First trip of 2019 - chasing the elusive Cod !

I'd hoped to get out a week earlier, though the forecast hadn't been favourable. As it happened the weather that week had been very good, typical!. With my Christmas holidays disappearing rapidly, I decided that I'd make an overnight trip to fish the muddy waters of the Bristol Channel. I was going to fish the waters off the Blue Anchor, located on the north Somerset coast, a place that had previously been my local area for a few years. However, I'd not fished there in 3-4 years, though the important question was whether or not the winter Cod fishing would be as good as I'd enjoyed in previous years.

It's a 3 hour drive westwards for me, though I'd packed the night before to make life a little easier. After quick coffee at 0600 I was on my way. I'd ordered my bait from Steve at Southwest Tackle in Watchet, the quality from there is always excellent. Despite having fished this venue many dozens of times, I couldn't remember how much bait I used to use on an average 5-6 hour session. I can now say that 1/2lb of lugworm and a couple of packets of frozen squid is about enough, yup, I had unwittingly purchased enough for 2 days. I had actually planned to overnight in the car and fish two tides, so if things had gone to plan this actually would have worked out ok. However, things rarely go to plan!

Since swapping to the Hobie Outback several years ago I've really struggled to store frozen bait like I used to on my old Big Game kayak. Back then I used to use a Flambeau box with ice blocks for this and it worked a treat. As much as I love my Dry Box it leaves no room for a suitable container for frozen bait. I don't like those soft coolbags at all, plus when I have used them I've either had to sit it on, or store it inside the front hatch. It's a far from ideal location, especially in a choppy sea.

I recently put together a 'double Flambeau box' setup that permitted dry storage for tackle, clothing and food as well as seperate dry storage for my frozen bait. Most importantly it fits very nicely into the tankwell area of my 2017 model Hobie Outback. Below is how it looked during the build stage.

It's very light and secures to existing strong points on the kayak. The boxes are physically joined with spacers, though I'll put a more detailed article up about this setup at a later date. Below is a photo of this combo-box rigged, ready for its maiden voyage.

I'm having to use the moulded in rod holders as there's no room to effectively mount rod storage tubes to this new box. Hence I'm effectively limited to two rods for this bait fishing configuration. Hopefully this won't prove too limiting as time progresses.

I'd purchased a rectangular hatch insert and added a divider using a section of nylon chopping board. This is screwed and glued into place, providing two watertight halves, ideally for keeping baits seperate as required. Below is a photo of the modified hatch insert and another of it loaded with bait prior to me launching. I'd previosuly had something very similar, though it had been sold with my old Outback.

In order to gain an extra 30-40 minutes on the water I decided to drag my kayak over the reef rather than wait for the tide to come over the mud flats. I'd forgotten just what an arduous task it was, though at least I was warm... very warm!

I headed out to my usual Cod fishing mark which put me onto an area of shingle. If you don't know the area well it's highly likely that you'll end up anchoring over mud and this has a dinstict effect on the species that you're likely to catch. Mud will consistently produce Thornback Rays, whereas fishing onto shingle tends to avoid them. The Cod fishing is generally much improved over the shingle, that's certainly my experience of this area over the years.

As can be seen in the above photo, the conditions were absolutely perfect!. It was rather cool at 1°C and the temperature never really rose above that throughout the session. After twenty minutes or so I dropped anchor and swung around into the tide. Baits were my standard Cod bait, namely lugworm and squid. I avoid using mackerel as it's way too attractive for the conger eel and rays, that said they will also take the squid, especially the eels. Though it does provide the best chance of hooking into a Cod. My rigs was a 6/0 Pennel using 80lb nylon. The heavy monofilament is fairly resistent to the small Conger that frequent the area.

Normally the eels have moved off into deeper water by this time of year as the water temperature falls. Previous years have seens the water temperature closer to 5/6°C, though this very mild winter is holding the water temperature at 9°C. This warmer water is far from ideal for Cod fishing plus it keeps the conger eels inshore.

The first half hour was rather quiet, though as the flood tide picked up the fish came onto the feed. The first fish was a strap conger of 6-8lbs,.... as were the next fifteen fish!. They're fun in the tide, though they weren't the target species. I did eventually have a bite that screamed Cod, a steady nod of the rod tip. Like an amateur I grabbed the rod and pulled into it, forgetting to be patient to allow the fish to mouth the bait for a little while. Well if it had indeed been a Cod, I missed it and there were to be no more chances.

