Good day afloat (with pics - hopefully!)

Member Joined: Sep 24, 2008 Posts: 59

Hey all,

Seeing as it's been a) a long time since I've had a days fishing like this, and b) been on the forum I thought it'd be nice to share something knowing that things will (hopefully) start to liven up soon!!!

Well, where do I start... Longish drive to Chichester last Thursday to see an old friend and spend a surprisingly warmish day chugging out to the Nab. The day started off as you'd expect trying for those illusive mackerel but all we could manage was two garfish and a solitary mackerel for our troubles!

Leaving aside our slight disappointment we couldn’t get more fresh bait for our target species (tope) we continued on our trek to anchor up. With a full box of defrosting squid we set up our gear and got down to business. Literally within minutes, tap, tap, tap (something I haven’t experienced in a while I might add), bang, 1st fish of the day a fine deputy dog or sand shark as we all know and love! Great, or so I thought! A quick bait change and down we go, again, within minutes, the same tap , tap, bang! Only this time something much bigger and taking line. After a nice little fight I was rewarded by the below lovely looking 10lb starry smoothie, fantastic especially on my new little 12lb class Shakespeare sporting braid rod!

Now not to bore you all but in total we had approximately 10 during the day and delighted that my old man below managed this lovely 12lber! Myself having 3, old man again 3 and the rest falling for our dear skipper (plus a few more dogs!!). All fish safely returned and all in the region of about 8/12lb! And I was chuffed!!

Still, on goes the story, come lunchtime things were starting to go quiet on the smoothie’s and as the tide was turning we thought why not try the mackerel we’d caught earlier in the morning (although watching him swim in the bait tank was pleasantly relaxing during our mad rush).
Must have been a good 30-40 minutes before seeing anything happening but with our ratchets set we waited patiently. All of a sudden, BOOM, one of our reels was screaming with what could only be a tope! Both the skipper and I suddenly jumped up and brought in our gear as my old man battled away at what looked like a fantastic fish. 10 minutes flew by and before we know it, tope on the surface! A really nice looking fish as well. Safely netted and unhooked we got a quick opportunity to get a decent photo, a stunning 38lb tope! Wow!

As soon as she was released we all dropped again hoping there would be another. And there was! Before I knew it, tap, tap, then nothing, I felt sick, then before I knew it tap, tap, and again we’re off reel screaming and rod doubled over! Yes! Get in. Again another 10-15mins later we see a lovely fish at the surface and I was awarded (after being dragged back down to the bottom of the sea bed twice) with another lovely sized fish. This time, slightly larger than the last at about 40-42lb but unfortunately for me a rather camera shy and somewhat more feisty than the previous specimen

After all the excitement we continued to go with the hope there would be more but we weren’t to be that lucky and settled for the last hour and a half on the bream. A few coming up but nothing of size so all returned to fight another day!

Well hopefully haven’t bored you all to tears but thought I’d share our experience and looking forward to the smoothie’s to start moving back inshore for a good beach session or two!

Tight lines to all

Dan

Posted: Mon May 10, 2010 9:29 pm

Brilliant report , brilliant pics and a cracking days fishing winking

well done to you showman and showdad big grin

Posted: Tue May 11, 2010 7:31 pm

Nice report and great photos well done applause

Posted: Tue May 11, 2010 9:04 pm

cracking pics,,,,,well done