Dorset - Mudeford Quay

There was a kayak demo event at Mudeford Quay this weekend supported by Ocean Kayak and Crazywater. There were plans to fish for Conger on the Saturday evening, so as a day out it seemed quite appealing. I’d also not fished that area before hence it was a new mark, always interesting!

It was good to look closely at some of the kayaks, getting up close and personal really does allow you to suss out the various pros and cons that you’d never gain from viewing photographs, etc.

I was on the water for 7pm and found myself drifting for thirty minutes whilst waiting for the other kayakers to appear. We were soon paddling west with the tide towards the chosen mark. The wind was at times rather brisk, though it was an offshore blow so it wasn’t too concerning. Once around the headland the chop picked up a little, an underlying swell was also present, though it was very fishable. I anchored up in 10m of water and found myself facing The Needles, quite a pretty site with the setting sun proving some extra colour.

I’d decided I was going to concentrate on catching a Conger Eel so a whole mackerel was mounted on one 6/0 pennel rig, with another bloody mackerel (less one fillet) mounted on the same rig on the other rod. After weeks of fishing the Bristol Channel it was quite pleasant to be using 3oz weights as opposed to weights between 8oz and 2lb!. The fishing was quiet, though small Bream were present in large numbers and they were terribly effective at stripping large fillets clean off the trace.

It’s not common for me to drop a large fillet over the side to retrieve two bare hooks 20 minutes later. I only ever take two rods afloat, though I decided to take a third rigged with small feathers to hopefully catch some fresh bait. Small strips of mackerel on the feathers produced and endless stream of pouting and small bream, though a few mackerel were also caught.

It was these fresh mackerel that I was after and they were soon hooked up as live bait and dropped back down to the depths. At one stage I was fishing two live baits, one pout and one mackerel.

It was whilst I was unhooking a Bream that the rod with the live baited mackerel literally slammed over and line started stripping from the reel, the rod tip was bouncing violently though by the time I’d dumped the feathering rod it was gone, all over in 4-5 seconds. I knew there was a reason that using more than two rods was a really crappy idea!. What was it?, probably a bass, perhaps a Tope.. I’ll never know!

So I was back to being sensible and fishing two rods. With slack water approaching fast (the better time to hook into the larger Conger) fresh baits were lowered down to the sea bed. At approximately slack water one rod started to nod a little and line was slowly being stripped from the reel, classic conger stuff!. I waited for a short while before picking up the rod and tightening up to the bait. Sure enough there was the odd hard knock at the bait. Striking lightly I felt the weight of a good fish though after a few seconds of head shaking it was gone. I quickly lowered the bait the 3-4’ back onto the sea bed and within ten seconds it was back. Again, I waited for 15-20 seconds before lifting into the fish, though the result was the same.. fish on for a few seconds then off. It didn’t return after that so I reeled in and found the end of my 80lb trace had been bitten off.

Sometime after 11pm the other anglers headed in, though I wanted to fished for a little longer. On a few occasions I’ve seen Bass swim very close to the surface and under the kayak at night, no doubt attracted by the stern light. However, I saw something a little surprising, a Smoothound swam only inches below the surface and under the kayak, not once, but twice. The second time I managed to get my headlamp onto it so there was no doubting what it was. Fifteen minutes later I had another visitor, a Dogfish this time. I found it quite amazing and it finished off the evening quite nicely!

The paddle back was just over 1.5 mile and it was a very pleasant one, I really do enjoy paddling at night. Ok, so I missed a couple of good fish, though that’s just fishing. A few small species on the light rod provided some entertainment and bait. The sunset and scenery were great, so no complaints. It was a great venue, somewhere I’ll no doubt visit again in the near future.

PanFish mounts from YakAttack

I really enjoy my photography whilst afloat so I’m always interested when new photography/movie products come onto the market. Check out the new PanFish and PanFish Portrait models from YakAttack

       

The products, as expected from YakAttack, are very innovative and the quality would appear to be top notch. I’m hoping to review these new products sometime soon, keep an eye out for regular updates.

Another day afloat

As much as I enjoy trying new marks, there’s always that fear of blanking, knowing full well that you can pretty much guarantee a catch at another mark. I’d kind of got myself in a rut this past year so it’s been good to venture further afield, testing out some new venues. The previous day had proved quite fruitful so I decided to try another spot in the Bristol Channel. As expected the water was very muddy, a combination of spring tides and being further up the Channel itself.

I took along a good selection of bait, hermit crab, mackerel and unwashed squid. I keep my bait frozen, only taking out what I need. This usually means that there’s a handful of squid, a single mackerel, etc, in my bait box at any one time. I can happily keep bait frozen for several hours, taking home and re-freezing what I haven’t used.

