Swanage Bay - A day of Rays

As last week had progressed I'd finalised plans with Ian Harris to meet up and spend a day fishing around Swanage Bay. The forecast was good, exceptionally good for this time of year in fact, with temperatures forecast up into the mid-twenties!. I've only fished Swanage Bay once before, it's a very picturesque location that's well known for producing many species of fish. It's one of the UK's better known Black Bream hotspots as well as having a reputation to producing sizeable Undulate Rays.

I've never caught the latter species so I'd planned to target rays with the hope of connecting with an Undulate Ray. My other main target was the Black Bream, a 4lb+ fish would have gone down a treat!

I'd originally planned to arrive there at around 0730, it taking the best part of two hours for me to travel there by car. However, Ian called me the night before suggesting that we get there for around 0530... yup, that was going to mean a crazy early start!. But hey, those early morning sessions can be some of the best, so I begrudgingly set my alarm for 0300 having packed the car with only the kayak left to load. I think I woke around 0230, watching my clock work it's way towards 0300, I knew I was going to suffer later in the weekend for this.

By 0330 I was driving, awake, awake enough to drive safely. Fortunately it was mainly a highway cruise with the roads being very empty, relaxing. That said I was getting down a dip along the New Forest section of the highway. As I rose up from the dip the headlamps illuminated the rising section of the road and there was a deer stood on the central lines, literally 15-20m ahead of me!. I had no real time to react, though fortunately it remained motionless as I shot past at 70mph!. It could have easily bought my fishing trip to a rather premature end!... I was 110% awake by that point.

I arrived at Swanage just after 0500 and started to rig up, with Ian arriving just after me. We rigged up at a leisurely pace, hitting the water a little later. This truly is a cracking venue, beautiful to look at, steep hills around the corners of the bay, dropping down to the old resort of Swanage in the middle. It just screams fish and reminds me of the old stories within the fishing books written by Hugh Stoker.

It was a rather slow start to the session. I'd initially begin to drift the rougher ground for the Bream, fishing a two hook paternoster rig with small squid strips attached to size 4 forged hooks. I missed several aggressive bites which I assumed had to be small Bream. I eventually hooked up with one of the culprits which confirmed my suspicions.

Though they clearly weren't there in any numbers as I really struggled to locate any further fish, missing the odd hit over the next hour or so. My enthusiasm began to wain somewhat with only a small Pollack to show for several drifts, so I changed tact and anchored up so I could fish with ledgered baits. I decided upon an area immediately down tide of a reef, fishing straight onto clean sand. The thinking behind this was that any 'food' being washed of the reef would arrive here first.

I fished two rods, one baited with whole sandeel, the other with half a fillet of mackerel. Both were rigged Pennel style to size 3/0 Sakuma 545 hooks. I do love these hooks, not only are they strong, they are extremely sharp. Trust me, I have fingers like pin cushions that will testify to this!.

I didn't have to wait long before my sandeel stirred up some interest. A Spotted Ray took a fancy to my bait and was another species for the day. They are very pretty to look at, always nice to catch.

The next half hour was ominously quiet, though one rod tip began to nod in a typical Ray fashion. I picked up and immediately felt the weight of a decent fish. It certainly fought far better than any ray that I've caught in the past. As it surfaced I could see that it was an Undulate Ray!, though it had second thoughts and ripped line from the reel, straight back down to the bottom!. My 6-8lb Shimano Beastmaster rod was bent right over at times, this is fishing at its best.

With it safely aboard it was time to briefly admire this beautiful ray, though my wife later commented that it was butt ugly. I guess that beauty is perhaps only the eye of the angler. I guessed the weight of the fish to be 13-14lb.

Halfway through bringing that ray to the surface the other rod pulled hard over, another ray, double hook up!. I slackened the drag on that reel, retrieving it one the first fish had been safely released. It was another fine Undulate Ray. Moments earlier I'd never caught this species, then I'd clocked up two in as many minutes.

After a short flurry of dogfish that refused to leave my mackerel bait alone, I found myself hooked up into yet another ray, another Undulate to be exact!. As it came up to the kayak I made a leisurely grab for the fish. Just as I touched it the hook pulled out and the fish slipped out of my grasp. That's fishing and it made me chuckle. I'd touched it so I'll claim it.

I gave Ian a shout over the VHF to let him know that I was having some good success. He pulled anchor and headed over to my location just in time to see me catch my fourth Undulate Ray of the session. Thank you Ian for the photo!

