Snatcher

Hi Dave We arrive in Sydney 06 Feb after a 3 night stop-over in Singapore. We leave Sydney on 02 May to head back to the UK. For the most part we plan to stay with our daughter in Freshwater. We have already booked a two week trip over to Perth though,27 Feb till 12 March. I plan to try a reef charter or two when in Perth - any info on this ? I did leave some fishing gear in Sydney after my last trip and have already arranged some fishing trips with some guys off the Sydney Fishing Forum. They are a good bunch of blokes. Will also hire a car at some stage and have a slow drive up the coast to Brisbane,fishing as I go. Would be great to hook up with you if possible when out there. What adventures have you got planned on this trip ? John

Hi Klaus,drop these guys a line,the Maltese fishing club. I found them very friendly on my visit there. Their treasurer at the time (Alex Cianti I think his name was) even took me out fishing in his boat. Hope this helps John

Well thats our caravan in Drummore now "winterised" and us back in sunny Whitley Bay !!! Fishing wise it has been a good year with many happy outings to reflect on. First off I do enjoy coaching younsters,in fact I get a bigger buzz out of seeing them catch fish than catching fish myself. Think my star pupil of the year was Hannah. Check her out with this Mull of Galloway wrasse. Had my 2 oldest grandsons spend a few days with us in Drummore. I did not get the chance to take them out fishing but took them onto Drummore beach for their first casting lesson. Check out Wayne casting here. And Lewis really going for it. Another cracking day I had was when I showed a mate of mine from the caravan site one of my favourite pollack marks. Nick had 5/6 good pollack about this stamp. All carefully returned to fight another day. The "Sharkatag 2011" event held in June this year was spoilt by the weather for 2 of the 3 days. I fished with Toonfireman on the first day in his boat Joshua. We did manage to catch/tag/release two tope though. On the day he was the thornback king and check out this beautifully coloured tub gurnard he caught. Another memorable day was having my annual "wrasse bash" with Udderman. This guy must have some secret ingredient he rubs on his bait !!!! Lets just say I came a rather poor second to the "master". He even caught this pollack on a bare hook with no bait on and to make matters worse he had borrowed my spare reel as his had buggered up. Also had a cracking day out in Luce Bay with Dr Dietrich Burkle. He had kindly invited me out to fish a day with him on board "Onyermarks" skipped by the old sea dog Ian Burrett. The tope had not read the script and we only managed one fish each but the craic was oh so good. Here is Dietrich with his fish. Fishing is not without its dangers as you all know but I escaped relatively lightly this year only donating a small amount of DNA to the Mull of Galloway rocks !!!! Mind you nearly lost my mate George into the tide race at Lagvag. The majority of my shore fishing involves lure fishing for bass. I do not report on this side of my angling but will say that I have had a very good year fishing venues from the Inner Solway all the way up to the Ayrshire coast. Was kindly given a load of soft plastics this year to try out for the bass. The bass seemed rather keen on this crayfish/lobster imatation. I will have to experiment further with it next year. I also took the plunge and invested in a new bass rod. I was pointed in the right direction off a good friend and this is what I went for. I cannot praise it highly enough. Its light,casts a lure a long way and being 12' long is great for controlling fish when close in and avoiding rocks/weed. I did enjoy fishing lure vs bait on a west facing storm beach with two mates a short while back. We arrived there at dusk and they had 2 bait rods out each,I persisted with my Sonik spinning rod/controller float/holographic sandeel. I had the only bass of the session,the bait rods only accounting for one dogfish. I put most of my bass back but this one I kept for the pan. Well they are some of the highlights of my season. It is a special part of the world. Check out the view of Luce Bay from our caravan veranda,you could not buy a view like that. Due to a 3 month return trip to Australia we will not be opening the caravan again until May 2012. On the plus side will hopefully have lots of Australian fishing reports to write up on my return. John

Ha ha the kids (34 and 30 now !) bought us Sally Satnav for our anniversary in March. Well you have to move with the times Not used it loads but I have found it ok MOST of the time. Tends to **** up in the towns when new roundabouts appear/dissapear and new road layouts confuse it. Sally is fine BUT ALWAYS FOLLOW THE MAP as well John

Never logged on here for a few month. Been chilling out in our retreat in Drummore,Mull of Galloway. Have done a lot of fishing and some photography Problem is in Drummore is our/my Internet access. Got a Vodafone dongle for the lappy in our caravan but for stuff like downloading/uploading photos - forget it. Tales a lifetime Got WiFi in the cafe in the village but just use it to Skype with our family out in Australia. Back over to Drummore 26 Sept for our last stint of the season - for 2/4 weeks. Will try and be more active on the forum on our return John

Awesome is indeed the word :notworthy: :notworthy: John

Good sport those "tope sharks" Elton. Fished for them twice this year in Luce Bay and managed to catch,tag and release three of them. Great sporting fish on the right gear. John

