Popular Post fishybuisness Posted July 18, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted July 18, 2022 (edited) With the hot high pressure recently and calm seas i thought it would be great to spend some time offshore. Leaving the harbour with some new gear/jigs to test out and needing a bit of content for a future article my hopes were high. I thought id start on the north wrecks to target the bass that should be there first and make my way down south after the pollock and then the cod at slack after flood. Every single mark, wreck, reef was netted and pots all over them. I was quite surprised as we are in the biggest springs weve seen for months! I tried to pinch little drifts avoiding the gear on the bow or stern of certain marks and pulled out a few small pollock and a couple of schoolies before heading 25 miles further south to a little honey hole that has produced some really good specimens lately. I arrived to find 2 sets of nets up and down tide on this and they were a large spread with no way of drifting any part of the mark. I moved further east to its sister and to my surprise i found that had the same treatment. This sister wreck is not on any graph and is a little secret so i was surprised to find the commercials had put gear on it. I moved further south to a wreck that rhyms with curry’s to also find that with gear and pots on it. This one is a special mark in my eyes and so i roped up a bouy and just drove in circles collecting and tangling all the bouys in a heap and leaving them. 80mile trips to. Ot have one mark we can fish really crossed the line with me. I understand that they have to make there money but this is catastrophic. We have gear being dragged in every part of the bay and around the wrecks and then every single wreck is netted. I doubt we are going to see a very good season and its about as bad as anyone can imagine. I dont even think its worth filling the boat up again and have been thinking of taking it down to birth in cornwall and get away from this. My explanation of my alarming whale rescue!— I was returning home on one of the last sessions happily cruising along drinking coffee and eating gingernuts! I was approaching the bay and had 5-6 miles to go and i see this thing yellow and disappearing in the troughs of the little swell we had. OMFG its a very intoxicated woman sitting on a yellow rubber ring made for kids lying back in the water and going turtle arms. She was propelling herself further out heading east! I came up to her and asked if she was ok? She casually explained her events of the day and said shes feeling a little tired !! Well you obviously need to come on board i said. She was very protective over the one item she had in her hands and that was duck tape. I asked her what that was for and she explained that she has a hole in her ring!! At this point i start to realise what im dealing with here and put the ladder down on the swim platform and hand her a rope to pull herself up. I had wondered if id get a 1000lb tuna through the shark door and im convinced it can now be achieved! After a brief discussion it was obvious that she was fuelled and she continued to jabber on looking through my fridge and helping herself to my mermaid gin i had won last month and my cigarettes. I bit my lip and met the rnli in the bay that were looking for her. I now believe that we really do live with some people that are just something else! From manchester and as big as they come! What a vile disgusting silly silly beast. She was handed over with her ring and roll of gaffer tape to the orange taxi service and i made my way to my birth! Ill put a few pics below of some fish ive been playing with. Edited July 18, 2022 by fishybuisness daio web, GPSguru, Andy135 and 4 others 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GPSguru Posted July 18, 2022 Share Posted July 18, 2022 25 minutes ago, fishybuisness said: With the hot high pressure recently and calm seas i thought it would be great to spend some time offshore. Leaving the harbour with some new gear/jigs to test out and needing a bit of content for a future article my hopes were high. I thought id start on the north wrecks to target the bass that should be there first and make my way down south after the pollock and then the cod at slack after flood. Every single mark, wreck, reef was netted and pots all over them. I was quite surprised as we are in the biggest springs weve seen for months! I tried to pinch little drifts avoiding the gear on the bow or stern of certain marks and pulled out a few small pollock and a couple of schoolies before heading 25 miles further south to a little honey hole that has produced some really good specimens lately. I arrived to find 2 sets of nets up and down tide on this and they were a large spread with no way of drifting any part of the mark. I moved further east to its sister and to my surprise i found that had the same treatment. This sister wreck is not on any graph and is a little secret so i was surprised to find the commercials had put gear on it. I moved further south to a wreck that rhyms with curry’s to also find that with gear and pots on it. This one is a special mark in my eyes and so i roped up a bouy and just drove in circles collecting and tangling all the bouys in a heap and leaving them. 80mile trips to. Ot have one mark we can fish really crossed the line with me. I understand that they have to make there money but this is catastrophic. We have gear being dragged in every part of the bay and around the wrecks and then every single wreck is netted. I doubt we are going to see a very good season and its about as bad as anyone can imagine. I dont even think its worth filling the boat up again and have been thinking of taking it down to birth in cornwall and get away from this. My explanation of my alarming whale rescue!