Snatcher

Cullercoats sunrise,this one made the BBC weather slot (Northeast and Cumbria) Since being booted out of Photobucket finding this IMGUR fine so far http:// John

Still finding IMGUR fine,used it a few times now. Cullercoats sunrise from 2 weeks ago.">http:// John

They will have a very long time to wait in my case then. All I used Photobucket for was third party hosting :-) All of my images are stored on duplicated hard drives. Would not trust anyone else with them !!! John

Yes it was getting a right pain to use compared to the early years. I take it that will be thousands of image links to threads now broken to forums such as this around the world ? John

When did did Photobucket change their third party hosting policy then as had not been on it for ages. Oh well its their loss,am voting with my feet. Have just registered with IMGUR and this is a trial for me to see how it works We spend a large part of the summer over in our static caravan in Drummore,Mull of Galloway - its on the most southerly tip of Scotland. Anyway bought a new outside table for the veranda and this was my first attempt to get reflections from it. http:// John

Port Logan sunset http:// John

Whitley Bay sunrise http://

Sunrise over Luce Bay. Took this from our caravan door 06 July 2015 John

You are right in what you say gozzer Their draw is irresistable.. We are very fortunate in having a lot of babies/toddlers in our life. Check out our youngest grandson Oscar,he is a babe magnet John

Cullercoats Bay sunrise John

Very dramatic sky Phone John

Whitley Bay sunrise. I took it from the south end of the beach. John

Not an expert but try and pick the night of the new moon or at least try and keep the moon out of your shot Good shooting John

Anyone notice the 2 meteorite captures in it ? One very faint. Will add a few more now John

A startrail I shot at Kirkmaiden cemetary,Drummore,Mull of Galloway. Stacked 120 x 30 second exposures for this one John

Was put onto this company by recommendation and cannot praise them enough :clap2: Have used them on a couple of occasions now. Just today got my Sigma 18 - 200mm lens back from them - its like new. Free estimates by a small well run,friendly family based company. You heard it here first http://www.camerarepairworkshop.co.uk/repairs.htm John

John

Ha ha,funny as :bigemo_harabe_net-163: http://newsthump.com/2014/03/06/newcastles-alan-pardew-to-wear-matchday-cone-to-protect-opposition/ John

Cullercoats Harbour 03 Feb 2014 It was a nice morning to take the camera out John

Sunrise,Tynemouth 12 December 2013. It has to rate as one of the most vivid I have ever seen/photographed. For the space of 2/3 minutes it was like being in an "orange world". It was a goosebump moment !!! John

Best of luck mate

As usual during the school summer holidays our two oldest grandsons,Wayne and Lewis,spent a week with us here in our caravan in Drummore. It is a static located on the Clashwhannon Caravan Park overlooking Luce Bay and where the wife and I stay for most of the summer. As soon as they arrived they asked me if they would be going boat fishing again. My mate Tom Stevenson kindly took them out on their first ever boat fishing trip last summer. I told them that if the weather was ok they would be having another trip out with Tom. Firstly I had a shore fishing session lined up for them and that involved bait digging. It was a first for the boys and a lot harder than they thought. After about half an hour we had collected enough lugworm for a shore session. Although both boys can swim I wanted to take them to a safe shore mark with a minimum of climbing so after a 10 minute yomp from the car we arrived at our fishing spot. I rigged both boys up with sliding floats and had them casting out just a few yards as we had deep water at our feet. The first bit of excitement we had was Lewis falling in. I should have put money on it - this is the lad who got his head stuck in the railings at Buckingham Palace !!!!! I was expecting the lads to start catching small wrasse and pollack fairly quickly but all they were getting were a few tentative bites. The next bit of excitement was grandad having to strip off and go in to rescue a reel handle that had "mysteriously" worked itself loose and dropped in the water. I have to say that this did amuse the boys. Eventually Wayne did manage to catch a small wrasse. Here he is with the fish before I unhooked it and carefully returned it to fight another day. We gave it another hour after that wrasse had been caught but with no further bites we headed back to the car. The boys had enjoyed it so that was the main thing. Next up a days fishing in Toms boat "Joshua". Tom has a static van on the Sands of Luce Caravan Park and like us spends quite a bit of the year there. We launched from Sandhead beach and headed out looking for mackerel for bait. Tom was the main fishing coach and I was photographer. Here is Tom giving Wayne a bit coaching. We did not take long to find the mackerel. Here is Wayne with a full house. Lewis also got amongst them. The plan was to try and get the lads amongst the tope so out went whole mackerel for baits. We gave this a good few hours but the tope had not read the script and it was not to be. We then fixed the lads up mackerel strip hoping to find the boys a few species. Here is Wayne with a tub gurnard. Lewis with a dogfish After this the wind got up a bit and the conditions got unsuitable for the boys. At this point we decided to pack in but not before Tom gave the boys a turn each at the wheel on the way back in. What a great adventure it had been for the boys and I cannot thank Tom enough for that. It was a great day out in great company. Back at the caravan mackerel on the BBQ rounded the day off nicely. With the boys away now the caravan seems strangely quiet !!!! They did ask if they could stay for 2 weeks next summer though. John