I guessed the weight at around 12lb, though Ian had his scales handy so I gave it a quick weigh, it coming in at 11lb 12oz.

It then went rather quiet, I blame Ian, though it may have been due to a slackening ebb tide!. After a while I found myself getting bored so I pulled anchor and headed northwards, anchoring on the uptide side of a reef. I fished my two hook bream rig with a light weight, allowing it to drift onto the reef.

Below is a screenshot from my Lowrance HDS7 with StructureScan selected with the reef clearly visible. It clears towards the top as I'd passed over it prior to dropping anchor.

Despite a couple of small rattles it was slow, though I did eventually hook up into a better sized Bream. Once safely netted and aboard I took a couple of photos before watching it swim away strongly. I know these make good eating, but I'd rather they breed and live to fight another day.

Below, a slightly premature release as it was clearly keen to get away!

That was the only Bream I caught from that mark so once again I pulled anchor and decided to drift over a wreck off to the Northwest. There was a little structure with some small fish returns. They were indeed small with me only managing to catch a couple of pouting. Still, another species for the day.

Clearly the structure was holding no sizeable fish, at least nothing that wanted my bait, so I headed further North to Ballard Point where several boats were already fishing. I drifted around for perhaps an hour without so much as a tap.

The sea became increasingly choppy so I decided to had back into the bay. That turned out to be a wise decision as it was somewhat unpleasant for a couple of hundred metres as I came back into the bay itself.

I resumed bait fishing, tying myself off to a large pot buoy. It was desperately slow, though I did manage a couple more Spotted Rays and some Dogfish.

By this time I'd been afloat for around 10 hours and with the sport getting slower by the hour I decided to quit whilst I was ahead. After a lazy pedal back across the bay, just enjoying the scenery I was back on the beach. The beach however is soft and stoney and the trolley dug in halfway up. Fortunately a couple of holidaymakers gave me a hand to pull it up the beach, otherwise I would have ended up partially de-rigging it. I did make a mental note to take my beach trolley with the large floatation wheels next time I choose to fish this venue.

It had been a great day, both fishing, company and weather wise, I'm sure I'll be fishing Swanage again quite soon!

What no fish ?

I'm keen to really hit the saltwater hard this year, though the weather has been most disappointing since Christmas. I've had at least three occasions when I've been packed and ready to fish, though the weather has deteriorated so badly against what was forecast that I've had to call the trips off. Very frustrating, definitely the poorest winter weather wise for some years (from a kayak fisherman's view!).

There was a weather window on Tuesday (originally Wednesday!) so I took the opportunity to launch with a friend into Stokes Bay in the hope of finding a Ray or two. I'd heard a few reports of Undulate Rays to 14lb being caught from the shoreline. I had decided to fish from the AI as my boy wanted to join me. Though I intend to use it as a fishing platform a lot this year, so it presented an opportunity to practice anchoring from the Hobie AI.

There was little wind forecast, though I rigged for sailing anyway to make it more realistic to practice some fishing, plus it was actually a little breezier that forecast. In fact it was considerably more breezy, with white horses starting to appear across most of the Solent within minutes of launching.

Rigging took longer than normal, what with an extra person to dress and a pair of wet suit boots that refused to fit my sons feet, must they keep growing?!. He's well kitted out with a dry suit, etc, as the weather at this time of year is still rather cool and unpredictable.

We ended up anchoring just 300m or so from the beach. Two rods were rigged to fish with running ledgers, mackerel on one and squid on the other. I also had a little ragworm to use as needed. The tide turned onto the ebb and the weights drifted off into the tide when lowered. Though once down on the bottom they came back!. I thought I was drifting at first, though no. My friend Jamie was having the same experience. Perhaps an undercurrent?, though having fished this venue many times in years gone by it was a new experience for me. It also made it somewhat difficult to fish effectively.

The weather deteriorated so we pulled anchor and moved around the headland into more sheltered water. Bizarrely I was experiencing the same problem with the weights, truly odd.

I have a Railblaza rod holder mounted to either Aka and they are quite effective. They were the only holder that I could effectively mount to the Akas. Though for the AI to be effective as a fishing machine they were a must. They seem solid enough, time will tell.

The fish remained elusive, We had not so much as a bite, it was rather pitiful to be honest. Though I wasn't remotely bothered. My boy was having a wail of a time. He'd eaten all food supplies within the first hour having clearly overcome the odd bout of sea sickness on earlier trips.

