Toerag

Agree with winter, go down on a low spring tide at night and rake them from a beach with wet shelly sand. You normally only get small ones though, up to the size of 'medium' ammo frozen ones. Keep em in well aereated cool seawater which should be changed regularly if possible.

Oh I understand the guy has to make a living, and to be honest with you it's the most sensible way of doing it due to the lack of punters in winter. However, I had the impression that the majority of people posting on this forum were very conservation minded and that they may appreciate a bit of background knowledge on the guy. Let's face it, I can't see many posters on here condoning commercial catches of spawning bass. Anyhow, many apologies for going off-topic, when's the report on 'Electric Blue day 2' coming out? [ 05. September 2004, 07:22 PM: Message edited by: Toerag ]

Keeping you informed - it's getting worse, but a couple of 9lb bass on wednesday afternoon seemed to sort it out for the rest of the session?

quote: Not sure if your right about the fish hooking itself against the gripper though. if its a flowing trace surely there is no resistance? Plenty of resistance! Don't forget that the tide is holding the mainline taught. Flowing traces / running ledgers will only offer minimal resistance to a taking fish when the mainline is slack, which makes them a waste of time in most circumstances. The same goes for using long traces for pollack 'to let the lure work better'. What a load of crap, the lure simply follows the lead as you 'spin up', it doesn't 'swim around' at all, all that happens is that the tail wiggles! If you lower the weight less than the length of the trace before lifting it again all that happens is that the lure stops moving upwards momentarily. Hence the reason for using a short trace on the 'hopper' rig for cod, it actually allows the lead to drag the lure up AND down.

quote: The boat was Blue something, smashing skipper. I could have got it wrong, it was a few years ago now. Thats probably why I never caught Bass, just 2 Turbot, 9 and 12lbs. 'Out the Blue', 38ft Interceptor skippered by Richard Seager? Did you know he gillnets for bass commercially in the winter? How does 36 boxes of 5lb+ sized bass a DAY grab you? Last spring the spawning bass came into inshore waters off Guernsey, he was taking 3 or 4 selected anglers out to fish 'for the boat' and returning with 200 large bass each day. He is a very good angler, however his morals leave something to be desired. Nice turbot you had though, there haven't been that many reasonably sized ones in CI waters this year, although there was a glut of 4-6lbers at easter, with 2 anglers getting up to 11 fish a day, and the aforementioned Mr. Seager getting 30 a day using 4 rods.

quote: Originally posted by Alan Taylor: AS for hooking up live sandeels, I was shown how to do it your way in Guernsey and by ChrisP in Wales. Who showed you how to do that in Guernsey, cos that's not the usual Guernsey way! The usual Guernsey way is to go in the mouth and out the bottom of the jaw, then nick the belly skin avoiding puncturing the guts. Hooking in the back results in a 'top heavy' eel that doesn't swim properly. If the eel is small then nick the belly skin whilst without passing the eye of the hook through the mouth, if you're using launce then pass the whole hook through the bottom jaw before hooking the belly skin. Best hook to use is a varivas Big Mouth, or a kamasan B940 if you can't get the varivas ones. The varivas is good as you get a nice wide gape without having a long shank, a 5/0 is about the right size to use with launce as the gape is about the same as a 7/0 aberdeen. Don't worry about missing small fish as I've had 2 bass this year the same length as the launce I was using for bait! 12ft traces (2 arm spans length) are normally about right as you can reduce the length a few times before having to tie a whole new one on. [ 31. August 2004, 12:34 PM: Message edited by: Toerag ]

I've not had a chance to strip it yet, it's still on the boat, and will probably stay there until november unless it get really bad beforehand. I will keep you informed.

Chesil beach itself, and Hurst castle shingle spit are the ones you hear of in the magazines.

