Latest Fishing Reports: Essex
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19/07/2016
Fishing Report by TERRY BATT
on Vanishing Point-2 (Bradwell Marina, Essex)
19 Jul 2016 by TERRY BATT
Report on-board Vanishing Point-2
What a lovely couple of days we chose to go on a long 24 hour trip, exploring mid-channel wreaks and offshore banks..!! with temperatures hitting 32 degrees we were glad we took the huge Igloo ice box I brought back from Florida..!!!
We steamed 42 miles South West to make a start, we tried a couple of wreaks but with little success, it was possible pilot error but we didn't go blind we did have co-ordnance but the wreaks were not as big as I was expecting but we did find one that was defiantly there as some of the guys hooked pt on it...lol But Dave Barham had a lovely Gurnard off it , then we started to search for the under water terrain that looked like it might throw up Plaice and Turbot, and we found the perfect spot so we marked it on the plotter with a view to come back to it, as the tide was running to hard to fish it at that moment in time.
Looking at what it was we were trying to achieve, and that was to unlock the mystery of where the Plaice hand out, and with no inside help it was very much a coming together of heads with my 30 years knowledge, and Dave's vast knowledge of all types of fishing, we set about looking at the ground available to us in basically our area, and not having to steam to the Goodwin sands or the Varne ..some 52 miles away, but I was tempted to say the least, as I think I would have found Turbot, but I wanted to find fish on the wreaks and banks off Essex not Ramsgate, or Dover, that would have not posed so much of a challenge as they are known hot spots for these fish, I needed to find these fish on my manor.
Well after a bit of a disappointing start with the wreaking thing we steamed 16 miles Nor-east to some ground me and Dave thought it screamed fish..!!! but more over we though Plaice..!!.
So we covered the distance in roughly 40 minutes, the we started to survey the area, then we found exactly what we were looking for, with large Knowles rising and falling beneath us and went on for miles, this had to be the place..(no pun intended) but first we wanted to see what bait fish was available... and there they were...!!! Sand Eels, mackerel, and launts
As some of you know, me and Nicola have been going to Brighton to learn to fish for Plaice for the last couple of months, and with some success I must say, but learning how to set up the drifts and getting the right set up were critical, and on the first drift, I got a bite, and promptly landed my first ever Plaice on Vanishing Point at £3.5 lbs that was followed by everyone catching Plaice not all as big as mine I have to say..... well it is my boat...lol
But we steamed through the early hours of the morning to an off-shore bank and thought this looks great for some Bass fishing, and with the stern of the boat backed up on to a shoaling bank we were set..!
The only thing that concerned us was although everything was looking good, fist light, calm sea, with just the surf braking over the bank, tide just flooding nicely, no birds were working the the bank, not even patrolling which did not bode well we thought, and after an hour of nothing but a doggie, we thought this is not going to happen so we decided to move on and have another go at the wreaks.
We didn't have to go to far until we came on a huge wreak about 300 foot long, and I set up the drift, it took a few goes to get it right, but once I managed to doge the pot buoys around the wreak I managed to get Vanishing Point drifting right over the bulk and we had Cod, Pollock, Pouting, Gurnard, and the wreak it's self...lol but that was a bit more successful than the attempt the day before.
Well during the night the huge wheelhouse on VP-2 was a sanctuary to everyone as we had a lovely curry for evening dinner which was prepared by our special guest Dave Barham with pilau rice...Emmm,,!! then a bit more fishing, before everyone put their seats back for a well earned sleep in the nice warm dry wheelhouse for a few hours.
Well we will be running more trips similar to this one, but will trim up the distances per trip as we know where we need to be and at what time.
I would like to finish of this report with thanks to some of our regular fishermen for coming on the trip with us to share this adventure .. Tom, Andy, and Dave, well done guys, and to think you were there, to catch some of the first Plaice to be caught as a target species...!!!
And a special thanks to my good old mates Dave Barham, for all his input to this success for the hunt for the elusive Plaice, and also to Jim Midgley for his amazing photography skills and great humor ......Tight lines.
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14/07/2016
Fishing Report by Phil White
on Chinook 3 (Bradwell Marina, Essex)
14 Jul 2016 by Phil White
Report on-board Chinook 3
Fishing has been superb with stacks of good smoothounds, a few decent bass and plenty of thornbacks.
