Dave B

Hi Guys and Gals, I've uploaded loads of new videos to the Boat Fishing Monthly YouTube Channel. There's everything from 20lb+ hounds and 40lb+ tope action to how to rig up for marina mullet. Enjoy! BFM Youtube Channel

Definitely Murph. If anglers along the south coast put the hours in then I'm sure one will get caught on rod and line. It's a lot of hard work though, and it could mean days on end of mind-numbing boredom and blanking, but how cool would it be to be the first to catch one on rod and line from the south coast!

No worries. As far as the spinning goes, i was using plugs and dexter wedges for the spinning, but when I switched onto the prawn baits I was using a simple patternoster rig or running leger with a small lead (take a handful with you). Also take some wire with you for short bite traces in case you start getting bitten off - there's a lot of fish with teeth over there! There were no harbours where I went, in fact, there were no fishing boats - other than the locals and their home-made cats! I did hear that there was one charter boat further up the coast, but I struggled to find any info on it - hopefully things will be different where you're going. Incidentally, I was staying at Kosgoda, which is about 20 miles south of where you are going. As far as walking around on your own goes, I'd just say be very careful. Sri Lanka is a beautiful place, but it's also one of the poorest I've been to. As a result there are a lot of desperate people there. You get the usual 'beach boys' trying to sell you stuff everywhere, but the 'beach boys' I encountered after being on the beach for just a couple of minutes were selling drugs! I'd gauge the situation yourself when you get to your hotel. Just keep your eyes open. I should think that the hotel complex and grounds would be way large enough for your fiance to run around - they're usually a mile or more fenced off. Just be careful straying from the hotel area along the beach. You'll have a great time mate, the place is beautiful, the people are very friendly and they all speak very good English. One word of warning - be careful of the sun! It's blisteringly hot over there - so much so that the beach I was fishing actually melted one day and the sand was crunchy underfoot! My girlfriend at the time got severe sunstroke without really knowing it after coming out fishing with me for a day. So drink plenty of bottled water and take hats, long sleeved shirts for fishing etc.

I've fished Sri Lanka before, and I caught loads of weird and wonderful species. Just a few notes... Be careful of just 'wandering down to the beach'. I was based at the south of the Island, and within 2 minutes of leaving the hotel and walking along the beach I was approached by a group of lads and asked if I wanted to buy some Heroin! It was then that I realised why there were armed guards all around the beachfront of the hotel! As far as the fishing goes, I got lucky. There were very few proper fishing boats where I was, in fact none! I just happened to make friends with a local lad, Chamir, and his brothers, and they organised for me and my missus to go out on a 'proper' fishing boat for a day - it was a home-made cat, constructed from a hollowed out log and was held together with string and a few nails. They fished with handlines and I took my spinning rod. Great fun - I caught cudas, various snapper, grouper etc. From the shore I saw some big sharks, and I caught all manner of species - much the same as from the boat really. Best lures to take are dexter wedges etc, anything that's heavy - you'll probably need to cast a fair way to get into the fish. I found that the local tiger prawns were the best bait, rarely catching anything on the spinners and plugs. I was buying a carrier bag full of fresh prawns for about a fiver each day - I'd keep about 50 for bait, then we'd fry the rest up with garlic, ginger and lime juice! spot on! Best advice I can give is try to get friendly with a local or two - they teach English in the schools out there, and all the youngsters speak it perfectly. (You may also find it to your advantage!) We were booked into a hotel, but had to pay for local beer - worked out about £2 per 330ml bottle. When I made friends with Chamir, I'd give him the equivalent of a tenner and he'd come back with four ice-cold litre bottles of said beer, 40 fags and a bottle of local spiced rum - and he still had change in his pocket!!! Be prepared for a bit of a culture shock - Sri Lanka is by far the poorest place on earth that I've been, apart from when I went into the depths of the Kenyan outback. In the hotels, stuff costs what you'd expect it to. Outside, in the real world, a tenner will buy you what £100 will here!