Why not? Someone had a big conger on a 6600LD in this months boatfishing mag, so you shouldn't have any problems with your 7000 as long as the drag's in good order and all the screws are done up tight! You may have a problem with capacity, as you could possibly end up in the hurd deep which is 400ft+ deep. With that much 40lb mono out it would take you forever to reel in. Braid will be a much better option anyhow, allowing you to use less lead (it's spring tides)and giving a better retrieve as the line level will hardly drop.

Yep, that's right, at low tide in darkness sandeels bury themselves in the sand. You can simply rake them up by dragging a fork over the sand, or by using a rake. They like wet shelly sand which is easy to burrow into.

I found out what the knob does, it's a 'quick take apart' feature. Bsically you unscrew the knob (which goes into the cage) then rotate the whole sideplate back a bit and it comes off. Much easier than undoing 3 fiddly knurled screws like an ABU has.

....and believe me, flying to Alderney is some experience!!! To give you an idea, there is no aisle in the plane as it's so small, and turning the aircon on is a case of tapping the pilot on his shoulder and asking him to open his window!!! Ps. website for the new boat:- www.alderneyangling.co.gg [ 25. August 2004, 12:36 PM: Message edited by: Toerag ]

Try this for a source of pots:- http://www.netmanufacturers.co.uk/pro-tec/277.html Plenty of other useful links on http://www.findafishingboat.co.uk I used to do a couple of pots with my mate in a 13ft dinghy, and my ex-next door neighbour runs 400 pots so I know a bit about potting. Good things to weigh pots down with - sash weights, old mooring chain, rebar. Also, why bother taking your pot home with you, just leave it in the sea unbaited! If you run a 'trusse' of 2 pots, then make sure that the rope between them is longer than the depth of water, otherwise you'll get the first pot to within a few feet of the surface and suddenly everything gets VERY heavy as the second pot comes off the bottom!! Been there, done that! Do not use blue polypropylene as a bobber rope, it floats! Our best catch was a 6lb spider crab which came up clinging to the side of the pot as it was too big to fit through the neck!

That sounds reasonable, cheers mate!

Hi guys, are avatars disabled on anglersnet? I can't seem to find anywhere that will allow me to add one to my profile. cheers, Toe

The best 3 season gear is buffalo pertex/pile stuff. Not waterproof, but it doesn't matter as you'll be so toasty warm you won't even notice it's wet! I have to agree with the posts about goretex not being waterproof, I personally wear a floaty suit or a Guy Cotten / Grundens yellow oilskin type waterproofs. After all, that's what the commercial fishermen use, and they're permanently wet at work. They don't seem to have any problems with sweat, and they work damn hard.

DCA make a 'flighted gripaway' mould which casts breakaway style leads with wings to lift it during the retrieve. I have one, they work quite well.

I have a 6600LD. Contrary to popular belief, the spool does NOT run on ball bearings, but bronze bushes. I had to get a replacement spool as it was warped when I got it. The dealer tried to find one in his stock as a quick fix measure and 2 of 3 he had in stock were warped!! The drag goes from 'off' to 'on' with about 4 clicks movement, why bother having all that range of lever movement if 3/4 of it is wasted? If I tighten the 'end float knob' (yes I know it's for the drag) to get a decent range on the lever then free spool doesn't really become free. Recently it has started the 'not engaging/ jumping out of gear' trick described above, but it's lived on my boat all summer so I can't complain about that one. At least the drag is reasonably smooth and consistent once set, but it's so easy to move the lever too far when you don't want to. I would get a Penn 975LD, but I don't do levelwinds (they stop me gripping the spool to break out of wrecks) and it has the same crappy pushbuttom free spool as a normal ABU does that lets water into the sideplate.

The squid caught in the C.I. can weigh up to 6lb!!! They fight quite well so I'm told. [ 23. August 2004, 04:11 PM: Message edited by: Toerag ]

What's the 'turn & lift' knob on the right hand sideplate of a penn surfmaster 200 multiplier do? The father-in-law picked one up at a boot sale for me.