanted, absolutely amazing fun! Who'd have though there fully grown men would be having so much fun catching bass at silly o'clock in the morning! We were casting the lures upstream an retrieving it across the bass while changing the speed to change the drift and attempt to target the better fish in the shoals. It was a great 2-3 hours fishing, shame the others didn't stay out as it was great fun. They weren't even that fussy, we had them on sg Sandeels, 4" lures from the boat fishing, and even a couple of nips at some metals. There were so many of th, I think they would have taken anything as it seemed very competitive when they went for the lure with atleast 4-5 fish after it every time we hit the feeding zone.
It was an amazing evenings fishing, just a shame the boat didn't produce but that's not down to the skipper, we know conditions weren't great and as capable as the skipper and boat are, we couldn't handle the weather we had let alone any more! Hopefuly we can book him next year for a few days as it's a beautiful boat with a very knowledgeable skipper.
Tuesday morning we got up and had breakfast then headed off to meet the skipper so we could unload the boat as the weather had turned even worse 25mph+ winds and bigger swells. That was sadly the end of our little fishing adventure this time, with a straight forward drive back, no real traffic or hold ups, just torrential rain as we left the South coast until we got past Bristol, then it was just bloody windy all the way back.
once we got back we decided the amazing total of 6 fillets between us and headed back home with a day free on weds for everyone. We had talked of fishing local but the weather was still going to be crap so we all sacked that off.
Shame the weather wasn't on our side but there's always next time!