This pollacking session involved 3 intrepid anglers from the Clashwhannon Caravan Park - George,young Nick (relatively young to us) and my good self. After our last pollacking expedition in which George nearly finished up in the drink the auld goat fancied an even harder mark to climb down to this time !!! It had produced good fish for us in the past but we had not fished it for a few years. We arrived at the top of the cliffs about 2 hours after lw. By the looks of it nobody had been down this year,no sign of any path. After a few wrong turns we got the to electric cattle fence. We all crawled under that with no shocks but a few nettle stings for our efforts. It was a very careful scramle down the cliff next,just a few minor slips !!!! We got to our fishing base and tackled up. George and Nick elected for a float set up with mackerel strip and I decided to start off spinning with a 6" holographic sandeel. Nick was first in and what a scrap !!! He eventually got it near to the rock edge and George decided to go down and "hand" it in. It was a decent pollack about the 6lb stamp. George got hold of the line just as the fish decided to make a final bid for freedom. The fish won,check out one embarassed George and Nicks float drifting away never to be seen again. It was not his fault but we got some mileage out of it !!!! Nick was in next again with a small pollack on the float. I had had a few small pollack when I was hit by a really good fish. I could not do a thing with it and it just "smoked" line until the hook pulled out. Think I swore at this point. Oh well thats fishing for you. A few minutes later I managed to get a better fish out. In the meanwhile George was struggling and all he could get was the smaller pollack,good sport non the less though. Here is Nick with another pollack And another one At the end of the session Nick and I had about 10 pollack each and George about 5/6. A most enjoyable 3 hours or so off the rocks. The climb back really done me in - aye its a young mans game. All fish were safely returned to fight another day. John

Never been on here for ages team,too busy enjoying myself at our Mull of Galloway "hideout" Here is a shot I took of Drummore harbour,in colour it looked really drab but a b and w conversion perks it up !!! This is a classy bird I stumbled over the other day John

I was fishing the first day of "Sharkatag 2011" with Tom aka Toonfireman. We launched from Sandhead in his boat Joshua shortly after 07.00am. We headed out a short distance and dropped our mackerel lures over the side. First drop we were into them and quickly had enough for our hookbaits. Tom had prepared the rubby dubby the day before. Off we headed to the Ardwell bouy and down went the anchor with our rubby dubby of mashed up mackerel attached. We did not have long to wait for tope action and Tom was first in. It seemed like a real good fish and he was gutted when the hook pulled out. Tom was next in again,this time with a thornback. It was quickly returned to the water. Next in again was Tom,this time with a dogfish. Eventually I got a good take and leaned into the fish. I was using circle hooks for the first time so did not strike as usual. After a spirited fight I got the 17lb fish to the surface. It was duly tagged,photographed and carefully released. Tom was next it and again the fish threw the hook. Oh well thats fishing !!!!! Next in was Tom again with another thornback,it came in upside-down as the line was caught around its tail. Again I had another good take and after another good scrap got the 20lb tope to the surface. It was quickly tagged and released and away it sped. Things went a bit quiet so we decide on a move. On lifting the anchor we found that the rubby dubby onion sack had had a real mauling by the tope. On the way over to Sandhead platform we stopped briefly to get some more mackerel bait. It was here that Tom pulled up a really nice tub gurnard. Once anchored up we settled down for the expected tope action. Nope it was Tom and his thornback chums again. We decided to tag this one Over the day Tom managed 6 skate to my none. He also brought in a few doggies to my none. Those tope can be sly at times,never felt the tope munch my bait in half. Things went really dead so I decided to jiggle by bait a bit. It resulted in an immediate smash hit off a tope and another good scrap from a 20lb fish. Duly tagged and released. During this time Tom hooked the smallest tope I have ever seen,it was far too small to tag so it was quickly released By this time,with the wind getting up we decided to call it a day. We had been out nearly 8 hours so it was a good call. A cracking day out in good company with 3 tope and 1 thornback tagged. Many thanks for a great day out Tom John

Yes the very man,well spotted John ps,he can still talk the hind legs off a donkey