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07/2016
Fishing Report by Terry Bolingbroke
on Gloria B11 (Brightlingsea, Essex)
Jul 2016 by Terry Bolingbroke
Report on-board Gloria B11
Good day last Sunday good catch of different species had a crack off on 35lb line so fishing is good contact me for availability
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12/07/2016
Fishing Report by Trevor Crawley
on Girl Mandy (Southend-On-Sea, Essex)
12 Jul 2016 by Trevor Crawley
Report on-board Girl Mandy
Just a quick note the 24th of july has now been booked many thanks Bill regards Trev
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11/07/2016
Fishing Report by TERRY BATT
on Vanishing Point-2 (Bradwell Marina, Essex)
11 Jul 2016 by TERRY BATT
Report on-board Vanishing Point-2
Sorry I have not put up any reports lately, but we have been that busy on charters that I have been to knackered to sit and write up the days events....
But we have a day off, and still up quite early, and this is when I tend to sit at the computer to tap out a few lines.
Fishing as I think we all know has been good from all around the Estuary, from Sophie Lee, to Enterprise, Eastern promise, Daphne Carole, and Vanishing Point, from the Blackwater, and all the Crouch boat, Predator, Early dawn, Hard Labour, all having great catches of hounds and Bass, and Roker...
I have to say, and I an only speaking from my own very bad experience of this Sunday just gone !0th July, we had a cancellation from one of our regular parties which was a shame but these things happen, so no problem there..... But..!! I got a call from a guy, who was obviously from overseas, asking if he could book the Vanishing Point for 10 of his mates..?
As we had the day free, and my dad was feel a little better, we took the booking.. and OMG I wish we never...!!!!
Now I hope Gareth Howlett does not remove this as it has nothing whatsoever to do with racism... but the total disrespect some of our fishermen from other Eastern block countries promising one thing and doing totally the opposite, and in that I mean, on the phone at the time of booking he asked if it was OK to bring some beers, well I am not a lover of alcohol on the boat, but I said as long as you just have a couple each and no getting drunk on the boat that would be fine, he said yes just a couple would be fine, no problem.
Well I was attending to bait and stuff when they arrived and didn't see the amount of booze loaded onto the boat...!!
as we started our journey to the Barrow deeps Nicola asked if they wanted tea..?? no we are fine thank you and asked if we had any shot glasses, I laughed and said no, I think it was at that point I should have terminated the trip..!!
Can you imagine it, they are running around the boat like school kids, saying how big the boat was and wow..!! never been on a boat like this, 5 of then standing on the bow to take selfies at which point I had to go and remove them as I couldn't see as they were obstructing my view, and it was a little blowy out there and even though the railing had been secured there still could have an accident, but they just laughed and said.... " don't worry we are
Russian we good" but Nicola went up, and got them down, so we continued.. by the time we got to our destination, they were all on it, turned out they had 40 bottles of Becks, in their bags it became obvious why they wanted shot glasses, they had a litre bottle of Vodka, two litre bottles of Capt Morgans Rum, of which was going round at an alarming rate... and after telling them the house rules on the very nice toilet facility, they come to me and said,," I think you toilet is blocked, and I went down to find this horrid brown mess that was full to the brim with water where they tried to keep flushing the toilet before informing me, then say in " I dot know what happened .?? only a little paper went down, I had to use the wet-vac to suck out tonnes of paper, and human crap, and it took at least three goes to finally get by the grace of God the remaining paper out of the impellers of the macerator, then finally the toilet was again usable..... amazingly they did actually catch hounds and skate, but the end of the day could not come soon enough for us, it was the charter from hell, I hope all you charter skippers never have to experience that, and in hind-sight I blame my-self as I should have put a stop to it early into the trip, but went on the promise they made to drink responsibly, and they just didn't give a stuff about anything, I am sorry to say... they were animals, and when they were finally leaving the boat, the organiser said..." great day Terry we will book more trips" well guess what..... they will never step on the vanishing Point-2 again of that much I can assure you,
Well that rant is over .....lol
But once again we were out yesterday very windy a constant 33-37 mph SW most of the day, but the party still wanted to see if it was possible to get out, well I said it's nearly always possible, as we have lots of sand banks to hide behind, and we did just that.
