Toerag

Weather has changed now, was up to F7 overnight. As stolen word for word (spelling and grammar corrected) off www.alderneyangling.com :- 20th October I now wish I did daily reports for the festival, there is so many good fish being caught and I have been so busy unable to update site. So here we go.................. with out doubt the best of the fishing has been with the Tope. The Channel Island record has gone with a fish of 50lb 8oz to Steve Mullins. There have been 6 fish at this stage over forty pound and many over thirty plus a couple over 40lb caught by pleasure anglers. Some big fish have been lost through being 'spooled' out. Conger fishing has been good too, at this stage a 41lb'er is the top fish with 3 others over 30lb and 2 at 29lb. A further 6/7 fish over 25lb have been taken and quite a lot in the 15 to 25lb bracket. Wrasse- The top one is 6lb 7oz, with three others over 6lb. Top Bass is 7lb 2oz so far with two others over the qualifying weight of 6lb. Plaice and Sole categories are slow with a 3lb 7oz and 2lb 5oz Plaice, and a 2lb 7oz Sole over their qualifying weights. Black Bream, best fish 3lb 7oz, several over 3lb. Thick lipped Mullet, best 5lb 12oz, another over 5lb and 8 or so fish over 4lb. 21lb 8oz Blonde Ray came off Breakwater. Best Couches is 1lb 10oz with several others on the board, Cuckoo Wrasse to 1lb 8oz, Bull Huss to 10lb 8oz, Red Gurnards to 1lb 8oz. These fish mentioned are just the ones that have reached the high qualifying weights. Weather is just about to turn so we'll see if that changes anything. 21st October Three Bass from Braye Bay last night, 13lb 5oz and two weights to confirm but they are around 11lb and 7lb. Shared between two anglers. Platte Saline fished better for bits last night as no Tope showed. Couches and Black Bream, Pollack, Coalfish, Sole and several Plaice came out, one of which at 2lb 12oz went on the board.

You need heavier blocks, or ones with more friction/surface area.

Another update. This was in the Guernsey Press today and is as far as the 1st 30 hours of the competition so mostly out of date, but it gives you an idea of the general standard of fishing:- Tope 41-0 Steve Harder UK 40-8 Derek Spears UK 37-0 Chris Eastwood AY 34-8 Will Scott UK 33-8 Martin Rawlings UK Conger 27-0 Jack Gavey J 26-8 Andy Rogers Bass 6-0 Brian Thomas Bull huss 10-15-6 Graham Hazell Garfish 1-2-14 Dick Smith AY Couch's Bream 1-10-6 Nigel Bowditch AY Black Bream 3-7-12 Paul Osbourne AY 3-2-4 Simon Drieu 3-0-4 Jasper Osborne AY Grey Mullet 4-9-4 Graham Le Gresley J? 4-8-2 Andy Hedges UK 4-5-4 Martin Hubbard

....Just don't expect many possibilities for travel home at the end of the festival! More news:- smallest Tope on the leaderboard is 41lb! A Jerseyman called Steve Mullins has had the 50lber. Derek Spear has had 8 tope and is solely fishing for them now as it's so much fun! Unfortunately the tope have completely dominated the 'best other species over 5lb' category so the 7lb small-eyed & 21lb blonde rays caught yesterday haven't been entered! Best bass 7-2 best flatty plaice 3-7 smallest conger on the board is 32lb [ 20. October 2004, 05:08 PM: Message edited by: Toerag ]

Yeah, the locals started getting burnt thumbs and bite-offs when fishing for bream with squid baits a couple of weeks ago! General concensus is that the tope are feeding on huge numbers of cuttlefish which have come inshore, everything the Alderney commercial guys are gutting is stuffed with them. A couple of years ago someone landed a 65lb'er at Platte Saline beach which was foul hooked in a fin, so the potential for a new british record is well on the cards. The aforementioned Mr. Smith and his son anchored up 400yds out last week in their 21ft orkney and in an hour and a half hooked 10, landing 5 of them to 42lb. For more info check out www.alderneyangling.com and read the latest reports page. Although there hasn't been anything for this week it gives a good idea of the fishing in general. Unfortunately there's not likely to be any accomodation left Spur-hound!

They are vunerable to overfishing though, but it's better to try to eat one that you can't put back than chucking it in the bin.

Update - Last night was tope city, smallest on the 'other species' leaderboard is 39lb, and there's 5 places!! Biggest is 50-14-3 , new Bailiwick & C.I. record. Other notable fish:- conger - 39lb (small for the festival) 3 wrasse over 6lb, biggest 6-13 (ditto) Grey mullet 5-5 Golden grey 2-10 (will be a new Sea Angler 'mission' record I think.) No names other than the golden grey & garfish were caught by local Richard Smith. [ 19. October 2004, 06:40 PM: Message edited by: Toerag ]

Actually the odds of breaking a record are pretty good, plus there's quite a prize table of Daiwa tackle for the best fish of each species etc.

For those that didn't know, it's the Alderney Angling Festival this week. It's a week-long roving shore competition fished on a specimen basis with prizes for various species categories based on percentages of Bailiwick of Guernsey records. 2 weigh-ins a day, 'catch and release' encouraged. I will try to get daily updates off my mate over there, but so far the following fish have been weighed in:- 2-12 golden grey mullet 1-2 garfish 3-7 black bream I am expecting tope to feature heavily in the 'shark-like' category as a 48lb'er was landed the day before the festival started and quite a few have been taken in the past week.

