Skate fishing report

[theguyfulla]

and again john well done crackin report !!

btw you must have been on the sauce late the other night the last text you sent was at 3.45 am think my good lady wants a word

[Toerag]

 

No wonder you're so chuffed, it looks like you got a blowjob too!!!

[Fastd]

Hi Snatcher.

 

Glad you enjoyed your trip away. I certainly did.

 

It would seem we got lucky with the weather with only the wind on Friday causing any problems. The lack of mackrel really was a problem and snatcher about summed it up when he said he caught more skate than he did mackrel for the weekend!!

 

We launched on the thursday at 10am to catch the tide on the slipway, moored the boat up and went off in search of digs, petrol and a few other essentials like tins of beer. We got out fishing at about 12.00 and by 3pm had 14 mackrel...not a good sign.

 

The chosen mark was one I had not fished before as I was trying to experiment with new marks rather than stick with proven spots. There was originally meant to be three of us going as this is an ideal number on my boat allowing you to leave the rods out while a fish is hooked, but the third person cried off at the last minute. This meant we had to reel in the second rod when a fish was hooked. I am still not sure what happened when we hooked a fish on a rod that had been reeled in by 20 or 30 turns to get it off the bottom whilst we played another fish, but we did manage to land both fish safely. Day one finished about 8pm with 5 fish landed and we retired to the pub for a couple, into the indian for a meal and we were both so tired we went back to the B&B and slept well.

 

Friday saw a slight increase in wind speed which was to prove a problem later in the day, but once again mackrel proved totally elusive so after a quick count up of the previous days left overs we had about 11 baits if you counted the ones that had already been used. We started inshore for small stuff...about 50 yds offshore into 160ft of water. The plan being to fish small bait rods for thornies and hopefully a black mouthed doggie whilst fishing with feathers to try and boost the bait situation. The mackrel did not show but the doggies did and there is only so any of them I can put up with so we went out to a new potential skate mark with ten mackrel remaining. The wind had now picked up and initially we struggled to get the anchor to hold but when it did we once again were quickly into a skate. The day finished early when at about 5.30 snatcher had a skate on and the anchor started to slip again we decided that when that fish was landed we would pack up go back to the digs and "have a night on the lash "...a decision I was going to regret come saturday morning.

 

In one of the local hotels I got talking to the barman who was a keen angler and knew nothing about the skate fishing in the area. I offered a trip out next day as we needed a third person to enable us to keep the rods down when a fish was hooked but he had to work. About 1/2 hr later Kirk turned up who said he would love to go out with us so arrangements were made to meet him at 8am outside our b&b. I have to say that by this time my tonsils were floating from far too many beers and redwine and did have to be supported on the way back to the b&b.

 

We were woken at 8am by Kirk ringing snatchers mobile to find out where we where. A quick coffee at the bakery next door...we seem to have chosen the only b&b in town that does not do breakfast and out to the boat. With a sea as flat as a mirror it was a pleasure to be out on a day like that. A half hour after mackrel gave us a much wanted 20 fresh baits (snatcher managed to double his catch of these to 2 in toal) and it was out to yet another area I have not fished before slightly south of the previous days mark. This time three rods went down and I was just setting the clutch on the first rod to go down and struggling to get it to hold when I realised it was because the line was being tugged by things other than the tide. Not a bad start and it wasn't long before Kirk had broken his duck with a male of 117lb. Fish came at regular intervals after this with kirk getting 3 and snatcher two including the weekends biggest fish of 182lb. The final fish took a while to land as snatcher was posing for the camera a lot and this meant we had missed the deadline for the slipway so recovery of the boat involved winching it over sand for the last few metres.

 

This venue is a pleasure to fish and there seem to be plenty of skate to be had. I am becoming convinced it is a skate spawning area as it seems to have a large number of large males and a similar number of small females with a few large females chucked in to make things intresting. I would welcome any comments on this and in particular an ID on the egg found on board the boat. We dont know where it came from but it does seem small to be a skate egg and I dont know if doggies lay eggs or not. I have now spent 9 days at this venue in total with two days where we unable to fish leaving 7 days fishing for 38 skate and a best day of 12 skate. The average size is somewhere around the 100lb mark but there are some serious tiddlers (18lb is the smallest) affecting that average.

 

If anyone wants more details of where we were fishing pm me and I will tell you but I would rather not put it on a public forum for obvious reasons.

 

A local hotel with 15 bedrooms has offered a special rate of 25 quid per night if we put a group together and I would say the area is ideal for kayaking for those who like that kind of thing and I have still to investigate an area where I am told skate can be caught in 100 ft of water but the average size is 30-50lb, with up to thirty fish a day making up for the lack of size. That for now remains to be investigated.

 

Thanks for the great company snatcher and cant wait to do it again...first week in june is in my mind as I type this

 

Cheers

Dave

[Seahog]

Grand read ....

[Snatcher]

Thanks again Dave for doing the biz with the skate.I will never forget it

[medwaygreen]

Fabulous reports making for great reading, thanks and well done on your excellent catches.

 

 

[Ian Burrett]

Well done Snatcher and as usual a good report with great photos.

[Snatcher]

Well done Snatcher and as usual a good report with great photos.

 

Cheers Ian,back over to the van this weekend.Will you be calling into the Clash at any stage?Could fancy a beer or three

[Norrie]

Dave,,,The egg case is indeed a LSD one...As I said on the other forum...a Common case would cover the hat !!! I have one here, (Empty) and meant to show it to John.....but in the rush to get off, totally forgot....I also have some LSD ones...c/o Tiggs, and when you see them together, they are WAYYYYYYY smaller :) I did have another Ray case, ( think it was a Blond ) but think it found its way up to Scrabby, or mibbes LA !!!

[Orca]

Congratulations Snatch its brilliant to see you getting youre cherry popped and excellent pictures too but can I give you one bit of advice . NEVER put your hand that close to a Skate's mouth, especially when getting pictures taken, as you very often dont pay attention to what is happening at that end. Believe me the Skate can project their mouths a good 4 inches very quickly and the crushing power is pretty good, remember they crush Scallops for dinner and would soon make mincemeat of a lump of human flesh. Usually wearing gloves when I remove any hooks just incase even though the Skates thorns can soon cut through gloves.

Edited May 14, 2007 by Orca