My money's on it being one of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coelacanth They do pop up every now and then.

Check ya inbox mate....

Hi all, I've uploaded a range of short videos showing how to tie knots and how to prepare various baits. You can check the knot vids here and the baiting up vids here

Depends what you want it for? My standard summer kit is a 10ft Veals Sure Spin MKII rod matched with a Shimano Ultegra 4500 fixed spool loaded with 30lb PP. I use that for hounds, turbot, bass and even tope (tope to just shy of 50lb last year). I also take along a lighter, Fox Mullet Master 11ft rod (unfortuantely they don't make these anymore) with a smaller fixed spool reel - again for the hounds, bass, plaice, bream etc. If you want a seriously good rod, check out the new Yasei range from Shimano - they're ajpanese rods designed for use with fixed spool reels - speed jigging and vertical jigging blanks. Very, very nice!

Bloody hell! You really are taking this seriously aren't you! I'm sure if you put the hours in you'll get a result. Make sure you take a camera and take a few trophy shots - I'd be interested in a feature on the subject for the mag.

Have just uploaded the news story to our website too Paul. Would love to pop up again this year and fish with with the G man and yourself (Maybe cane a few oysters as well!) http://www.boat-fishing-monthly.co.uk/chan...mp;cate=__10392

Yes mate, the ol' Yanks would call it a teaser. Hey, you can't beat anything that Lefty Kreh has had a hand in - the guy's a total legend! And, I should think that orange or yellow would be ideal colours to annoy a blue shark into 'having a go'. Good luck with it, and get in touch with John over in Ireland, he's a really nice bloke and will talk to you about how he's been doing it - no worries.

Quite a few years ago I was lucky enough to fish with John Brittain, skipper of Blue Water out of Clifden on the west coast of Ireland. At that time he was the first skipper in Europe to have caught blue shark on the fly, and he told me exactly how they did it! He had a couple of Dutch guys on board that had booked the boat to specifically target sharks on the fly, and I think they got two to the boat one day. Basically, you set yourself up a decent rubby dubby slick as you would normally, then you have a powerful spinning rod and fixed spool set up with a mackerel tied to the end of the line - no hooks! You bring the sharks up in the slick, then cast out the mackerel towards the shark. meanwhile, the fly angler has the fly up in the air on a medium-length line, just false casting without dropping the fly into the water. The other guy with the spinning rod coaxes the shark towards the boat so that it's within range of the fly. Then, once the shark is close enough, the guy on the spinning rod winds like hell and takes the mackerel out of the equation. At the same time the fly angler drops the fly in front of the shark and begins to strip. Then it's all down to the shark, and whether it's angry enough to take a bite or not! It's quite simple when you think about it, but it does require two people.

Andy's a top bloke. However, that fish was caught nearly three weeks ago wasn't it? Talk about old news!

I've always said that if i wanted to 'get rid' of someone, the Bahamas is the place! A quick jab with a knife then a push overboard and hey ho - sharkfood. I've never seen so many sharks anywhere else in the world. There are some truly massive Bull sharks there too, I had one circle the boat that was estimated well over 500lb - it was pretty peed off cos I 'swung' a 70lb yellowfin into the boat because he was chasing it for his tea!

Hi all, I've used them over here a few times and I plan on using them a lot next season. The great thing about the Dipsy Divers is that they allow you to fish a huge spread of lures, or they let you troll a lure close to a shallow water reef without fear of getting your boat anywhere near it! Basically you can set the Dipsys to fish left or right up to 70 yards away from the boat, and something like from 4ft to 100ft deep! They use them a lot in the Baltic when trolling for salmon, so they're perfect over here for bass. I'll be using 2 Dipsys and 2 normal deep diving plugs for my trolling next season - that means I can fish 4 rods without fear of them tangling up. I did do a piece on them in the magazine a while back - I'll try and dig it out for you.