Just got my Sigma 18 - 200mm lens repaired by this company. Cannot sing their praise enough,very good prices and free estimates. You heard it here first http://www.camerarepairworkshop.co.uk/repairs.htm John

Eric is a top bloke and a keen angler himself. Give him a bell or call in for top local info http://www.fishingstranraer.com/ Tight lines John

This final report has me fishing up at Lake St Clair,about a 3 hours drive north of Sydney. This is an annual "lads weekend" which has been happening for years now and I was kindly invited along. The main target was freshwater bass. One of my ozzie fishing mentors,Frank picked me up at my daughters place in Frenchs Forest at 10am in the morning. In total there would be 7 anglers and 4 boats. When we arrived just after noon there were just two more anglers to turn up. We pitched up our tent and then helped erect the sunshade - it was screaming hot !!!! What a beutiful place this was and was quite busy as it was a bank holiday weekend. There were a lot of families camped around the lake and most of them had canoes/boats/paddle boards. All of the kids were wearing life jackets when out on the water which was good to see. One of the lads,Steve,had been there since the Wednesday and had 3 bass in his onboard fish tank. He showed them to me before releasing them. It was suggested that Steve took me out on the Thursday evening to try and get me my first bass. I jumped at the chance. I have since found out that Steve is one of the top bass anglers in NSW. We set out about an hour before dusk and Steve rigged me up with a threadline spinning outfit and a small surface splasher. The line was 6lb braid !!!! Steve switched on his small electric engine and slowly moved us along parallel to the shore. He said that the bass would be close in toward the bank hiding in the various structures. He said cast as close to the bank as you can and slowly tweak the lure in with frequent pauses. We just had to wait about 5 minutes before Steve got his first take which did not hook up. He just left his lure be as he said that if the bass did not feel the hooks it may come back for a second go - exactly what I do in Luce Bay. Anyhow that fish did not come back but he did hook up a few minutes later and what a great scrap on light gear. Dusk had now fallen and we were just casting by the light of the moon. I did manage to put the lure onto the bank a few times but luckily it came off each time. Eventually I did manage to hook up and here is my first Australian bass. A quick picture and back it went. At the end of our session Steve had caught and released 3 bass and missed about 7 or 8 fish. I had taken the one and missed two. By the time we had got back to camp there was a good log fire going,grub was being cooked and the other two blokes had arrived. I was introduced as Snatcher or the pommy ******* - ha ha the craic was good. It was all good natured **** taking and the ozzies had me creased up at times. By tradition we all got canny full on the beer and wine on that first night - apart from Steve who said he was going out again before sunrise. By the time we got out of our scratchers Steve had been out,caught two more bass and was starting the breakfast. Kangaroo,bangers and eggs. Very tasty. These lads were well organised and had brought along a couple of generators and fridges. It was far too hot to fish through the day so we just sat under the shade and told fishing tales to each other. We all tried a couple of more evening session but no more bass were taken - they had went off the feed for some reason. Picture of me fishing in Franks boat. I could tell that the main purpose of this trip was just to have an annual meet and have a laugh. Any fishing was a bonus to this crew. On the Saturday night one of the boys cooked us some damper on the fire. It is traditional ozzie camping tucker and very nice it was too. We broke camp on the Sunday morning and the bass total for the 4 days was Steve 8/9 bass and Snatcher one bass. Nobody else managed to get one to the boat. Here is a final picture of 5 of the mottley crew. Well I hope you have enjoyed my ozzie reports from this year. As it happens there could well be more later on this year as we are planning on heading back over in October for a couple of months. Hopefully you should get a few reports from me over the summer from the Mull of Galloway. John