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09/2020
Fishing Report by Scott Belbin
on Galloper (Brightlingsea, Essex)
Sep 2020 by Scott Belbin
Report on-board Galloper
This week I thought I would bring you up to date with a few offshore trips we ran over the summer. Most of these were prospecting on some new grounds I had fancied for the last couple of years but didn’t find the time to try them until now. We spent a small amount of time on the offshore wrecks each time we went. Most we didn’t plan to fish but as I hadn’t visited these specific wrecks before I wanted to mark them and see if they held anything. Most held pollock, coalfish, pouting and codling in small numbers. The first day we anchored a wreck for a few hours and had 12 or so small pollock along with a few small coalie and a couple of codling. There were plenty of mackerel about and as expected the all held plenty of pouting, scad and whiting too. We tried a couple of other marks I had ear marked for turbot potential on the way home. The tide wasn’t great at first but a few drifts later as our speed came right we Stephen Clarke had the first one. I was very happy but managed to resist kissing him in the name of social distancing. We were short of time but to prove this wasn’t a fluke we had a couple more drifts before heading home and Stephen Charles had our second turbot. I had managed a red gurnard too and on the way home we stopped for some bass too. Our next trip we concentrated on where we had the turbot at first. By the time we had caught a few mackerel the tide was pretty poor. We had 3 drifts with just dogfish and whiting so we moved on the try another bit that looked just as good on the chart. We had more dogfish and whiting at first before the grey and tub gurnards made a welcome change to them. This trip I had even managed to drag Stacey out for our 10th wedding anniversary tempted by the promise of turbot. She didn’t catch her turbo but the first flatfish to come up was on my line. It was a first for me in the shape of a small brill. The next drift Stephen had another which came off beside the boat as I was getting the net. The next run offshore was organised by Alec on behalf of James and Mark Slater with Laura tagging along too. The lads told me they wanted to waste some money on doing something mad. They had certainly come to the right place for that. We were limited on what days we could do so I picked the best tide I could even though I wouldn’t normally head offshore on one of this size. We left at some ungodly hour to try and make the tides work a bit better for us. there was a stiff breeze at first which was forecast to decrease as the day went on. After a long steam we stopped for a few drifts on a wreck we were passing to see what it held. We had a few mackerel, scad and pouting on some less than ideal drifts. We varied the rest of the day between drift fishing and anchored fishing. we had a nice mix of species including whiting, dogfish, weaver fish, thorn-back ray, tub gurnard, launce, turbot, plaice and a hectic couple of hours to finish the day with some chunky bass.
Our last run offshore we opted to try another mew area which looked promising too. Along with the usual bass, gurnard, dogfish, whiting, mackerel, pouting scad, launce ect we had a new species for the Galloper in the firm of a greater weaver fish. these are a deep water fish more commonly found off the south west of the uk. I had been hoping to see one for some time off of here as the habitat looked suitable for them. Shane was the lucky angler who caught the little beast and he was impressed at the colours glistening in the sunlight. Shortly after Barry hooked into a much larger fish. as he reeled it up we all looked over the side I to the depths to see what it might be. It turned out to be a lovely big blonde ray. After a quick photo she was released, this was a new species for Barry and a decent fish too at just over 15lbs. not long after this Steve also had a blonde ray. Although it wasn’t as big it was a new species for him too.
We may not have set the world alight on our prospecting trips but we did find some interesting new marks which I hope to build on in the future. Who knows if we will get a chance to head off there again this year but if we don’t I shall certainly try again next year. Our main offshore trips for now are offshore bass trips until the winter when we will turn our attention to hunting the spurdogs. We are still busy in between with inshore trips targeting skate, dogfish whiting ect with a few end of season bass and hounds mixed in. although we wont hold our breath we will still hope to see some cod as we move later into the autumn.
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