Captain Calamity goes to the Tay

Stewart had a few days up the Tay the other week..... his trip was not without incident.

In in a rich seam of form he managed to do in his clutch and two rods before catching this lovely springer of around 10 pounds. He also managed to lose his box of lures only to find another angler with them stuck down his waders and also fishing with one of them...if you're not fast as the say! The other angler kindly returned his gear of course.

Come to think of it between Willie ( 2 tips and a tip ring + 5 pirks a session) Kennedy and Stewart no rod is safe.....

Troon for the Wilson gang

The Wilson clan had a trip to Troon recently with John showing the young guns the way ( for once according to him)

Another species for John this year

Nico with a Wrasse

So John, Shane and Nico ended up with Blennies, Codling,Wrasee and Shore rockling

Skjervoy Cod wars

Stuart, Willie, Derek and Martin are just back from Skjervoy. The guys had a great time afloat with PB Cod falling  to three of them.

WK with his 58

The Codfather himself with his  PB of 60 pounds

A rare picture of Martin holding a fish with a gut bigger than his , a  PB of 60 pounds

Team Skjervoy in action.

For more pictures and a full report have a look at http://martingt66.blogspot.co.uk/

Gordon in Weymouth

With my jeep not behaving too well lately, and the Scottish boating weather being endlessly rubbish this year, I hatched one of my mad plans to pay a flying two day visit to Weymouth over the bank holiday weekend.

I called a couple of skippers and Colin Penny was able to accomodate me for Saturday and Sunday aboard his famous Flamer IV. I got digs booked up at the cheap'n'cheerful sailors Return hotel which is right on the Quayside and ordered some ragworm from Wemouth Angling Centre.

I left work on Friday afternoon and luckily got a fairly clear run down the road, stopping briefly in at the Warrior Boats factory in Leyland on the way and arriving in Weymouth at 11pm. As requested - I called the skipper (Hands free!) around 7pm and got some bad news. The forecast was saying SW Force 5-6 for Saturday afternoon - and Saturday's trip was therefore cancelled. Sunday was looking fine though. I was already on the road and the digs were booked - so I continued.

On arrival - the pub was bedlam and a karaoke was in full swing. I was the only sober person in the place, so had to have a few Guinnesses to blend in :-)

I got up early on Saturday to discover that some skippers were still heading out as normal. This made me feel even more frustrated - so after returning to bed for an hour,  I got up and went for a nine and a half mile run along the seafront, through the next town and over the cliffs - and back. Weather was lovely and sunny, but the wind was rising throughout the morning. As I got back into Weymouth, I could see boats coming back in - with a few green faced anglers on them. My skipper was right to cancel the day and the wind did exactly as forecast.

I met the skipper who told me we would be sailing at 7am on Sunday. This meant being up for 5.30 to organise bait, breakfast, booking out of digs, delivering gear to the boat and then car parking. I found out the pub had a rock band playing to after midnight on saturday - so went back to bed for a bit in the afternoon to stock up on some much needed sleep.

Sunday was a beautiful day with a light SW breeze. The plan was to alternate between plaice fising and turbot hunting as the tides would dictate throughout the day. The turbot didn't show much with only two small fish coming to the boat. I had an excellent day on the plaice though with 21 fish up to 3lb 14oz. I kept ten of these and returned the others. The pic shows how many boats are in one small spot on the Shambles Bank. This happens every single day here from March to November.

I had an easier journey home as I was staying with friends in Cheltenham on Sunday night. This left me five hours to drive on Monday. Great weekend, could have gone slightly better - but just very, very glad to get afloat and get some decent fishing done...............and a thousand miles of driving!

A smooth start to May for Jamie and Stevie

Steve Kirk myself went fishing on the 4th of May - with the low tide at 14.30pm we arrived just a the tide started to push in. Starting out with a rod a piece, we fired out a couple of crab baits at close range and sat back for the action. It wasn't long before my rod tip started to bounce and I was into my first fish of the day, a wee dogfish, nowt much to shout about but hey, it's a species I didn't have this year as yet. Next I get another bite and strike into a decent flounder, then another straight after, Steve still hasn't managed to get a bite as yet and is starting to worry that he's doing something wrong, shortly after he strikes into his first fish, a nice wee plump flounder. This continues for the next hour or so with a couple of double shots of flounders and dogfish coming in as well.

Eventually we are close to being washed off the shore and move to the higher rock ledge just round the corner, I have a trace baited and ready to go and send it out. Soon after it hits the bottom the rod gets an almighty bite and the tip goes straight down and proceeds to pull the rod from the stand, I grab it, strike and nothing! - I retrieve the trace and find the crabs to be pretty much intact and send them back out again to roughly the same location as before. Again almost instantly I get a huge bite, this time I’m ready, lift the rod and it's almost pulled from my hands, I strike and feel something hugging the bottom then moving up, I beckon to Steve that I think this could be a ray, to which her replies "I've never seen a ray from here….." 2 minutes later and I’m pulling a nice Thornback from the water… - weighed in at 5lb 1oz, photos taken it's released back to the water.

The fishing was pretty much frantic and it would have been hard to fish 2 rods here as the bites were pretty much instant upon the bait hitting the water - plus it saved us using all our crab! - Next again I get another great bite then a slack liner, lift the rod, wind in the slack and get another great pull on the line, I strike and the rod doubles over, prior to the dogs and flounders this was a welcome battle to get this fish in with it fighting back and running from left to right and back again, I'm hoping it's a decent Bass, but am equally as happy to see a nice smooth hound break the surface. Thinking this was a little early for them but I’m later proved wrong. From that pint they just seemed to switch on for Steve and myself with every bait that we put out being instantly engulfed by a smoothie - there must have been that many out there in front of us that you couldn't go wrong. I was sending the same baits out 3 and 4 times without having to change it and getting the same result each time. Instant action! 

We finished off around 9 with the smoothies turning off and the return of the dogfish again. In respect of the day, a fantastic outings fishing with stacks of fish.