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15/02/2023
Fishing Report by Scott Belbin
on Galloper (Brightlingsea, Essex)
15 Feb 2023 by Scott Belbin
Report on-board Galloper
I thought I should get around to writing a round up of last years fishing aboard the Galloper before we get to far into 2023!
The year started slowly, as seems to be the case nowadays. When we did get out, our inshore trips saw a mixture of flatties, whiting Rays and dogfish at first. Then as the sprats moved off and the water started to warm up more rays moved inshore, the dogfish came on the feed and everything came to life.
Further offshore our main target are spurdog at the start of the year. Although when fishing is slow inshore it is nice to see anything decent put a bend in the rod. We catch smooth-hounds 12 months of the year off here nowadays and they always put a bend in the rod. Although at times we have to fight our way through the dogfish we can see a nice variety off there to start the year and 2022 was no different. In our first few trips we saw varying numbers of spurdogs and smooth-hounds, thorn-back rays, bass and even a blonde ray for Barry wood of 14.8lbs. of course there were countless dogfish in between along with several whiting and pouting too.
As spring progressed our inshore trips continued to improve. The numbers of rays picked up although they were well down on previous years. I believe this is undoubtably linked to increased commercial pressure over the last few years which is of real concern to us. thankfully we still found enough to keep us busy though we had to work a bit harder for them. as we would expect there were plenty of whiting and dogfish mixed in with the rays and some of those whiting were an impressive size. It was also nice to see a few little codling showing in places too. These were only small (6-8inches) but perfectly formed and gave us a glimmer of hope that they aren’t totally extinct! Barry woods pulled another rarity out of the bag on a general trip too. We were fishing very close to shore when I hooked a very lively fish which at first I thought to be a bass. Imagine our surprise when a coalfish popped up from just a few feet of murky water!
Nowadays we may expect to see hounds and bass offshore 12 months of the year but they do leave the inshore waters for a few months. The water temperature fluctuates far more in the shallower coastal waters. That said both arrived early in the year inshore too and numbers increased as we went into April. By the end of the month we had already seen our first double figure hound of the year. May saw the main influx of smooth-hounds move inshore to coincide with the first malt of the crabs. These are great fun to catch, particularly on our shallow water marks where action can be hectic and their fights are explosive. Grayson had what was probably the biggest hound of the year on his first trip for them. it was a fine fish in well in excess of 15lbs which he caught early on in the trip and released before I could weigh it such was his confidence of an even bigger one! The bass numbers picked up at the same time too which meant our general trips saw some nice variety.
On our offshore trips our thoughts were turning towards early tope but not before one last decent hit of spurs. It turned out to be one of our best hits of spurs of the year. There were a lot of high doubles and several around and over 20lbs on weight. It all happened at once as a pack passed through. we had numerous multiple hook ups and to be honest I couldn’t keep up with the net so we ended up casually hand balling several double figure spurdogs aboard as if they were dogfish!
We had to drag ourselves away from these fish as it was well past home time by now but we headed back the next day. experience prevented me from telling the lads about the previous days fishing and I was very glad of that as the pack had moved away overnight! We didn’t see one single spur the next day although we did catch other fish and it certainly wasn’t through lack of effort.
Towards the end of the spurdog season they seem to spread out and move inshore. this is often when I see reports of other boats catching them. we also had a few mixed in with our general trips as well one or two unsuspecting anglers being bitten off by them.
By mid-summer the general fishing was well under way, there can be some great mixed fishing at this time of year although the thorn-back rays do eventually thin out. The warmer weather brings the stingrays to the Thames estuary and after a couple of heat waves it was no surprise we had some aboard Galloper. Stephen Charles had has second ever sting ray from the same mark as his first came from the year before! These fish are always great to see this area was famed for producing some very big specimens and they love our shallow inshore waters.
Further offshore our attention had turned to tope fishing by now, they seemed to be on the drag a little compared to recent years but we got off to a nice start with the first decent one being a male of 43lbs. I must admit we missed my favourite set of tides as I was away on holiday but thankfully we found a few when I returned. We had a couple of days where we had over 10 tope to the boat. Our best was 14 with some cracking fish amongst them. we saw several over 40lbs and the biggest going 49.8lb for Rolf Marschalek. Rolf caught the fish on a Tubertini match rod while he was retackling his uptider!
Tope fishing often produces some big bass as bi-catch and 2022 was no different. There were several fine fish caught and one of the biggest fell to Honey Gage. Honey has a knack of catching decent fish and I think her secret could be her snazzy hat! I am seriously considering investing in one myself!