I then hooked into something that felt different, a dogfish perhaps?. I really don't like dogfish, does anyone?. Though much to my surprise a Spotted Ray appeared next to the kayak. I've never caught one in these muddy waters before, the clearer waters further down the Channel can provide many, so this was a first for this mark.

As the tide slackened the fishing died off. I have had the odd big fish over slack water in years gone by, though it wasn't to happen on this session. The Whiting came onto the feed and for 20-30 minutes baits were swiftly removed the the hooks by these ravernous little fish.

This was my first trip with the new YakAttack Zooka2 rod holders. First impressions are good and I'll report back with a more detailed review in due course.

As sun began to set and the tide turned onto the ebb, a brisk wind started blowing from the East. The temperature plummeted and I soon lost the feeling in my feet. As the kayak swung about in the tide it also became ominously dark towards the North West.

I looked at my Iphone to check the weather. It was showing 60% charge and then the screen went black, it had switched off!. These lithium batteries do not like the cold at all. Without managing to get a weather update I could only go on what was happening around me and it wasn't particularly pleasant nor confidence inspiring. Despite having rigged my anchor light to allow me to fish safely into the dark, I decided to play it safe and headed back to shore.

Ah, the joys off landing back ashore with numb feet, I'd almost forgotten what it felt like!. I had planned to sleep overnight in the car, though it had become apparent during the session that I'd damaged my back whilst dragging the kayak across the reef. I certainly wasn't going to have a comfortable night in the car and it was highly unlikely that I'd be fit enough to fish the next day neither. I had some difficultly in de-rigging and loading the kayak back onto the car, so deciding to call it a day was a wise choice, a fact that was confirmed when I tried to get out of bed the next morning!.

I had a good chance to use my new YakAttack Zooka2's and Eagle Claw filleting knife, though I'll post a review up on both of those items shortly once I've another trip or two under my belt. That said this new filleting knife is a cracker, It's also my go to fish knife in the kitchen.

I'd left at 0600 and arrived back home at 2200, it'd been a long day. I had known in advance on this trip that the Cod were very thin on the ground. The water temperature really needs to fall and for that we need some wintery weather!. Unless the reports improve I'm not in a hurry to repeat this trip, it's a lot of effort. Though it was fun and I caught plenty of fish, no real complaints for my first trip of the year.

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!

2015 Fishing road Trip (Part 4)

Having departed the Bristol Channel the next trip saw us go in the hunt of Pollack off the Southern Cornish coast. I've fished this venue before and I was confident that it'd produce a good few fish for us. The launch at Cadgwith is straightforward enough over the heavy shingle beach, though recovery is somewhat more arduous!.

I love this area, once you push out from the launch the scenery is simply stunning. You see  kayaks just paddling around enjoying the views and I certainly can't blame them. However, we were here to fish and large Pollack were the prime target. We started off trolling as we headed westwards.

I was using a deep diver running 8-10 metres deep.  I had a hit quite early on and managed an average sized pollack which was a good start.

The wind direction wasn't ideal and it steadily increased preventing us from getting to the marks that I'd wanted to fish. We preservered, though the fishing was tough to say the least. We took a few more small fish, though the larger fish were highly elusive.

Having spoken to a local chap sometime later it transpired that the Pollack fishing was unseasonably late and wasn't expected to pick up for some time. Despite our best efforts we didn't fare too well, perhaps a little spoilt by our earlier successes?.

We called an end to the session early and drank more beer whilst planning another session at Sennen Cove. A group of kayak anglers had arranged to meet up the following day so we decided to join them. Sennen Cove is a popular surfing venue, one drive around the car park at midday will confirm this!. There was plenty of surf, though one side of the bay was sufficiently sheltered to launch. There's a harbour off to the left which is protected by a wall, a very sheltered launch spot, something that we'd be most grateful of at the end of the day.

Getting fresh bait is always a bit of a headache when visiting Cornwall. Local tackle shops are very limited with the only fresh bait being farmed worm with the chance of live sandeel when in season. Though the latter is never a cheap option. We were very short of bait (none!) so if we wanted any, we'd be catching it!

We headed out towards the centre of the bay and began feathering with some hokkais. I eventually found some shoals hard on the bottom, though they weren't the mackerel that I'd expected. They were instead Sandeel and they were coming up 3-4 at a time. I kept these in a rear tankwell were the regular sloshing of saltwater kept then alive without a problem. The Lowrance HDS 7 came in really handy whilst chasing the bait. Being able to utilise the structure scan to look left and right was most helpful in keeping me on the bait. There were also mackerel to be had and within 30 minutes we had plenty of fresh bait for the day.

