Once we were in from todays offshore trip we grabbed some fish and chips, chucked the gear in the truck and headed off to poole. We arrived in time to get some kip ahead of a trip out tomorrow aboard silver spray with sam. We stayed in the thistle hotel right next to the marina so we didn’t have far to go in the morning. Sam got us underway and we were soon heading out on what was quite a breezy October day. The wind was in the north which was to our advantage as we had some sort of shelter but there was still a good sea coming through. sam did a great job of anchoring a wreck in challenging conditions as we caught the last of the tide. Andy was the first one into a conger and it may have been a modest size but it was his first. Paul had a bigger one shortly after this and this too was a first for him. Stephen managed to winkle out a solitary mackerel on the last of the tide before sam repositioned the boat for the next tide. As the tide got going it picked the sea up a little but it did sort the boat out to lay better. The sideways rain helped to keep us alert and ready for any bites we had. To be honest we didn’t need to be kept awake as bites came through steadily throughout the tide. Considering we only had some manky old home frozen mackerel I was surprised by how well the fish were feeding. Paul kept the essex end up by catching a roker and this was followed shortly after by a nice double figure huss for dad (sorry for the lack of pictures the rain kept getting on the camera lens). Since the turn of the tide martin had come into action somewhat and was plucking some nice conger out to christen his new rod and reel. There were some good fish amongst them considering we couldn’t venture off to where sam wanted to get us. There were several fish in the 20-40lb size boated although im sure both myself and Stephen Clarke lost bigger fish. we had a move for the last bit of tide as sam was keen to see if we could find a bit more variety. We scaled down a bit on the tackle and martin managed a nice bass soon after we stopped. It went over 6.8lbs and he was very pleased to see it. We had several more strap congers (and some boot laces) along with a small tope for andy, another bass for me and a pouting for uncle steve. I don’t think sam wanted to get our hopes up so he hadn’t mentioned small whiting on the list of potential species. We managed to winkle a few out which needless to say gave us the run around with their unbridled power. By now the weather had changed completely and brightened up along with the wind dropping away to make for a pleasant ride in. we all had a great day and enjoyed the fishing. Same did well to find us some nice fish in challenging conditions.
