kiwimist

Been thinking about getting one mysef mate. I am 6' 3" so thanks for the comment bout butt length. Waiting for the jokes to come bout extra 6" on the butt !!!. Nice coding 4lb where did you catch it? Me mate went out from Walton in his boat on Monday 28th Jan, fished 6 hours on the flood had 6 codling all just over legal size, (no other species landed) all caught on squid. He reckons most of the spratt are gone. Cod guts contained mostly crab and shrimp.

Cheers Leon & 5 Bellies, Thanks for all the replies. sea anglers are a rare bunch, always ready to help with good quality advice. What you say about the sprats is probably very true. i have used them as bait in the past, but i don't think you can present them on the hook good enough to fool a decent cod. Good advice about the charter skippers Leon, but i have tried that one. My problem is that my boat only cruises at 8 knots, and all the charters usually go much quicker, therefore they fish marks that i can't get to. I have been giving this a lot of thought lately and it occurred to me that maybe some clever marine scientist somewhere knows about the behaviour of the fish around our coast. i mean specifically what is going on rather than generalising on habitat and behaviour etc. As anglers we we can improve our chances by increasing our knowledge. I am an all round angler and regularly go coarse fishing. it seems that fresh water anglers know far more about the habits and whereabouts of the fish they are hunting. I have never done any fly fishing but these guys seem really clued up. Obviously you can't compare Sea angling with any other branch of the sport, but i think we know far less about the specific habits of our quarry. Whenever i fish the crouch i know what i should be catching at most times of the year. i know which tides are likely to produce the best catches. i know what baits i prefer to use and how to present them. I know some good marks which have produced in the past. I believe that because the river crouch is nearly always murky that the fish must hunt by smell or perhaps their preyfish give off some other kind of signal. Most of our fishing is done on the bottom ranging from 20' to maybe 50' i imagine that there is very little light at this depth, so logic tells me the fish (cod whiting etc) must scent the bait. I still get the feeling that when i go out i am leaving most things to chance. I don't really know whats going on except from other anglers catches. I would feel much better equipped if i could be better informed. This forum is a great place to get advice but i would really like to know more. Do the fish congregate and stay in one stretch of the river for a while or as long as there is food for them? or are they on a journey to and from somewhere? are they always on the feed or do they just swim around sometimes not feeding? are they opportunist feeders or do they head for specific areas from previous knowledge? Why would different states of the tide affect the way they feed? Has anyone ever told you " the fish bite least when the wind is in the east" I personally find this hard to believe, how do fish feeding on the bottom know where east is? but in all my years fishing i have to say there is some truth in this. Immature codling are being caught regulary around the thames estuary and associated rivers. Do they stay until old enough to breed? if so how do they decide where to go? I know the breeding area for cod is far out into the north sea so they will be swimming south lets say around the begining of November. How do they decide whether to stay in the thames or swim up the blackwater or crouch etc. We can all guess as to the answers, but i would like to know the science behind the guessing Cheers to you all, won't using my boat for a while as she is out of the water for a tidy up, so might give JR a call.

Cheers stoaty & five bellies I used to moor my boat at Halcon's, Canvey Island and could motor down as far as Ramsgate (weather permitting) and we rarely if ever blanked. Problem was it was a mud berth and you could only get in and out on the top of the tide. it always seemed that the best tides were about 3am then you had to stay out for about 12 hours - not very convenient, as like Greengrass would say - i'm nearly an old age pensioner now! Part of the enjoyment is having a decent meal and a couple of pints on the way home, an it don't feel the same at 3 in the afternoon. That's why i moved to a marina berth on the Crouch, cause i can get in and out at almost any time i want. for the last 3 years the fishing has been diabolical. Just to put the record straight - I started fishing in the 60's usually out of southend or Hole Haven. During the winter months back then you nearly always caught good qualit cod. I remember that anything under 6lb was regarde as codling. Fish to 10lb -12lb were not unusual and 20lb plus was fairly regular. we were some of the first anglers to charter with John Rawle, so yes we know all about uptiding. other skippers out of Bradwell were bob Cox and Owen Wooley, also a chacter called " Black Jack". I wonder if anyone remebers him. John Rawle was always a skipper that gave good value for money, and i remember well the day that when uptiding was in it's infancy and we poo pooed JR for casting off a boat We were fishing the Deeps in the Thames Estuary. He had about a 5 - 6 foot trace, 4 oz grapple, with a 4/0 hook loaded with about 8 - 10 black lug, and sometimes tipped with squid or lug lobbed out about 50 - 60 yds uptide. We had traditional 6 foot boat rods, flowing trace 2/0 - 3/0 hooks baited with 1 or 2 lug dropped over the stern. this would have been around mid December 1973. Result - me and my mate had about 10 fish between us, the biggest an 8lb cod. J Rawle had 6 cod, the smallest 18lb. Those were the days. Anyway i have been a boat owner for the last 15 or so years and have fished regularly throughout the year. yeah i've had my fair share of really good catches especially Tope Roker and Bass. I like to think that i know what i'm doing and perhaps where i'm going wrong is comparing things now to what it used to be like. We regularly go down to the South coast and go out from Dover, and Brighton, and comparitively speaking they are all struggling to come up with decent catches. some of the underfished wrecks are still producing good catches of Cod and Pollack, but you now have to further than ever to find them. I only fish one rod, and in the winter always uptide. I agree with your comments on bait, and am always experimenting. Recently the few small codling that have been caught were stuffed full of sprats. Perhaps that is why our baits are not working very well - who knows. So if anyone is looking for a nice old 27' grp diesel cruiser - fully fitted with all mod cons inc colour chart plotter/blown air heating/flush toilet/bait fridge etc etc i'll probably sell up soon including the prime mooring paid for 2008. cheers, and thanks for the reply's.