He took advantage of the huge stability of the AI and often sat himself forward of the mast just to enjoy a great view of the world passing by.

After 4 hours of no fish, I relented an put down a small hook loaded with some fresh ragworm. We only had to wait a couple of minutes for the rod tip to start rattling. My boy sat himself on the trampoline and began to retrieve the fish. We often become focused with the size of what what we catch, though this was a good reminder to me about what fishing means to a young angler.

Well it was certainly no monster!!, but it was a fish and that's all he was bothered about. The first of two in ten minutes. A big smile said it all.

So despite the lack of fish it was actually a really enjoyable 5 hours or so afloat. I had the chance to drop/retrieve anchor several times. It's easy enough on the AI, though if fishing alone I would probably only use one trampoline which I think would make retrieving the anchor line far easier. I prefer letting the retrieved line drift down tide, but with both tramps deployed I couldn't manage that. First time I had a pile of anchor line on the deck, not ideal!. Second time I had my boy winding in the slack as i pulled anchor... that worked!

I really must take him somewhere that holds some decent fish so he can put a proper bend in his rod and have a fight with a fish that he'll remember for some time. Watch this space.

Essex – East Coast Cod Hunt

Well the festivities of Christmas are behind us now with a New Year only a couple of days away. Despite the busy holidays, the weather has not provided any real opportunities to wet a line in my part of the country.

However, that all changed yesterday as a brief weather window made an appearance over the southern part of the UK. The fishing locally in the Solent is so poor I don't think twice these days of driving 2-3 hours to find some productive ground. The weather appeared to be better on the east coast and after a couple of phone calls a trip to fish the Essex cod grounds was quickly put together.

The alarm went off at 4am and by 4:30am I was scraping the ice off the car, don’t you love a bit of winter fishing!. A fresh flask of coffee was thrown into the car and I was on the road by 5am with a three hour journey ahead of me.

Fresh bait was collected on arrival from Deans Tackle, the local tackle shop. The lug looked great and with a couple of packets of frozen squid the transaction was completed.

There was five of us in total and we were soon rigging up in preparation for launching. It’s always interesting to look at other peoples setups with a view to potentially improving your own… or just because, like me, you’re plain nosey.

Conditions were absolutely perfect with the water close to glass calm. I was late heading out due to a couple of reasons, firstly I’d not bothered to fully rig my rods the previous evening, plus I’d left the other half of my rod leashes on my other pair of rods. Deep joy, there was no way I was heading without with my rods leashed to the yak so I quick ‘bodge’ job was required. With all that sorted I finally paddled out into the ebbing tide.

The paddle to the mark was about 1.5 miles, though with a hint of warmth from the winter sun and barely a breath of wind, it was very enjoyable. Once anchored at my chosen mark it was a case of baits down and waiting for some action. Baits were 6/0 pennel rigs baited with double squid and tipped off with fresh lugworm. The tide was ebbing quite hard at this point, despite being in only ten metres of water a 6oz weight was needed to hold bottom.

You can clearly see the wind farm in the distance, I was last here a year ago and despite clear signs of construction activities there wasn’t a wind turbine to be seen… look at it now!. Personally I have no problems with viewing wind farms in everyday scenery, it’s clean energy and a must in this day and age.

The first twenty to thirty minutes lacked a single bite, though there was eventually a tapping on a rod tip which produced the first codling of the day. Ok, it wasn’t a keeper but it was a start.

As the tide continued to ebb at around 2 knots the cod bites kept coming, they were generally small fish at around 1.5lbs which were returned, though there was the odd better fish towards 4lb. The latter size being a nice table size.

As well as having three dorsal fins, two anal fins and a thick white lateral line, the cod is probably best recognised by its ‘chin barbel’ which is clearly visible in the photo below.

Despite the large number of small codling, I soon had four keepers which were kept by the yak in my fish bag. I became a little wary of this as the tide slackened due to the fact a seal appeared about twenty metres ahead of me. Needless to say the fish bag was tossed into the tankwell !

As low water approached and the tide slackened the smaller species came onto the feed. These comprised mainly of whiting though there was the odd pouting for good measure. It was proving just about impossible to get through the whiting to locate some cod which was a tad frustrating.

There were a couple of times during the session when a flotilla of ocean going jet skis made a close run past as they headed up the coastline, at times their lack of consideration was a little too obvious. There’s a whole ocean out there, do they have to pass within twenty metres ?

