Popular Post GPSguru Posted June 1, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted June 1, 2022 (edited) Launched at 7:30am this morning just before high tide, onto a beautifully flat sea, however, the wind was due to veer South later in the day and I knew that would bring a wind over tide situation, but hopefully not a problem as the wind speeds were very low. Crew for the day was Kyle and my wife, both of them absolutely love fishing the banks. We arrived at the Skerries in about 40 – 45 minutes, and I was surprised at the lack of fishing traffic, given the calm conditions. Although the MLS for Plaice is 27cm, we decided to keep nothing under 35cm, and the smaller fish are a pain to fillet. Kyle was first in with a decent keeper, however, the drift speed was a tad fast at 1.9kts, so we were making 2 mile drifts across the banks from inner to outer. We found that unusually most of the bites came on the outer banks, so we concentrated on that area. I also dropped down some snowbiki’s for fresh mackerel and the first hit was a full string of proper snake launce, one of them we measured at 26cm ! The drops with the tinsels were producing Mackerel, Launce, and something I have never had before, which was a full string of 5 Gurnard. Talking of Gurnard, the Skerries was full of them and we lost count of the number caught, however, I know that we definitely had, Tub’s, Grey’s, Red’s and one or two Streaked. They were all a reasonable size of up to about a 1lb. Just before the flood slack, Kyle hooked into a decent fish which was a 7lb Small Eyed ray, a new specie for him. Once the flood slack came we were stationary, and that is when the dog’s came out to play, of which we had four, before I got fed up with them !. Whilst we were waiting for the drift to start again, Kyle set up my HTO Shore Game spinning rod and was catching Mackerel, Launce and Gurnard using a 12g metal. Also, during the slack I managed to foul the prop with one of the lines, but luckily I was able to unwind and free if off quite easily after tilting the engine. The wind veered south at about 2pm, but the sea didn’t get too angry, and we headed back the 18 miles to port at about 3:30pm, arriving back on the slipway at 4:15pm. An excellent day in which we covered 49nm, we returned 3 Plaice, but 9 were keepers, also we had 30+ Mackerel, 20+ snake Launce, a 7lb Painted Ray (small eyed), 4 dog’s, and way too many Gurnard to count. African Queen was close by, Edited June 2, 2022 by GPSguru mick, daio web, Malc and 7 others 9 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy135 Posted June 2, 2022 Share Posted June 2, 2022 Quality session! Very well dangled by all. Well done. Curious about the gurnard - wonder what brought them to the bank in such numbers? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saintly Fish Posted June 2, 2022 Share Posted June 2, 2022 Nice fishing Ian! I'm jealous of the gurnard. Maybe a pain for you, but I've yet to find one. Kyle has grown loads too since the last time he made an appearance! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GPSguru Posted June 2, 2022 Author Share Posted June 2, 2022 24 minutes ago, Saintly Fish said: Kyle has grown loads too since the last time he made an appearance! He was 16 yesterday, and he is 6ft 2” tall ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saintly Fish Posted June 2, 2022 Share Posted June 2, 2022 19 minutes ago, GPSguru said: He was 16 yesterday, and he is 6ft 2” tall ! Blimey! Tell him to slow down. GPSguru 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thejollysinker Posted June 2, 2022 Share Posted June 2, 2022 nice going Ian... sounds like you had a great day out with a few keepers for the pot, top drawer 👍 GPSguru 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GPSguru Posted June 2, 2022 Author Share Posted June 2, 2022 5 hours ago, Saintly Fish said: I'm jealous of the gurnard. You need not be, the smaller fish are a PITA. find some soft sand / mud, and you will find Gurnard, we get them a lot on tinsels, but they will also take bass lures and small fish baits. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.