my wife tells me i'm mutating into victor Meldrew every time i come back from fishing. The last time i posted a topic on the poor fishing for the past two years in the River Crouch, I blamed the lack of fish on "global warming" and over fishing. A few of you thought that the reason was bad weather or the influx of freshwater during the heavy rains towards the end of 2007. Well, I am a pleasure fisherman and have been for the past 50 years. I have a nice boat moored on the Crouch. How often have you heard anglers say " Even if i don't get a bite i still had a lovely day". That USED to be me. It's wearing a bit thin now though because the bad days were usually tempered by the good days. I like to fish the run of whiting every year normally starting about late October thru to February, and a second rod baited with a pennel rig for cod. the following is taken from my boats log: November - three trips down the Crouch, one by the 'goalposts' two in the 'Whittaker Channel' weather cold wind either south or SW 3-4. Bait frozen squid, black lug, frozen mackeral, fresh jumbo prawn and large mussels. Result for 39 hours fishing = 2 whiting - 2 codling - 1 bass all undersize. " i don't believe it" December = 3 trips as November = 2 blanks and 1 trip again with a few undersized fish. i also fished on a friends 30' boat out of Walton-on-Naze. 3 trips so far, all in the felixstowe area which i believe is classed as the North Sea. My friend only believes in using Squid bait this time of year. results = 1st trip early November lots of small spotted dogfish, most were returned. 2nd trip late November 1 flounder between 3 anglers. 3rd trip December 1 pouting 1 tiny whiting. Is it me? am i doing something wrong after fishing these waters constantly for the last 40 years. HELP please stop me from turning in to Mr Meldrew. Just got the reminder in to pay the half yearly mooring fee's - is it worth it. Should i sell my boat and just use charter boats in more productive areas, it would probably work out cheaper! Anyone got any ideas on what can be done to improve our fishing in the areas mentioned.

Fishing the River Crouch (Essex) has improved!!! (slightly) Slipped the moorings in Bridgmarsh Marina thursday 0530am 1.11.07. went out on the ebb. S.O.G averaged 7 knots, wind was about a 3 WNW. dropped anchor 2hrs later in the Whittaker Channel. Fished for 2hrs -no bites! Upped anchor and moved back upstream. Was going to fish the goal posts but the MOD were firing and you can't fish there when they fly the red flags. Although not marked on the chart a small deep hole showed up on the chart plotter and we dropped anchor. Stayed there the rest of the day. Bait was Fresh Lug, small frozen squid and frozen mackeral. Once the tide had turned and started to run, the bites started. Total for the day was about 15 fish. 2 codling on lug/squid, 1 nice whiting on mackeral, the rest were undersized. At about 1pm we were visited by what i think was a grey seal. It popped its head up about 40-50 feet behind the boat. It watched as an undersized fish was returned then dived and surfaced with it in its mouth. it did this a number of times! All in all a great improvement on the last trip, but a bit dissapointed in the size of the fish caught. We only ever keep enough for the pot and always return specimens, but in the Crouch this hasn't happened often. Went out with a mate 3 weeks ago. His boat is kept at Titchmarsh, Walton on Naze. He only had Squid as bait. We fished about a mile off Walton Pier. bites came fast and furious and we caught loads of smallish lesser spotted dogfish, i returned all of mine except one. 6 hours fishing, just the one species. will be going out again soon i hope, might try the Roach for a change. Does anyone know how well the Roach fishes this time of the year, and are there any favourite marks, cheers, Mike

Hi Ken Hope you are right mate, but i'm not convinced. I'm the last one to be a prophet of doom, but i've seen the quality of fishing in the Thames, Crouch & Blackwater worsen over the last few years. Mullet don't seem to be affected, but the numbers of decent size whiting & bass have definately been less than in previous years We all know that the Tope are down in numbers, but what about the Flatties & Eels? I boat fish regularly throughout the year from venues as far apart as Clacton down to Weymouth. It seems to me that the Thames area is the worst place to fish! I know that Autumn and Winter have traditionaly been the best times to fish these areas with periods April & May and September being the quietest. But i have never 'blanked' before. I try to bring this subject up with any local fisherman i meet and have had various theroies put forward from "the stopping of dumping raw sewage from barges in the Thames Esturay" "Illegal commercial netting" "expanding Seal population" "Global warming" I'll keep fishing till i'm to old to handle my boat, but what's the point if there's no fish?

Don't know about freshwater ingress causing poor fishing in Thames. Most of the country had loads of rain, and other rivers don't seem badly affected. I've been sea angling (boat) for over 40yrs in this area, and never known it so bad! 2 years ago i moved my boat from Canvey to the River Crouch. I Think the Crouch is even worse than the Thames. A friend of mine moved his boat from the Crouch to Walton-on-Naze, and tells me the fishing at the moment is very poor! I fished the outer Crouch 3 weeks ago from marks that have produced in the past. I moved three times, 14 hours without one bite! that's a first for me. Would be interested in any credible theories. I wonder how the commercial fisherman are doing?