— I was returning home on one of the last sessions happily cruising along drinking coffee and eating gingernuts! I was approaching the bay and had 5-6 miles to go and i see this thing yellow and disappearing in the troughs of the little swell we had. OMFG its a very intoxicated woman sitting on a yellow rubber ring made for kids lying back in the water and going turtle arms. She was propelling herself further out heading east! I came up to her and asked if she was ok? She casually explained her events of the day and said shes feeling a little tired !! Well you obviously need to come on board i said. She was very protective over the one item she had in her hands and that was duck tape. I asked her what that was for and she explained that she has a hole in her ring!! At this point i start to realise what im dealing with here and put the ladder down on the swim platform and hand her a rope to pull herself up. I had wondered if id get a 1000lb tuna through the shark door and im convinced it can now be achieved! After a brief discussion it was obvious that she was fuelled and she continued to jabber on looking through my fridge and helping herself to my mermaid gin i had won last month and my cigarettes. I bit my lip and met the rnli in the bay that were looking for her. I now believe that we really do live with some people that are just something else! From manchester and as big as they come! What a vile disgusting silly silly beast. She was handed over with her ring and roll of gaffer tape to the orange taxi service and i made my way to my birth! Ill put a few pics below of some fish ive been playing with. Last time out, I didn't bother with the wrecks, only the Galicia to take some pictures of the 2 nets and 7 pot buoys ! ........... instead, I spent my time filling the bait freezer with fresh Mackerel. I have spoken at length to a couple of the line caught commercials / Charters, and they are seriously peed off, so I am guessing there will be a local Mafia war to sort this crap out. My next trips will be towards the South Hams wrecks and the skerries, but it is a long steam. The situation in the South Hams and off of Dartmouth seems to be a bit better than seems to be a fair bit better than what we have right now in Lyme Bay. It has been suggested to just cut ropes, but in reality that only makes the situation worse and there will be floating ropes and other gear cluttering the wrecks /reefs until it rots away, which from my experience takes years If you want a real pot buoy spectacular visual, then take a look at the Mudstone ledge next time you are out, there must be 30 there. TBH, pots I can live with, but netting each side of a wreck or across a reef is just plain greedy ................... I will have a chat with the local dive club and see how they are handling the situation 😉 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishybuisness Posted July 18, 2022 Author Share Posted July 18, 2022 23 minutes ago, GPSguru said: Last time out, I didn't bother with the wrecks, only the Galicia to take some pictures of the 2 nets and 7 pot buoys ! ........... instead, I spent my time filling the bait freezer with fresh Mackerel. I have spoken at length to a couple of the line caught commercials / Charters, and they are seriously peed off, so I am guessing there will be a local Mafia war to sort this crap out. My next trips will be towards the South Hams wrecks and the skerries, but it is a long steam. The situation in the South Hams and off of Dartmouth seems to be a bit better than seems to be a fair bit better than what we have right now in Lyme Bay. It has been suggested to just cut ropes, but in reality that only makes the situation worse and there will be floating ropes and other gear cluttering the wrecks /reefs until it rots away, which from my experience takes years If you want a real pot buoy spectacular visual, then take a look at the Mudstone ledge next time you are out, there must be 30 there. TBH, pots I can live with, but netting each side of a wreck or across a reef is just plain greedy ................... I will have a chat with the local dive club and see how they are handling the situation 😉 Yea i think the frustration is from every direction. Lyme bay fisheries actually applauses themselves for being conservative. I dont think thats the case its just so they can put a higher price on there catch being from a (not so) sustainable fishery! The mudstone is a local mark to me and its a great obstacle course at night coming home from Dartmouth. what is happening is very very silly they know full well that if they wipe everything out then it wont return. Its been proven over and over again. Im guessing the bay will now have a couple of years of very hard times. They hit all the pollock before it reached up here and then whwn some of them made it through to the 25-30mile wrecks they were slaughtered. Fish have breeding and spawning patterns and i think this is just enough to disrupt it for them to not come back. Ive never ever seen it this bad ! There is no way to stop the netting the pots aren’t bad and are not destructive at all. You can even fish amongst them. I can also see the reason why the pressure is on due to high prices and running costs and also a very high price for bass and pollock at the moment. I believe its at an all time high due to the low catch rate this year. GPSguru and Andy135 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GPSguru Posted July 18, 2022 Share Posted July 18, 2022 (edited) 1 hour ago, fishybuisness said: Yea i think the frustration is from every direction. Lyme bay fisheries actually applauses themselves for being conservative. I dont think thats the case its just so they can put a higher price on there catch being from a (not so) sustainable fishery! The mudstone is a local mark to me and its a great obstacle course at night coming home from Dartmouth. what is happening is very very silly they know full well that if they wipe everything out then it wont