The boys were a breath of fresh air after the day before, a really nice bunch of chaps, and all 12 wanted to do the clay shooting as well as fishing,
Well we fished up to low water about 11.10, where they had some Smoothounds, and by then the water was low enough behind the sand bank we were behind, and it was windy, but flat calm ... so we set up for the clay event, and it was a close fought competition, with only one clay separating 1st, 2nd and 3rd paces...
That all took about an hour, then we moved to a spot where I know the wind will be with the flood tide so at least we would sit ok, and John Rawle very kindly gave me some lug worm on Sunday as he knew was out on Monday, and they came in very handy, as this mark I went to for the flood is primarily a Bass mark, and we had about half a dozen Bass before it was time to head for home, but the guys from yesterday were a joy to have on the boat, and we like to extend our best wishes to Dave, and his lads for a most enjoyable day out......
Not out today....DAY OFF....!!!! well not really, got a few jobs to take care of today, it's the only time you get to do maintenance is on your day off.. Grrrrr but got to be done, so when you lot say what a dream job i is, you don't realise that when your busy you don't get a day off at all.... well we are out tomorrow so will report back then
Tight lines.....!!! View Boats Page
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11/07/2016
Fishing Report by Phil White
on Chinook 3 (Bradwell Marina, Essex)
11 Jul 2016 by Phil White
Report on-board Chinook 3
Weather has been windy last weekend but we still got out to the hound mark and had some super sport with smoothies up to 15 lb.
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07/2016
Fishing Report by Scott Belbin
on Galloper (Brightlingsea, Essex)
Jul 2016 by Scott Belbin
Report on-board Galloper
Its been a while since my last report on here so I thought I’d best do a quick update on what’s been happening at mersea. In my last write up I reported the arrival of the first decent smooth-hounds this season and I’m pleased to say they are still showing. Over the past couple of moths we have seen some great fish and decent numbers at times too. We have been lucky enough to catch them in the really shallow water on several occasions too. This in my opinion is some of the best sport fishing to be had in the country when it goes right. Most of the time we can fish light and they scrap hard with nowhere to go but out, towards or just do a lap of the boat! So far this year our biggest is over 18lbs and was unlucky enough to fall to me. Hopefully we can find one a little bigger before the season finishes as there’s plenty of time yet. Besides smooth-hounds we have had a few roker mixed in. these are generally smaller than the spring run although there are still some decent fish in places. There have been a few mackerel in places but they are hit and miss even if conditions are right for them. We have found one or two bass although they were all released before the 1st of july they were still nice to catch. Over the next few weeks we should see the sport for smooth-hounds continue with thorn-backs amongst other species such as bass making up our general trips. I have a few dates available for offshore bass trips before the end of September but it is one bass per anglers for the pot. You can however release as many as you can catch.
I update my website and facebook page regularly with pictures, reports and available dates so for more information please visit www.essexseafishing.co.uk or call 07956411528 View Boats Page
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29/06/2016
Fishing Report by Phil White
on Chinook 3 (Bradwell Marina, Essex)
29 Jun 2016 by Phil White
Report on-board Chinook 3
Fishing has been superb over last fortnight, good numbers of hounds, roker, bass and mackerel with a few nice dabs, odd turbot and brill.
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27/06/2016
Fishing Report by TERRY BATT
on Vanishing Point-2 (Bradwell Marina, Essex)
27 Jun 2016 by TERRY BATT
Report on-board Vanishing Point-2
With the storm clouds gathering over the Essex coast line on Saturday, we got away with it until it was time to go home 14.30.
We left Bradwell quite early (0630 hrs) and headed to a deep gully South East of Bradwell 16 miles, it usually fishes quite well at this time, but we anchored in 57 foot and the tide was pouring through much harder that I would have expected for a tide of that size, but hey that's the Thames Estuary for you, can sometimes throw you a curve ball....lol.
But the lads were all fairly competent anglers and coped well with good uptiders at the Bow, and great down tiders at the stern, so glad to say tangles were very few, just the occasional hound hitting the bait's at the front and running like grease lightning down tide and getting caught up with the odd fishing line at mid-ships, but wasn't too bad.
