Joining Mark and Damo as they continue their weeks holiday on BIF1 for the first sailing were Father and son returnee's Paul and Chris. With what breeze there was, pushing from the east I was quite hopeful for a bit of speed on the drift, despite the neap tide, so headed straight to the gurnard banks to see what was happening. Gurnards of course, although sizes and numbers were down again. Not sure if it might be related to the smaller tides or not, or if the great spawning event is already completed for some and they have headed back out to the deeper banks where I suspect they reside for the rest of the year.

A few plaice, and quite a suprise, considering there is just pure sandy banks, a squid to a brown Isome for Paul. A first for him. Some plaice as well, including a couple of table fish, also firsts and creators of big smiles, so the trip was already a winner. But after an hour, and plenty of 2lb tubs for a feed in the wells, I called a change. Off to beast bank, to see if any of those big plaice were there.

Action was actually quite reasonable. More gurnards, plenty of small plaice. But beasts? Well, one pretty fair one, perhaps over 2lb despite its skinny condition. Good fun. We scouted about, picking up odd plaice here and there. And finished off on the cod spot, where, once again, we found no cod...

Post lunch we were joined by Tim and Brett. And pretty much a mirror of the first session, minues any big plaice, and the squid coming from the cod spot rather than the sand banks. And the squid being the ONLY thing from the cod spot. That squid took a white bucktail no less, as did many of the gurnards. A day that actually, was pretty ok, but felt extremely slow after recent sessions. Almost time perhaps to switch the focus, and begin the persecution of silver, whilst all the time the cod hunt will continue... Plenty of spaces next week, and where demand dictates I will happily put on 3 sailings a day to prevent anyone missing out. 07970 112774 if you want to come and play...