Here are a few more muthas for you Skatenchips, to see you through this cold winters evening ;)hope your mate Terry enjoys them ;D
Needles Oct 11 2008
Woke up to fog so took my time getting ready,none too hopeful of the glorious weather that everybody had predicted.
Left home and drove to keyhaven and within a few miles of the launch point and the fog had lifted.
Readied myself and was on the slipway ready for launch shortly after 1030am
Lovely calm day,even the usual turbulent parts of the trip were subdued.I was soon out through Hurst narrows and on my way
approaching the Needles I saw a group of kayakers,I took their photo
and carried on paddling through to my planned mark about 2 miles south.
Once through the Needles many fishing boats were in sight
I paddled just offshore of them and anchored up in 87 ft.(number 39)
First fish to the yak was bloody pout
the second fish that was on was definately fighting better than the pout,soon realised why
then I had a bigger fish on,what was it,could it be ,YES!!!!!!!!!!
shouted over to the other boats "Cod are in" as I held it high so they could see ;D
I wasn't the only one having a nice day
others had caught cod too and a conger was caught by one of the boats
just after 4pm decided to head for home,took some pics along the way
Alum bay (as usual
The Cod is in the freezer
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An I.O.W. trip in summer
Had wanted to do this for quite some time and had been planning and preparing all week.Launched at Keyhaven at 0545 Saturday.The SPTW front hatch completely full.
paddled out through the estuary and was at Hurst for 0600,beautiful flat sea.The tide helped me scoot along at 7mph and was at the Needles by 0700 even with a short stop at Alum bay
Through the Needles and out came the sail,it was so peaceful with very little boat traffic.
feathered up a few mackerel for bait to use at St.Catherines trench.
Soon the Needles were in the distance
Rounded St.Catherines and the mackerel could be clearly seen darting about on the surface.Headed off towards the trench
Couldn't find any pot bouys out there and wasn't game to anchor in such a notorius spot so decided to move on.
with Ventnor in the distance kept going,by this time I'd decided to have a go at going round in under 24 hrs the sail being a great help
The tide was fierce here with huge pot bouys getting dragged under.
sailing onwards,me not him!
Shanklin
Sandown where I met BigBassMan for a chat at Yaverland Slip,nice to see you again fella, I'll be back
After a chat with BigBassMan launched again and headed round Culver Spit,it was a bit choppy going round the spit
And onwards towards Bembridge
there were a lot more boats on this side of the island
one of them was a Trident
met my mate just before Bembridge harbour and gave him the mackies I had caught earlier for bait.
Onwards
and onwards
hovercraft launching
past Cowes and the wind was full in my face and the going got tough.This was undoubtedly the hardest part of the trip with fatigue on top.Had to take continual rests along this stretch,it didn't help matters that I switched the GPS off and went up the Beaulieu river
Finally made it back to Keyhaven after 26 hours asbsolutely shattered
65 miles my longest paddle yet.still need to work on the fitness.
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West Wales Toping
At the start of the week we had four venue choices at various parts of the country,by Thursday we had narrowed it down to going Toping.On Friday we were getting conflicting weather reports,some saying a lot worse than others but decided to make the 250 mile drive knowing full well that they won't be around too much longer.
On Saturday we awoke to black skies and blustery winds.We(Lozz and Trudi,Fatflyfisher and myself)went and had some breakfast in a cafe.After breakfast the sun had come out,it was still a bit windy but we decided to get some bait and give it a go.
Couldn't launch at the town slip as they had their annual bicycle race and had closed the car park off so we launched from the estuary which was handy as it meant that Trudi could have a safe paddle there.
We launched and It was one of those days where I was really confident that I'd get the target species.As we paddled down the estuary you could hear the waves pounding in.When we reached the entrance we were met by wave after wave,must have took at least 7 in the cockpit :owanted to take a photo but I couldn't let go of the paddle
Made our way across the reef
We anchored up over a trench and within an hour I had my first screaming run,resulting it this small Tope of about 15lbs
notice the special large species card
Was getting Bream,Mackerel and doggies on the other rod but wanted to get a Huss too.Lozz had caught quite a few Huss and I switched from full mackie to flapper as that was what he'd been using.
I was changing the rig on the smaller rod and felt the yak being pulled-------Tope on the other rod!!!!!!slackened off the drag to allow myself to get the rod out of the scotty and this one was bigger----easily double the size of the first,it nearly took all the line off my reel!!!!almost got it to the yak when the line went slack------reeled in to find this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Managed to get a few Huss
two more species for the tally and a fantastic day in fantastic company
the Welsh people that I spoke to couldn't believe that I had come just for the day's fishing but I must admit it was worth driving every one of the 500 odd miles ;D
live life to the max