But the fish were not there in the number I would have expected, and as we were short on numbers it was not possible to ask the lads to put more money into the pot for extra fuel to go further off-shore so we made the best of what was on offer closer in...!!
Well a mate of mine was doing quite well a few mile South of my position so we went over to join him, but weather we got there too late, or sometimes the fish, especially Thornbacks, can be very tightly grouped and you can watch one boat scooping up fish while you sit there just spectating....!! and that is not for me..!!!
So we moved 3.5 miles East to a spot that should also fish well but once we arrived there we couldn't really get on the mark as there were a few Crouch based boats already anchored up there, Rob on Dawn Breaker, Predator, and one other I didn't recognise, but I would have only been in their way if I had dropped where I wanted to be and that would not have been very professional of me and I know these guys wouldn't do it to me so we trotted another 3/4 of a mile East and fished a rising bank out of the deeper water, and as the flood tide got away, the fish started to bite, not big fish average around 4 to 5 lbs, but fish never the less..
But as Nicola was NOT on the boat, it was typical the rain clouds gathered the sky turned Black thunder rolled, and lightning was striking..!! and who had to go out and pick up the anchor...??? yup, me...lol but I didn't get too wet thank God..!!
As we made our way back to Bradwell the radar was blotted out with rain, you couldn't even see the Gun-fleet Sands wind farm it was raining that hard, it was bouncing off of the water... but the lads were nice and dry and warm inside the wheel house watching the football on our 32 inch flat screen TV drinking tea and coffee .. blimey how we spoil our guys..lol
Well on Sunday we had our boys out from Canvey, Mark, Bruno and Co, and they all instantly agreed to through an extra £5 a head in the pot for extra fuel to go the 30 miles I recommended they go to get some serious action, as they did that last month, they didn't take any convincing..! so we set off early once again to get as mush of the Ebb tide as possible.
After an hour and fifteen minutes of steaming, we arrived as usual to our mark, and not another boat in sight.....lovely, just how I like it, not trying to fish in a car park.
The first fish hit within 4 minutes, a nice 10 lbs hound, followed by another at 11 lbs, and so the onslaught went on, I am glad Nicola was with me yesterday coz we had two landing net's on the go virtually the whole time. Bruno had the biggest fish of the day, a lovely hound of 14 lbs... well done mate, I bet that will be envied by you brother Phil, who was match fishing elsewhere, but the bar has been set now..!!!.
At the end of the session, we had to stop fishing for the mighty Smoothounds purely because we ran out of bait.. I cant remember the last time that happened..?? but it was relentless and I think our numbers of fish boated was 91, so you can only imaging how manic that was, but like all things distance, x, diesel,= £'s that's why we have to add a fuel surcharge if anglers want to go the distance, but you don't have to there is still good fishing closer in, but if you want the chance of an exceptional days fishing, then sometimes you have to do the extra miles.
Ok well Bruno has won yesterday trophy, and a very worthy winner, and Nic and I will be going to Canvey to the boys Fish restaurant the Islander probably the finest fish restaurant we have ever been to, no wonder people drive from London to eat there...!!
We are meant to be out later this week on a 24 hour wreaking trip going 42 miles off-shore, but looking at the weather forecast as I am writing this report that is looking doubtful.... sadly we were looking forward to that, but it will only be delayed, not cancelled, so I hope the trip will be all we expect.... I will keep you all informed of our progress......... tight lines..!!! View Boats Page
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18/06/2016
Fishing Report by Trevor Crawley
on Girl Mandy (Southend-On-Sea, Essex)
18 Jun 2016 by Trevor Crawley
Report on-board Girl Mandy
Hi folks great fishing at the moment down river Saturday party 6 of novices we had a good selection of hounds many doubles with a best of 17.5lb to Trevor from Peterborough not only his first fish but the biggest well done mate another 6 to 10lb plus a handful of skate to 9lb to his catch he was lucky that he was a passenger on the way back so he could rest up lol On Sunday a group of fathers and their sons on a short upriver trip they wanted to be back early rather than 10 pm plenty of skate up to 8lb and a selection of hounds to 9lb shame the ebb tide didnt come on as well as the flood but all happy and well sun tanned lets hope the weather keeps good for this weekend till next time tight lines and not to many smash offs
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