Two sailings with a promising forecast, wind due to come in just as we finished the second sailing. BIF1 now done enough hours that I can use 4000 revs, which I cannot exceed for eight hours, of which I am now down to 6.5 hours, as part of the running in of the repaired engine. This suits the current fishing however, with the most worthwhile quarry inshore for the next month likely to remain plaice, and with them very much up the edges, my current max speed of 15 knots, is plenty to stay among them.
I think I have worked out what is going on with them as well. I believe that, as with much from last years cold spring, they are two months behind schedule, and are in fact spawning now. Today we found a lot more thin fish, without meat, whereas last week they were all chunky. First sailing I had a full boat, with Mark, Damo, Loz and David on board.
Taking into account the smallish tides, I reckoned a target of 30 flatfish would be realistic. However, first shock was too much colour for our lures tight up the beach, where I suspected the bulk might be sitting. So, onto the hunt. And by bumbling around, we did begin to increase the tally. We finished with I think 24 mostly plaice, with a few dabs thrown in. But sizes were mostly small. Plenty of whiting and a few small gurnards though, meant there was always some action happening.
which was also the case in the afternoon, when I was delighted to welcome aboard BIF / BIMM / Waterbear founder Bruce Dickinson. And with him young Ollly and his dad Terry. Although we then had the wrong end of the short tide. The first hour saw half a dozen flatties landed, but the last two hours, with the breeze now moving us against what little tide was there, we were happy for the whiting that were still happy to hit our isomes. Lots of fun, and young Olly is really into his fishing, so readily accepted that this is perhaps the very worst time of the year for lure fishing, and yet still we were lucky enough to have rods bending.
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