BOAT FISHING REPORTS
The website of TRUE BLUE, the Poole based angling charter boat.
Skippered by Steve Porter for Bass, Wreck and General Fishing.

JUNE 06

CONTACT STEVE PORTER
Tel 01202 665482 / 07967 598669
email, tangobravopoole@aol.com

Friday 2nd June 06

At last, Summer has arrived.  Blue skies, a flat sea and some great company.  Oh, and to top it off, one or two fish as well.

Todays trip was an individuals day to target the tope, which are usually well established at this time of the year, south of the Purbecks.  The day provided a good mixed bag of rod bending fish including two new additions to this years species list.  Bullhuss and Spurdog were both added by John Trevers who is already on the list for catching the first of this years turbot back in April.

Todays catch included tope, spurdog, bullhuss, conger and pollock.  The conger pictured above right, although not the biggest of the day, (Not the smallest either Jake!) was the first ever conger for young James Trevers who did well to catch the fish unaided.  Good to see so many spurs back in local waters.

Saturday 3rd June 06

Another day of great weather and ideal conditions to be out mid channel where the fishing had definately improved since our last visit.  (It could only improve).  Not a hectic day, but fairly steady throughout with cod pollock and ling all coming to the net.  The catch included 18 cod, our biggest total so far this year, but no real biggies.  Most were in the 4lb to 7lb range with the biggest at just over 14lb.  Okay, maybe the odd smaller one too.

Todays top angler, John Hackwell.  Most cod, biggest cod and biggest pollock.

Pat Harvey with the best of the ling.

Dave McGonigle

Sunday 4th June 06

Another fine day out on the wrecks but the very small tide saw the fishing take a downward turn from yesterday.  The catch included 8 mainly small cod, pollock, ling, conger and even a channel whiting.

Good to see Steve Warwick
afloat again.  Pictured here with a small ling.

Monday 5th - Thursday 6th June 06

Our final trip to Alderney for this year.  This was a four day individuals trip.  The plan for day one was to go straight accross the channel, only stopping to get mackerel for bait and to spend the afternoon fishing the Alderney banks for turbot.  By 13:05 we had begun our first drift on a bank about 8 miles west of Alderney, and by the end of the drift we had our first turbot in the boat.  A good start, but fishing for the rest of the day was slow until the final hour when a few fish started to feed bringing our total for the day to six. The most significant fish was a brill of just under 8lb for Brian Hayward.  Four of the fish, dispite achieving the legal size limit were released.

Day two and we were surprised to find that the wind had increased to a force 5 from the north-east.  Conditions on the bank were not good and dispite only six flats by 15:00, the guys stuck it out.  Their patience was rewarded as the final hours of the day produced a further eighteen fish including a 19lb 3oz turbot for Colin Tettmar (The Albanian).

Day three, great conditions and a further nineteen flatfish for the boys.

Brian

Eric

Jon

Colin

Dave

Gavin

Stuart

Yours Truly

The two and a half days on the banks produced 49 flats for the boys making it our most successful trip to Alderney this year.  At least 50% of the catch was released including fish that exceeded our own 45 cm boat size limit.  Conservation is the name of the game if we want to continue catching these fine fish in the future.  I have yet to meet an angler that isn't keen to see them released, keeping just a couple of the better specimens to eat.

These may be valuable fish, but Jon and Brian demonstrate that these turbot, like many of the others, are worth far more back in the sea

Day four and back accross the channel with a bit of wreck fishing on route.  The catch included ling and pollock but the biggest part of the catch was made up of cod that were prolific on the final wreck.

Friday 9th June 2006

The 7th year of the Poole Species Hunt, a now regular feature in the calenders of some of the UK's top anglers.  Like most boats, we had two teams on board, The Bogner Angling Club and the Chuck it and Chance it team.  Both teams were made up of competant anglers and only an error of judgement by their skipper prevented them from doing better.  I decided to start the day by fishing a deep water mark for tope, spurdog, bullhuss and conger. (See report above for the 2nd)  Sadly we failed to land any of the targeted species although there was at least two encounters with fish believed to have been tope that were not landed.  We did land five species on the mark but all could have been landed inshore.  The second part of the day was fished inshore and the lads did well to claw their way up the rankings.  We landed a total of fifteen species on the boat, enough to win in some previous years.  Congratulations go to Richard Styles, skipper of "Shar King" for winning top skipper, and guiding the "Fladen UK" team into first place.  Many thanks to Bob Watton for organising such a great event.

Sunday 11th June 06

The first bass trip of this set of Spring tides.  Fishing was very pleasant on a calm sea and under a warm sun.  Small mackerel for bait were plentiful everywhere but the bass were hard to find.  Just five landed.

Monday 12th June 06

Our second bass trip of the week and my kind of charter.  Just three anglers on board.  Conditions were good and the fishing, although still below par, was much improved on yesterday.  The fish were of a better size class, mostly in the 2.5lb to 3lb range but with the best coming in at 6lb 4oz.  Quantity landed was well into the thirties falling equally to live mackerel and shads. About half of the fish were returned.

Rob with the best of the day at 6lb+

Tuesday 13th June 06

Bass fishing again and further signs of improvement as the tides build.  40 plus fish landed, falling mainly to shads.

Wednesday 14th June 06

Continued good weather and reasonable bass fishing. 50 plus landed to 5lb 10oz.  Shads still doing the business.  I mentioned to the crew that one mark we were on produced a turbot last year.  Jamie pictured left waisted no time and went down with a mackerel strip to land a fine bonus brill of around 4lb.

Thursday 15th June 06

A slight drop in the tidal range saw a dropping off in the fishing with todays total bass catch falling to 38 fish up to around 5lb.  Most fish in the 2lb to 3lb class.  Mackerel on the bass marks seem scarce dispite chumming the area.  Almost all the bass were once again landed on shads.

A nice brace of bass for Martin Eastman

16th June 06 onwards.
Click on the button to read reports for the rest of June.