Ian Hewett had one or two decent bass too, he certainly put enough time in for the tope last year. We had a really enjoyable day when he hired the boat on his own for a tope trip. I helped him keep 6 rods fishing on a day which started out slowly. Ian’s tackle had a thorough test when he hooked into what turned out to be a tangled mess of rope and metal from some sort of commercial boat. It must have been rolling around on the seabed for ages accumulating more rubbish along the way. This made it pretty heavy and it filled most of a 7stn fish box so is a testament to Ian’s knots and gear in general that it reached the boat. We pulled it out of the bag at the end of the day with a couple of 30’s a couple of 40’s and some dropped fish in the afternoon.
Back inshore the general fishing was mostly made up of hounds and bass. There were a couple more runs of decent hounds and although none seemed as big as Grayson’s early season fish there were still some big fish amongst them. young Ernie looked very pleased with his first double figure hound. As did john with one of 15.8lbs.
The heatwaves did seem to slow some of the fishing down a little but the settled weather meant the mackerel shoaled up so we had a few plays with those. The bass also used this settle weather to shoal up the whitebait and so our offshore trips changed focus to bass for the rest of the summer and autumn. A lot of the summer was spent chasing bass with lures when conditions suited and when they didn’t suit lures we caught them on bait in stead.
One of our first offshore bass trips of the summer was with Jon Bish and the lads. After a prolonged settle spell the bass had shoaled up all over the place as far as the eye could see. We were spoiled for choice on where to fish and they were competing some much for our lures it wasn’t hard work catching them. we caught vast amounts of bass that day and had some great sport on light gear. It was one of those days when there were more bass than we could shake a shiny thing at! In fact we ended up steaming away from them to try for some mackerel as the lads were completely based out!
We had a lot of very good bass trips throughout the summer and autumn and far too many to mention but I am sure everybody enjoyed them selves. hopefully we get to do it all again this year too. I also enjoyed seeing some slightly different lures and methods used to great effect when the fish weren’t feeding as hard. I look forward to learning more about those methods this year.
We only managed a couple of days in the land of no fish last year. Either the weather didn’t play ball or I was already booked which prevented us heading off there. When we did go we managed some different species such as pollock, blonde ray, great weaver and black bream to name a few. I always look forwards to these trips and cant wait to try some new things this year if we get the opportunity.
As we moved into autumn the rays moved back inshore and we even had one or two codling showing. Those fish we saw at 6-8 inches in the spring were now 14-18 inches long and always a welcome sight these days. The smooth-hounds stayed inshore very late in the year and the dabs turned up early! Everything seems different to what we used to expect nowadays.
10 years ago I would be hoping for the first one or two double figure cod by late October. Instead last year I was catching big numbers of bass until the end of November and have no doubt they were still there until the end of the year.
I mentioned Jon Bish’s party earlier and how they enjoyed some fantastic bass fishing on lures on their first trip of the summer. We spent the next trip bait fishing as those autumn fish got their heads down and scoffed our worm. We had some cracking chunky autumn fish on our baits. They had another trip after this fishing lures again but this time in the deep water where the lads got amongst more bass using another different method in another area. We even had a nice pollock to boot!
We had a couple more trips here to finish off the offshore bass fishing for 2022, the last of which was in late November and you can read about that in this months sea angler magazine.
As the year came to an end there were still a few codling and thorn-backs to be caught inshore as well as the usual whiting and dogfish plus a dab or pouting here and there. Further offshore the hounds were still showing as they did in every month of the year.
Moving into this year things are already under way. Those codling that we saw in the autumn have been gorging them selves on sprats for the last couple of months which fattens them up for the spring. There are a few thorn-backs showing already and we have started targeting spur dogs on our offshore trips.
I have individual spaces and possibility of full boat bookings over the coming months if you want to get out.
Please be advised that a steady trickle of dates are filling up for 2023 so please get in touch asap if you require a specific date.
It has been a very busy week with some cracking weather, the phone is ringing a bit more with every week that passes so please get in touch if you require specific dates for later in the year. The forecast looks good for a little while yet so don’t miss out. I have a few spaces in the next week aboard Galloper. I will try and find time to give you something more to read next week.
Remember it is often worth giving me a shout if you are cancelled else where and still wish to get out, as we have lots of sheltered fishing available and a big catamaran which makes it even more comfortable.
Spaces as follows
18/02- 1 space £60pp
19/02- individual spaces £60pp or full boat bookings from £490
25/02- 9 spaces @ £60pp or 7 spaces offshore @ £100pp
26/02- 8 spaces @ £60pp or 6 spaces offshore @ £100pp
05/03- individual spaces £60pp or full boat bookings from £490
12/03- individual spaces £60pp or full boat bookings from £490
Not all dates advertised, other spaces available for full boat bookings upon request
For regular updates, availability and more information please visit www.essexseafishing.co.uk find us on social media or call Scott on 07956411528
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UPCOMING INDIVIDUAL SPACES ONBOARD Galloper
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