return. Its been proven over and over again. Im guessing the bay will now have a couple of years of very hard times. They hit all the pollock before it reached up here and then whwn some of them made it through to the 25-30mile wrecks they were slaughtered. Fish have breeding and spawning patterns and i think this is just enough to disrupt it for them to not come back. Ive never ever seen it this bad ! There is no way to stop the netting the pots aren’t bad and are not destructive at all. You can even fish amongst them. I can also see the reason why the pressure is on due to high prices and running costs and also a very high price for bass and pollock at the moment. I believe its at an all time high due to the low catch rate this year. The only trouble is, whatever the outcome, the damage for the summer is now done. I will spend the rest of the summer fishing inshore marks like the skerries for Plaice / Rays, and the reefs for Wrasse / Bream. Once Autumn is here, it will be back the wrecks awaiting the arrival of the winter lodgers. Have you fished the Mussel rope beds ? Good info is telling me that a fair few Bream have been caught ? Matt did the right move in taking a year off to go to the Philippines 👍 Edited July 18, 2022 by GPSguru fishybuisness 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishybuisness Posted July 18, 2022 Author Share Posted July 18, 2022 4 hours ago, GPSguru said: The only trouble is, whatever the outcome, the damage for the summer is now done. I will spend the rest of the summer fishing inshore marks like the skerries for Plaice / Rays, and the reefs for Wrasse / Bream. Once Autumn is here, it will be back the wrecks awaiting the arrival of the winter lodgers. Have you fished the Mussel rope beds ? Good info is telling me that a fair few Bream have been caught ? Matt did the right move in taking a year off to go to the Philippines 👍 Yes bream have been caught for the first time off the piers down here for a while. As much as it sounds like a great day out i cant quite muster up the enthusiasm for bream on the boat. Normally they are a bycatch for me later on in the year off the beach. Matt certainly has chosen a good year to get away, he looks happy and content! i think the charters like matts service would really struggle with the fuel costs and the general game out there. Its really sad as i was looking forward to the cod on the wrecks but they havent and the ones ive had have been fairly small with the biggest going to 9lb. I felt quite angry and bemused when searching for a mark that would fish well the other day. I was sat on my swim platform enjoying a beer over the top of the meat boat with my legs in the water and dolphins swimming quite close around me. Thinking what to do? im very interested to keep up to date with the likes of shande and spot on with there catches and see whats happening. I doubt ill be venturing far afield in the future it just hasnt been worth it. Next Im going to probably hunt some tope of other species that aren’t really targeted here suzook12 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GPSguru Posted July 18, 2022 Share Posted July 18, 2022 1 hour ago, fishybuisness said: Next Im going to probably hunt some tope of other species that aren’t really targeted here It is not well known but a good few tope have been caught in deep water off the outer edge of the skerries. The Salcombe crews are reporting that wrecks to the west of Dartmouth are clear of gear. This year I had only one cod which went about 6lb. I guess Bream fishing from the boat is a novelty for us here in Lyme bay, ok on light gear. The local divers have been kind enough to give me the exact location of an estimated 10 - 15lb Ballan, which tends to bully the divers, so I will give that a go. fishybuisness, daio web, thejollysinker and 1 other 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dicky Posted July 25, 2022 Share Posted July 25, 2022 Do they net the wrecks on all tide sizes or just the neaps down your way. Also how often do they retrieve them and do they just reset them or rotate the wrecks? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GPSguru Posted July 25, 2022 Share Posted July 25, 2022 32 minutes ago, Dicky said: Do they net the wrecks on all tide sizes or just the neaps down your way. Also how often do they retrieve them and do they just reset them or rotate the wrecks? Difficult to answer. As with potting, netting is best on springs, with pots on springs you normally check the pots every other day, but I am not sure about nets. When potting on Neaps, you can leave the pots to soak for 5 days or more. They tend to reset the nets if it has been profitable, however, netting on wrecks is very risky because the gear loss often outweighs the profit. A friend went out from Exmouth on last Thurs / Friday, and report back that most of the nets are either gone or have been moved slightly away from the wrecks. I happen to know that some of the rod caught commercials have been picking up the buoy / net ropes and driving slowly around in circles, which causes an horrendous tangled mess to sort out 🙄🤣 I said right from the beginning that the commercial mafia would sort it out, and the situation won't last long ................. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dicky Posted July 26, 2022 Share Posted July 26, 2022 Further east around Portsmouth and Weymouth they only used to net them on the neaps as the tide run is a lot stronger around there. Don't know if that's still the case though as the fish become scarce they will take more risks to fill the boat GPSguru 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDP Posted July 27, 2022 Share Posted July 27, 2022 Picture of the whale would of been good, that's pretty unbelievable about the duck tape!!!!! suzook12 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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