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Four days of bass fishing, often hampered by fresh west or north-west winds. Fishing below par for the most part, but a few nice size bass caught, and often released. Biggest this period went 10lb 12oz for Pat Harvey. Sadly this fish was gut hooked and had to be kept.

Alan Cherry pictured here is fishing with me so much at the moment that I think he has almost paid for one of the engines in the new boat. Alan has been setting a great example lately by releasing almost all of his bass. He is definately the man of the moment, so I am giving him his own webpage. Click on the picture above to see more of Alan.

After two days of weather cancelled trips, it was back after the bass with regular crew, The Badgers Bum with my old mate Tony Way helping out as crew. The weather today was better than forecast. In the morning the boys enjoyed some steady fishing with some good quality bass landed. A move for the afternoon ebb tide was not so productive, but did produce the best fish of the day for Tony at 6lb 14oz.

Our last day after the bass on this set of spring tides. Fishing was fairly slow and the weather gradually went down hill throughout the day as the wind freshened from the south-west. The crew did however manage to keep catching the odd fish throughout and eventually ended up with a reasonable catch. The end result made this the best.bass trip of this tide. Biggest fish today at 8lb 4oz went to Pete Hodson (Hoddy).

Good to be back at sea following what has been some unseasonal August weather that has resulted in several cancelled trips. Todays trip saw novice anglers from RAF Croughton enjoy some fine conditions and a mixed bag of fish that included several small to middling tope, a couple of good sized small eyed rays, bream, bass, a small smoothound and a good amount of mackerel. On our return to Poole, we were boarded by a Fisheries Officer for inspection of our catch. Great to see signs of policing at last.

I am beginning to think that our regular forecaster must be away on his holidays. I have noticed during the past week that our local inshore forecast has aired on the side of caution and predicted weather far in excess of what has actually happened. Sadly for me, this has resulted in a couple of trips being cancelled that could in fact have gone ahead. Yesterday was an example, when an inshore trip was cancelled due to forecast winds up to force 6 with heavy rain. In the morning the forecast had been down scaled to just a force 4 or 5 from the west. At home I only had one light shower.
Today there was a strong wind warning in force for the afternoon that caused two boats to return from bass fishing early. Thankfully I decided to stick with the bass fishing as the synoptic chart that I had seen suggested the winds would decrease as a ridge of high pressure moved in from the west. This proved to be the case and the lads enjoyed a full day targeting the bass in pleasant conditions. Fishing started off quite well before the flood tide eased. We then suffered quite a long slow period over the slack, which found us trying several marks. Eventually the ebb tide gathered pace and the bass began to feed again. Fish today were of good quality with four anglers all achieving personal bests.

You might recognise Simon pictured above. He was pictured in last weeks local Echo angling report holding a bass that he had caught on another boat. This bass topped that one by 3lb.
No insertion in the Echo this time Simon. You'll just have to make do with a pic on my site. The Lord rewarded Simon with this bass after he had previously released 2 fish up to around 5lb.

More bass fishing. The best of the fishing was during the first few drifts, after which, things slowed down but the odd bass continued to be landed throughout the day. The day ended in a flurry of activity when a flock of birds were observed diving during our journey home. The sounder showed a vast expanse of fish. A quick trial with some shads proved them to be bass. Overall, a pleasant day, not great conditions at times, but enough bass to keep the guys happy.

What a difference a day makes. Just 14 hours after discovering a new mark full of bass, there now wasn't a sign of them. To make matters worse, visits to several marks failed to produce a single fish. The westerly wind increased and today began to look like a disaster. Lucky for us, we eventually came accross a mark that seemed to hold the entire local stock of bass. Fish became plentiful and each drift was producing between six and eleven bass. Some anglers were catching two a drift and one angler managed two drifts of three. Days like this haven't been uncommon in the past, but this is the first time that we have experienced this sort of catch rate this year. Most of the fish were in the 2lb to 3lb range, but with the odd smaller one and quite a good number of larger fish up to just over 7lb. Shads accounted for about 90% of the fish. Interestingly, the west wind built in strength to a force 6 during the day. Normally we would have considered calling an early end to the day, but the boat and anglers handled the conditions well. Even during the journey home at two hundred revs below normal cruising and with the sea coming at us off the port bow, we managed a constant 15 knots. All in all, despite a poor start, today ended up as one of the best bass trips of the year.

It's another windy day and another cancelled trip. Extremely sad when there seems to be reasonable amounts of fish about at the moment. I have just checked my records and have been amazed at just how many weather cancelled trips we have had this year. For the eight months until the end of August, we have had 43 cancelled trips and 97 that we have been able to do. That's worse than last year with 35 cancelled trips and 110 completed trips for the same period. Ah well, hopefully the new catamaran will mean less cancelled trips in the future. I watched Andy Cummin's boat, "Silver Spray" yesterday out in the same conditions as us. The boat seemed far more stable. My new boat is still scheduled for delivery in December, so despite sitting here, unemployed in a forecast force 7 wind, I am filled with optimism for the future.