View Fishing Report
-
31/07/2016
Fishing Report by Ian Dale
on Kelley's Hero Charters (Gosport, Hampshire)
31 Jul 2016 by Ian Dale
Report on-board Kelley's Hero Charters
We have had a busy week this week, mackerel trips, wrecking and inshore trips.
View Boats Page
Firstly, what a pleasant surprise it was waking up to find some mackerel at the beginning of the week. We headed out of the harbor and literally ran straight into them before we could even get into deeper water. They were bubbling on the surface and the birds were going mad. The shoals around us were absolutely amazing to see. We haven't seen this for a good few years.
Thursday's weather wasn't looking great in the afternoon, so we decided that we would have an early start, we left the marina at 0630. Once we got out of the harbor, it didn't look that nice on the horizon, so we headed straight for shelter. The first thing we did was drift for some fresh mackerel to use as bait, after about half an hour we had a bucket full of bait and table fish. We put the anchor down and the first fish we had in 10 minutes was a bass of around 3lb. Over the duration of the day we had another 2 bass (the biggest of 5lb), and 16 undulate rays (biggest being 16.5lb). We headed back in with the weather getting worse, having had a great day. But being a charter boat we have to take the rough with the smooth. We had a great day fishing, but the downside was we lost our anchor. So off we went and had to buy a new anchor, chain and rope :-(.
Saturday we headed mid channel, to try and find some of the late pollack and cod off of the wrecks, it certainly was hard work. We tried wreck after wreck, and were begining to lost sight of our goal. Eventually we managed to find a wreck, that produced some nice cuckoo wrasse, pollack, and a nice ling. We ended the day with a bit of drifting for bass, and had around 7 or 8, the biggest being 7lb+. The weather chopped up a little bit so we had to head inshore sooner than expected. After the 110 miles we did, the net around the prop we had and the weather that came up, we were glad to get back in and head to the bar. Still a good day had by all.
Sunday we had another inshore trip. This started very slow, even though we did have a couple of good bites and fish that came off half way up. We moved and waited for the tide to get away. Im glad we did, as we managed to find some smoothounds, undulate rays, and spotted rays. We did have some fresh mackerel to start with so that helped in finding the fish. The weather picked up again in the afternoon as they said it would. So again we had to head for shelter and try and find some more mackerel to take back in with us for dinner. As it was still pretty much slack tide, we didn't find too many. However after quite an eventful week, Kelleys Hero is back in for a rest for one day, and back out again on Tuesday.
So apart from a bit of hard work, a few glitches in the plan, a great week was had!
Ian