Below is a photo of my ‘working box’ which is situated between my legs at all times. It contains a selection of baits, bait elastic, knife, baiting needle and an assortment of weights to cater for the every varying tidal flow.

The fishing was quite slow to begin with, though eventually a couple of smaller sized Thornback rays came to the kayak. The tide flow was strong hence retrieving even the smaller dogfish was quite hard work.

 

As per the previous trip there were some very small Tope caught, pretty to look at, though not the big adults I was hoping for.

 

The Dogfish were once again being a real nuisance, it really does amaze me what they manage to ram into their mouths. I can’t possibly believe that they can actually chew what they attempt to eat, surely the chance of succumbing to a slow death as a result of trying to eat these baits must be a real possibility. Here’s what I mean………

There were some small but firm taps on one rod. I knocked it into free spool and let the fish take some line before tightening up and setting the hook. Whatever is was stripped line from the reel at a steady pace. Every time I managed to recover a metre of two of line a few hard runs saw several times that taken from the reel. The tide was still running hard and from the strong head shaking I was fairly sure it was a Conger eel on the hook. My concern was that i was only using 80lb monofilament and the longer this fight went on the higher the chance the line would part. After ten minutes the fish was under the kayak, well 20 metres under the kayak.

It eventually appeared on the surface and it was a really good size. It still had plenty of life in it and went under the surface a few more time before I finally got it alongside. Despite being a somewhat ugly fish, it was a beauty!… very pleased

I lost a few fish during the session including a couple more decent eels during the slack water period, no complaints though. I watched the sun go down and waited for the tide to turn onto the ebb before paddling the half mile back to the beach.

Another enjoyable session, I didn’t catch the large Tope I’d been looking for though I wasn’t in a position, nor mood, to complain about it !

Bristol Channel – something different

I’ve spent many months reading old books and fishing guides and I’ve slowly been adding new marks to my GPS. I’ve literally dozens of new marks that I want to try out over the next couple of seasons and there seemed no time like the present. This mark didn’t look very fishable due to the rocky beach. Apparently there’d been a slipway here in the 1950’s though it’d long gone.

I walked the beach and decided that it was probably manageable. I loaded the kayak onto the BB trolley and I hoped that its over-sized wheels and great stability would allow me to work my way down to the waterline. It was rather difficult going and a few large rocks had to be moved to allow progress to continue, though after about 20 minutes I was at the waters edge.

The weather was stunning with the temperature in the low 20’s. The wind was but a breeze and the paddle out was a pleasure. I pushed out about ¾ of a mile into 17m of water. It was just before mid-tide so I expected the high water depth to be about 22m. The tide was ripping through and once the anchor touched bottom I let out another 80m of line, my spool was all but empty.

I was hoping for some smoothounds, rays, bullhuss, conger and tope, so the rigs were quite heavy with baits being varied between whole mackerel, lashes of mackerel, double squid or mackerel squid cocktails. Back to the tide, it was fierce, the float was pulled straight under and I needed 2lb of lead to hold bottom, even then I had to let out another 50m+ of line once the lead had touched bottom, otherwise it was lifting clear.

I didn’t have to wait too long before the rod tip pulled over hard and I was straight into the first of three nice sized Smoothounds. Despite the heavy tackle they were extremely spirited and caused a bit of a stir once on the kayak. I’ve caught some of the action on video, I’ll piece it together later in the week.

Rather annoyingly, the dogfish were showing in plague numbers and the two hook pennel rigs often resulted in two dogfish coming up at a time. These fish are the pigs of the sea, the try and eat whatever you put on your hook, regardless of the size. They have no hope of eating some of these baits yet they come to the surface literally impaled on these over-size baits, often not even hooked !

There were some very small Tope that were also trying to gorge themselves on the large baits, not the big fish I was looking for, though quite pretty to look at all the same.

 

As the tide eased off the fishing followed. A handful of small Bullhuss also made a show, though I’ve seen reports of much bigger specimens from this area. The rod banged over hard towards the end of the flood tide and I was into what felt like a nice fish. I thought it was perhaps a small conger due to the amount of head shaking, so I was rather surprised when a nice Bass rolled onto the surface. I didn’t want to take the risk of weighing it afloat as I’ve lost bass in similar circumstances before!. It weighed in a shade under 7lb once gutted, perhaps 8lb overall.

That marked the end of a very enjoyable session. I pulled anchor and drifted for a while enjoying the stunning sunset, it made the whole day worthwhile, the good fishing was just a bonus.