The fishing wasn’t nearly as prolific as previous trips to this venue, this was no doubt down to the abundance of sprats, a small oily baitfish on which the cod gorge themselves. The presence of sprats tends to kill the fishing, though they’re only inshore for a few weeks so the fishing should soon bounce back. This little fellow below was regurgitated by a whiting, clearly his life was all too short !

The session was relatively short, maybe around four hours. I would have had to wait 3-4 hours for the tide to start moving once more and on a cold winters day that just wasn’t an option. The freezer is re-stocked, the wife is happy for a month at least and the overall result was an enjoyable trip catching up with some good friends. Roll on the next session.

Below is a short video of yesterdays session.

Kayak fishing in Essex

Getting back into it - Fishing the Solent

It seems like forever since I’ve been out fishing on the yak. In fact due to work commitments I’ve not wet a line since returning from Scotland. Two months of not being afloat, it’s unheard of!

The pressure was finally off early this week and a short notice trip was put together to fish a locally in the estuary in the hope of some autumn bass. This time last year the estuary was producing some good, if not sporadic, fishing. The mark is a short paddle which allows for some close in fishing to heavy structure. There are several marks in the local estuary that scream bass, though anchoring is tricky to say the least. Fishing in between large structures with tide flowing in and around, tends to produce large eddy areas. The current rotates causing the yak to swing slowly in the tide like a pendulum. Get it wrong and you’ll swing into the main tidal stream breaking anchor.

The session lead into dusk where the ‘witching’ hour failed to materialise. Quite often, once the sun drops down there’s a manic hour when the bass come onto the feed, sadly it didn’t happen, though it was a stunning evening all the same. There are definitely worse way to spend your evenings...

As darkness came we called an end to the session, bar one small pout it was a fishless evening, no real complaints though.

The following day the decision was made to paddle out in the hope of catching the last few mackerel of the season. I didn’t believe that they’d still be about, though my yakking mate had been told different so we headed out, hopes high. Amazingly there were indeed some mackerel about, we managed a bag full between us which will see us good for a few sessions during the winter months.

Another yak fishing buddy told me he’d been catching thornback locally, so after a short break for dinner we headed off to Hillhead for a spot of night fishing.

Hillhead

The weatherman lied once more, the forecast was for a very light NW wind, though it sat as a light SW blow all evening and into the night. No great shakes, though it meant a light chop instead of glassy calm.

My targets were bass and thornback ray, hence I was rigged with a large mackerel strip rigged on a pennel rig. The other rod was rigged with sandeel on a single hook running ledger. I didn’t have to wait too long for the first bite of the night, good firm pull.. a thornack?

Nothing huge, perhaps 5-6lb, though against the current it gave a decent account of itself of light gear. Close up, they’re quite a pretty fish don't you think?

Sadly that was the last of the action for me, Andy picked up a small thornback, his first off the yak though so it’s still all good stuff. We fished on for a couple more hours though the action was painfully slow.

Though again, it was a cracking evening, another stunning sunset, geese circling over the adjacent nature reserve.. life was good.

I’m back to regular fishing, though I’m working further afield for the foreseeable future. I foresee my fishing trips being concentrated in and around the Bristol Channel, perhaps on the southern coastal beach of Chesil and its surrounding area.

It’ll be good to fish some new areas.

A plague of Pouting

The hunt for the elusive Solent cod continued with an evening trip to Browndown, fishing the edge of the main channel about 3/4 mile out. The fishing took place around low water for no other reason than the winds were low and I'd not managed to get out for 2 weeks. The northerly force 3-4 kept the sea flat making fishing conditions quite pleasant, if not a tad cool.

Two rods were fished, one a 6/0 pennel whole squid/ragworm combination, the other a simple two hooker flapper arrangement baited with a combination of mackerel, squid strips and ragworm.

Water depth was 20m, once I'd hit bottom an extra 40m of line was let out leaving little remaining on the reel.

The action was none stop with a multitude of double hook-ups of pouting with a few whiting showing up to. The pouting were generally large, though the whiting were disappointingly small with no keepers for the table.

A few dogfish showed up too, though thankfully not in the numbers experienced recently. There was a moment when a decent fish seemed liked, only for double hook-up of dogfish to appear at the surface.

So after 3 hours which saw a total of around 50 fish come to the yak the decision was made to call it a night. One great thing about the evening was terrific displays of fireworks around the Solent, and it didn't cost a penny!

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