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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.....!!!

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