GPSguru Posted November 27, 2020 Share Posted November 27, 2020 (edited) I am posting this just the pee off Luke @Odyssey and Ian @headlight , because i know they struggle with bait fishing off the welch coast ! Yesterday, I launched out of Teignmouth at about 8:00am, twas a cold morning with the air temp of about 6C ................. The plan was go to a 9 mile wreck, then onto a 12 mile wreck, and then return just after lunch, as i had the school run in the afternoon ............. The sea forecast was good with 0.5m @ 15secs, flattening to 0.3m @12 secs ............... Once out of the Navigation channel , i was met with a very confused sea .......... the wind was F3/4 NE and the tidal stream was from the south, so we had a situation of wind over tide, that was further compounded by the wind chop from the NE (we are open to anything East). I put the boat on the correct heading of 0.91 degrees true and opened the throttle to about 20knts, slightly bumpy but OK, however, there was an unthought about issue ......... the wind chop was the major sea and coming from the NE on my port bow ........ the hull spray rails were doing a good job, in fact too good, and about every third wave the spray was being picked up by the wind and giving me a good shower .......... OK in the summer, but not good in the winter with a 9 mile steam to do, and something you have to 'manage' in an open boat when winter fishing ............ So ........plan B ......... a quick turn of almost 180 degrees would put the sea on my port quarter / following sea and I could then head towards Torquay and the Orestone for some rough ground fishing ........... that works, and I am now progressing at 26knts toward the Orestone. My route took me through the middle of the moored cruise ships in Babbacombe bay of which there are now 5 ............. Also, I had company for about 3 miles with a pod of 2 very young dolphins on my starboard bow, they were tiny, only about 2ft long and looking like mini Orca's with their white belly ........... OK ....... once at the Orestone there were about 4 other boats fishing, and I knew three of them from my home port............. I decided to drift and drop down a small squid on a 4/0 pennel .......... within a few minutes it was nodding and into the first fish, which was a medium sized bloody Mackerel 😲 ............ next drop produced the same, and so on ..................not even the whiting were getting on the baits, the Macks were like bloody piranha's . So ....... i set up a string of Snowbiki's , baited the bottom two, and dropped down, but I just couldn't get to the bottom (60ft) ......... each time a full string of Mack .......... all sizes. Eventually I did get a couple of decent Whiting of about 1.5lb each ................. Even when I had my coffee, I just dangled the snowbikis over the side and within a minute another full string of Mack, looking in the water I could see the mack coming up for them ! On the way back I decided to spend an hour on a patch of gravel and small reef about 300yards offshore where we get hounds, Plaice, Rays, Gurnards, all sorts of stuff ............... but yes, you guessed it ........... full of Mackerel again ............... So I ended up with a cool box and 2 buckets full of Mack for the bait freezer and another 15 Mack as eaters for the family .................I probably shook off as many as I kept, so possibly I had over 300 - 400 Mack in 3 hours or so ............ TBH, it was better than Mack fishing in July ! Not a great day, but nice to be out on the boat .............. a round trip of 22Nm ............. Another full string ! Here is a forward scanning sonar of a Mack shoal from when I stopped on the way back in less than 30ft of water ....... you can see the mack shoal 50 ft in front of the boat Edited November 28, 2020 by GPSguru Andy135, Scotch_Egg2012, Dicky and 1 other 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saintly Fish Posted November 28, 2020 Share Posted November 28, 2020 Well you may not have been overly impressed with the species Ian but I for one am dead jealous. I think I managed a total of 3 mackerel this season. They are as rare as Cod round here. Glad you got out and had a dangle. Hopefully I’ll have a report to put up tomorrow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy135 Posted November 28, 2020 Share Posted November 28, 2020 Well done Ian. As Neil says, mackerel are like hen's teeth over here. Good work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
headlight Posted November 28, 2020 Share Posted November 28, 2020 What is a Mackerel ??? GPSguru 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GPSguru Posted November 28, 2020 Author Share Posted November 28, 2020 3 hours ago, Saintly Fish said: Well you may not have been overly impressed with the species Ian but I for one am dead jealous. I think I managed a total of 3 mackerel this season I think it was more the fact that they were like piranhas on the bait, and there was a huge amount considering it is late November ............ this time of the year it is normally the pin whiting that are the bait thieves ................ I guess we are lucky in that I can catch Mackerel pretty much all year round, in the area of the Orestone and Babbacombe bay, As an example, if I was out just to get bait then even in January / February, I would expect to catch probably 5 in an hour at one of the marks ............... 44 minutes ago, headlight said: What is a Mackerel ??? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Odyssey Posted November 28, 2020 Share Posted November 28, 2020 (edited) Aren’t mackerel unicorn fish? I had 1 this year..... mover a hundred sharks, one mackerel 🤔😬 Edited November 28, 2020 by Odyssey Andy135 and GPSguru 1 1 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.