Nov 06 to Jan 07

Posted 30th January 2007

Fishing Report

November 2006 - January 2007

What a long winter! Finally the break in the weather recently has allowed us a chance to get out fishing again. This has got to be one of the longest spells of windy weather that I can remember, but it has let up just in time for us to get out for the run of skate that usually appear from the end of January through to March.

The few odd trips that we managed to do during December we managed to find some nice cod and codling - some days better than others, it's just a shame that we didn't get out a few more days...but that's sea fishing.

Our first skate fishing trip out to the Goodwins at the end of January, although not overly productive, produced some nice sized skate for all of the boats fishing. Lots of doggies and pouting were mixed in and I think that most of the boats on the day seemed to be fairly busy catching fish. With a light offshore breeze, fishing was quite comfortable although laying side on for a few hours in the morning made fishing rather difficult with the lack of tide. Once the tide actually picked up and the boat swung around we started to catch a few skate - the overall day was pleasant and I even managed to take my coat off when the sun came out! Here's looking forward to the next few weeks and hope that the weather is lenient with us enabling us to get back out to the grounds after more skate.

Fishing under the cliffs is still producing codling to 4-5lbs, nothing in great numbers but nevertheless we all like to catch a cod. It seems quite funny when you think how many cod we had last spring and we were all expecting great things of this winter - obviously the fish decided to swim and carry on swimming! Mind you, this is quite normal as they tend to enjoy chasing the shoals of sprats up and down the Channel. I'm sure that we will soon see the light at the end of the tunnel and will be in for some good weather. Get your tackle boxes tidied up, your reels oiled, and get ready to wet the line!

Nice skate caught by George Martin (Right) and his group

Close encounters of the Norfolk Line kind!

Royal Charlotte coming close to providing us with some nice hardwood for the new boat!