George and I had not had a pollacking session out this year yet so with a favourable weather forcast we decided today was going to be it. After a debate on the venue we decided on a Solway one with a steep climb down. To be honest with 130 years amassed between us this mark really was on our limit. I am a right woosie when it comes to rock climbing and my arse was putting all of the way down until we arrived at our fishing "platform". Having to actively look for hand and footholds whilst also carrying your fishing gear has always filled me with trepedation !!!!! Who mentioned soft Geordie out there ? When we arrived at the bottom of the cliff I was pleasantly suprised to find the mark in pristine condition. In the past I have usually had to do a "wombling" job here but not this time. All we had to pick up was 100+ metres of discarded braid dumped by some thoughtless angler. Pollack was our prime target on this one so it was down to George to get us fresh mackerel bait using his beachcaster. First cast seen him bring in 4 mackerel. Two more casts and we had enough for our planned 4 hour session. George then switched to a conger rig on his beachcaster and dropped the whole mackerel bait fairly close in and set the reel rachet. It was to be spinning gear for the pollack. I was using a 9' rod/fixed spool reel/15lb mono. George had a similar set up but was using braid. After knotting up a few times on casting he said he wished he was still on mono. At the business end I tried a 6" holographic sandeel first,I am not too sure what George tried first. Anyway George was first in with a pollack which was carefully unhooked and returned. I was next in with a small coalfish. We had arrived dead on low water which is what you want for this mark. You can normally manage 3/4 hours after this before the strong rip forces you off. George and I got a few more pollack each and then it went real quiet for about an hour. During this period I decided to try a sliding float with limpet for bait right close in for wrasse. This resulted in one missed bite. The limpet had that surgical tell-tale wrasse bite out of it. As the flood picked up so did the fishing and the size of the pollack improved. It was at this stage that George nearly fell in. He was scrambling down to "hand in" a decent pollack for me when he slipped on the rocks. He finished up inches from going in,scraped his shin and took a chunk out of his hand. I had visions of me diving in after him. We should all really concider wearing life jackets when fishing marks like this. I have been saying this to myself for years but still have done nothing about it !!! Towards the end of the session we were picking up the pollack on leadheads with a 3" strip of mackerel on. The secret is not to strike with this technique and ignore the tentative plucks. The fish will hook themselves if they really want the bait. We eventually called it a day after 4 hours. Between us we had approximately 30 pollack to just over 3lbs. I reckon George just shaded it over me. The climb back up seemed to take for ages with all of the "rest" stops we had to make. All in all a good pollacking session with all of the fish being carefully returned. John ps All we left behind were footprints and some of Georges blood

Not a problem John

A shore bass session was well overdue for me so I duly loaded up the car and set off to a local mark. I set up with a 20g controller float and a 6" holographic sandeel on a 9' trace. Conditions were not ideal as Luce Bay was still a bit dirty from a stir up and there was quite a bit of floating weed. Now when fishing the bay Sammy the seal normally turns up within a few minutes and true to form he was there after I had made only a few casts. To make matters worse he brought his girlfriend along with him this time. I gave it a good hour,moving along the shore after each cast. Tried a few different lures but nothing worked,also the seals kept pace with me along the shore. Would have tried a surface lure but there were too many terns and gannets flying overhead. Decided to give it up as a bad job and headed back to the caravan. On the plus side a mate of mine from the village had invited me out as deckie on his boat the following day. I always enjoy a spin out on the "Scorpion" with Eric. To those who do not know Drummore harbour it drains completely at low water and the mouth is badly silted up. In real terms this meant that we would get about 3/4 hours fishing in. Met up with Eric next morning and we carefully negociated the harbour entrance. We also had David with us for company,a lad off the Clash caravan park. The Onyermarks boats were launching off Drummore beach at the same time. Took a couple of pictures of the harbour mouth as we were leaving. Not the best eh !!! We headed out to the drop-off first and down went the mackerel lures. Into action on the first drop,a couple of joeys which I managed to shake off over the water. The mackerel really did vary in size and were thick on the ground. I had about 5 full houses. Eric likes to drift so that was us apart from dropping the anchor for a brief 15 minute period. We all had various baits on but all that came to the boat were dogfish. I decided to put down a tope trace - well shy bairns get nowt !!! Also put on a whole mackerel and not a flapper as I was trying to avoid the doggies. Guess what,the doggies even managed to swallow these. As far as the catch went it was poor but as usual the craic was mint. Took this photo of the Isle on Man on the way back in. Looking forward to the "Sharkatag" next but planning to wedge a few more fishing sessions in before then. John

Thanks for that John

Some interesting stuff there,nice one John

Good entertainment,the wife and I really look forward to watching it every week Its a travel show with some fishing and Geordie daftness chucked in !!!! He has cut out a lot of the swearing from the last series which is good. Robson is not an angler,just an actor doing some fishing Even the wife has a good giggle at his casting and says she can cast better than him. Keep up the good work son,its the only thing worth watching on tv at the moment John

Lovely colours boys,well done John

Oystercatchers and a gannet,nice one. Could watch gannets diving all day !!!! John

What total toss pots John

Aye mixed emotions for us Bobj,real happy for them but they will be a big miss Now thinking of coming over mid January 2012 for 3 months It will give the 3 of them time to get settled into the Sydney area before we visit. When does the wet season finish Bobj ? Plan to hire a car and have a slow tour up the coast to Port Douglas Will be staying at the Big 4 sites,we found them fine last time. Would be great to meet up and catch a few fish together John

The very thought of some lads attacking someone on a disabled scooter is the lowest of the low,bloody animals Just pleased she gave one of them a "Geordie kiss" Good for her John

Now that would make some awesome footage !!! John

Facinating creatures,the favourite food of sperm whales John

Nice story Chris and I can tell you love the area If you PM me your e-mail addy will whiz it down the line mate John