See the big 'Win £10,000' advert at the top of the Seafishing forum page On the subject of C.I. competitions, the Alderney festival is on this week, and there have already been quite a few tope to 48lb landed OFF THE SHORE!!!! I'll start another thread when I hear more from my mate over there.

Oh, by the way, had a visitor caught this fish then they could have been £10,000 richer!!

Update - the jumping out of gear problem became significantly worse on saturday, so I stripped it last night. As I suspected, the hole in the right hand sideplate for the thumb-bar pin had been letting seawater into the RH sideplate. There was a major buildup of crap around the freespool mechanism, along with plenty of pitting. Why do ABU insist on using dissimilar metals in the area most prone to water ingress? There was also a good collection of grease on the plastic bar carrying the pinion gear. I suspect a combination of this grease and the salt/grease mush was stopping the pinion gear bar from sliding on it's supporting posts and re-engaging properly. I will let you know the results next time I use it. On another note, what other quality small reels with a decent drag are sealed against water ingress, ie. no push button freespool? And does anyone want a 1 year old ABU 6600C3 LD....? [ 18. October 2004, 12:33 PM: Message edited by: Toerag ]

I'd try it with all the blocks, it'll be a lot faster now the levelwind's gone. Once you're used to that, then take the blocks out gradually.

quote: Originally posted by Salar: Wouldn't cooking ruin the natural juices? I guess the scent wouldn't be quite the same, but it makes the fish a lot easier to mush up, and still creates a nice slick on the surface. Perhaps an alternative would be to slowly freeze/thaw the fish a load of times to make the flesh break up. A mate of mine used to leave fish in a bucket to decompose, but the smell is just too disgusting for me. More pleasant (but only just!) to whack a dozen garfish (topped, tailed & gutted) in a big bowl in the microwave on 'high' for 8 minutes then mush it up and tip it into an ice-cream tub and freeze it for future use. [ 18. October 2004, 12:18 PM: Message edited by: Toerag ]

There was a programm on these waves last year, they started putting a hydrofoil under their boards to stop the chop on the water knocking them off. Looked very bizarre surfing a foot above the water surface, but worked a treat.

Would you not be better off starting fishing at 2-2.5hours after low water, that way your bait is covered quickly as the tide rises fastest over the middle 2 hours? Why are you bothering with 1/0 hooks too, if you're going to wait for a bass you may as well use a big bait for a big fish. 4/0's should be the minimum size to use really (I've been reading 'Hooked on Bass' this week!)

I read that the worms in cod actually live in the gut until the cod dies. They then crawl into the flesh. That is why it's best to gut cod as soon as you catch them, to get rid of the worms before they have a chance to get into the flesh. Pollack are even worse for worms. Deep wreck-caught fish need their mouths & gills rinsing too as they tend to get 'wormified' when the fish's swimbladder pops out. [ 15. October 2004, 12:46 PM: Message edited by: Toerag ]

I've read of molasses being used on conger baits on the BCC website. As Socksy squirrel has said, channel islanders use groundbait regularly to great effect. Usual procedure is to boil up 'gash fish' eg. leftover mackerel, garfish, pout, wrasse etc. and mush it up. Use bread or bran to bulk it out and make a sloppy mush which is then flicked into the sea at your feet every few minutes depending on tide. Although S S uses it in bays it works brilliantly where the tide runs past your fishing platform. It will bring gars, mullet, mackerel, bass,pollack, conger, smelts & bream within spitting distance of your position. I have seen 20lb conger caught in 10ft of crystal clear water on bright sunny days, and garfish on a pitch black night at 1am. You can even get conger on baits fished in midwater on float gear at night, my mate had one of 30lb on a carp rod this way! The Guernsey name for it is 'Shirvy', a corruption of the Guernsey-French word 'Chevrin' which describes all the tiny crustaceans you can catch by moving a fine meshed net through shallow sandy water. This was the original method used to attract mullet.

Not the same as ours then, we have a 2.5 year old AD31P (150hp 4 cyl turbo diesel) with duoprop drive. At the last service a split in the driveshaft bellows was discovered which meant a full drive stripdown/clean/regrease, new universal joint, and engine out to replace the big bearing where the driveshaft comes out the gearbox. Very expensive, even more so when you have all the other little jobs done that are convenient to do whilst the engine's out! [ 15. October 2004, 12:16 PM: Message edited by: Toerag ]

There is an Alderney recipe which involves them being soaked in milk overnight. The big problem is cutting them up, my brother had a 6lb'er once, we had to take the tail off with an axe! The flesh does look good, but I believe there's not much taste. The scales go like a pine-cone when you cook them which is quite cool.

Huge, what sort of Volvo do you have in your boat? I have a good 'bellows failure' horror story to tell!

If you use a round dropnet against a harbour wall it will roll along with the swell, a square one is better in those circumstances.

A 10lb 3oz Ballan Wrasse was recently captured off the shore in Guernsey by a 9 year old boy and eaten by his family! Full story here:- http://www.thisisguernsey.com/

Sainsbury's have stopped selling Marlin & swordfish due to pressure from conservationalists. http://www.divernet.com/news/stories/biteb...ack111004.shtml [ 12. October 2004, 01:28 PM: Message edited by: Toerag ]

quote: Fwiw they can be any time of the day...just like you can see the moon any time of the day. [/QB] Eh? Springs in the C.I. are always low water between 1 & 4 am/pm, neaps are always high water at that time.