I initially chose to anchor close to a drop off, though the tide was far stronger than I'd expected!. After carefully retrieving my anchor I moved 20 metres shore-side and the difference was amazing. Just a few metres took me out of the severe current . With a section of mackerel fillet down for bait I was soon into my first fish of the day, a Bullhuss.

I caught a couple more larger Bullhuss, though I failed to take photos as I was more into just enjoying the fishing. I'd planned to take some video during the week, though it never happened. It's nice to do, though at times it detracts from the fishing experience.

Daniel was having much better success spinning with Fiish Minnows and was catching some nice sized Pollack.

This caused me to change tactics and I started to fish with live sandeel, slowly fished on the drop and retrieve. Gosh, to say that it's an exciting way to fish is an understatement!. Most of the time my bait was hit halfway down on the drop, the bait being literally smashed with me having to hang onto the rod rather tightly!!!. I caught several nice Pollack to about 8lb using this method. I think that if I was to fish here again I'd take my livewell and fill it with Sandeel and spend the day targeting Pollack and Bass.

Below is the first fish I took to live Sandeel, not a monster but what fun!

I eventually fancied a change from Pollack fishing so I headed out towards towards two charter boats located further out into the bay and dropped anchor onto a clean sandy bottom. I was hoping for some Blonde and Spotted Rays so I baited up with some fresh mackerel on one rod and sandeel  on the other and the waiting game began.

The wait turned out to be quite short, a few nods of the rod tip and I felt the unmistakable weight of a ray hanging in the current, but what species??. A Blonde Ray broke the surface, another species for the trip!

This was the first of several, just one after the other, I certainly wasn't complaining. I then had a bite that was a little different and it certainly felt different once hooked up!. Something new?

Indeed it was, another new species to the kayak... a Turbot. A small specimen, but it was great to catch all the same.

Despite the ever building swell we continued to fish and catch throughout the day. Here's Daniel hooked up into a ray.

We eventually pulled anchor and headed over toward a reef that was looking a little intimidating due to the large swells that were rolling across it. We fished quite close in, picking up a few Pollack, though the swell continued to build. At the height of the tide the swell was large and it had started to detract from the fishing. There was clearly a lot of big surf hitting the whole of the beach... remember that small harbour to the side of the bay?. That's where we chose to recover to!

This bought our 10 day road trip to an end. We fished for 7 days, drove over 1200 miles and caught 23 species of fish totaling well over 750lb. It's definitely one of my most successful road trips and I have to thank Daniel van der Post for his excellent company. There were firsts for both of us and some great memories and plenty of empty beer bottles.

The 2016 road trip is already in the planning stages and it's likely that it will see myself and Daniel travel to Ireland, a completely new experience!

2015 Fishing Road Trip (Part 2)

Following on from Part 1, we left Pembrokeshire and headed down to the southern side of the Bristol Channel. I’d chosen to fish off Watchet, a place where I’ve enjoyed some fantastic autumn and winter fishing. Though this was summer, the water was warm so I was a little unsure as to how it would fish. 

It’s a pleasant location to fish, with an easy launch/recovery that’s only really hampered by a Northerly wind. The water is muddy, you’d have to travel several miles West to find clear water.

Expected species were Thornback Ray and Conger Eel, with a chance of a Smoothound. Baits were mackerel and squid fished on a simple running ledger rig. The tides were quite small so leads in the 4-8oz range would be adequate. I took Daniel further offshore into about 16m of water, to an area that has produced some superb fish for me in the past. Though as mentioned, this was summer fishing, so the big Cod and Conger eels weren’t going to be there. 

Despite the pleasant start to the day, the weather soon deteriorated and a sharp chop quickly developed across the sea. Though there were fish to be caught. We both caught several Thornback Ray and Conger Eel, though there were small fish compared to what I know can come out of this venue. That said, we were catching fish!

We were fishing two rods which saw one fish after another coming to the kayaks. It was busy fishing, never a dull moment!

Some fish were smaller than others!!. Below is a small Spotted Ray, not a particularly common species in the muddier waters of the Bristol Channel.

The weather had improved though a darkening horizon didn’t bode well, sadly I was proved correct a short time later.

We moved inshore out of the weather, though the decision was made that we’d enjoyed the best of the fishing and with the wind continuing to freshen, we decided to call it a day.

We’d stayed on the campsite on the top of the hill, just a mile or so west of Watchet. I’d certainly recommend it, hot showers and a great view, what more do you need?

The remainder of the day was spent drinking beer and planning the fishing for the next location, which was to be Cornwall. Target species were Gilthead Bream and Pollack, hopefully a few more would also be caught.