Cod Competition results

Yesterday was the Weymouth Angling Centre Chesil Beach Cod Open at Abbotsbury. With a top prize of a £1000 Heaviest Bag (cod only) and a second large prize of £500 for the heaviest  It will come as no surprise that a lot of anglers entered. What was a surprise was the lack of Cod. The past couple of years, there have been a lot of Cod caught during the competition, but this year only two anglers, out of a 140 managed to catch any.

The winner was Gerald John, with a single Cod weighing 11lb.

The runner up with the only two other Cod caught was Adam Cullingford.

So how come there was so few Cod this year? Pretty simple really, with an easterly wind and calm conditions, you are always going to struggle for Cod during the day. On top of the conditions, there were hordes of dogfish, that were stripping baits as soon as they were hitting the water. So well done to Gerald and Adam for catching any.

conditions may not have been great for Cod, but they are good for Plaice and surprisingly Mackerel. Ben Hackett had a couple of sessions on Chesil recently. His first seen him land a nice Small Eyed Ray.

His second trip he had quite a lot of Mackerel and a few nice Plaice.

Sea Conditions: Water temperature 13.7°c

Chesil Beach:  calm with clear water. 

Portland: calm with clear water

Portland Harbour: Calm with water

Weymouth Bay: Calm with clear  water

Chesil Beach forecast: It will be another week of easterly winds and calm conditions, right up to the weekend. So expect more Plaice, Mackerel, Garfish and Gurnard from all along Chesil. Abbotsbury through to Cogden does seem to be fishing better for the Plaice, but the bird sanctuary and bridging camp, at the Weymouth end, will fair better for Cod. 

Night tides are starting to produce Whiting and you are almost guaranteed Dogfish and Pout. With the conditions being calm, a night session will give you a better chance of Cod.

Portland: pollock should be around in reasonable numbers from Chesil Cove, the Bill and Church Ope Cove.

Daytime lure fishing and float fishing with Mackerel strips will put you into Garfish and Mackerel, with the possibility of Bass. Wrasse will happily take soft plastic lures and Ragworm.

Portland Harbour: I am catching lots of Garfish in the harbour, the trouble is, I am targeting Bass. I have seen Bass hitting shoals of baitfish, but all outside of casting range.

Weymouth Bay: conditions are almost perfect for squid fishing from the piers. I have heard more reports of Undulate Rays coming from the pleasure pier, as well as the normal Pollock and Wrasse.

Guiding: The new guiding season is underway once again. Although we can only keep one Bass, we can certainly catch more. I am hoping that the winter fishing ban and the new commercial quotas, combined with an increase in the minimum landing size, will make for some great Bass fishing. I specialize in lure fishing and I am offering Fly fishing this year as well. I am still more than happy to go after the multitude of species in this area with bait, whether that is big Wrasse, explosive Smoothound fishing or targeting the tastier fish such as Plaice and Bream. If you want to book a session or find out more information drop me an email at [email protected]

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If you want to find out more info about sea fishing reels, check out www.myseareels.com

We are back

First I would like to apologise for the lack of posts over the last 2 weeks, I have been dealing with a lot of personal issues which has meant I’ve not been  unable to devote as much time as I usually do to the site . Hopefully  things will become less trying soon and we can get back to business as usual.

With Cod beginning to show in increasing numbers on Chesil, Mike Soanes traveled from Plymouth to fish Abbotsbury last night. He was rewarded for his long drive with a great mixed bag of fish including small whiting, pouting, a small thornback and this cod of 13lb 2oz taken on blow and black lug, He said it was well worth the trip from Plymouth!

Our regular contributor Bridget Herniman, (she who no longer snoozes), ccame up trumps yesterday with a lovely Cod at just under 7Lb  on pennel with Rag and Blow lug at Abbotsbury over low tide yesterday. She also had a small codling, compared to ther old man who just had loads of whiting. 

The Dorset rock marks are fishing well as Ben Stockley proved with is lovely brace of Bream.

The Cod fishing could well start to improve, as we have had a sudden water  temperature drop. Over the past 10 days it has dropped by over 3 °c this is normally the trigger for the Whiting and Sprats to arrive.

Sea Conditions: Water temperature 14.7°c

Chesil Beach:  calm with clear water. 

Portland: calm with clear water

Portland Harbour: Calm with water

Weymouth Bay: Calm with clear  water

Chesil Beach forecast: Now is the time to take advantage of the Autumn bounty that Chesil can supply, especially when the conditions are going to be so settled for the rest of the week. Whiting are starting to show all along the beach and there is a reasonable chance of a Cod towards the later part of the week and the weekend.

We still have plenty of Gurnard, mackerel and garfish around and the Plaice fishing is the best I have known it for years.

Portland: If you are ever going to get a Bass on Portland on lures then the next few weeks is the time to do it. They often come in close at first and last light. I use larger lures for them, than I do when targeting Pollock, which should also be around in good numbers. For some reason I find jointed lures work really well at this time of year, with my favourite being the Seaspin Binginu 115. The Megabass Zonk 120 also does well.

Wrasse fishing is always good this month, as the smaller fish start to move out with the drop in temperature. This allows the large Wrasse more time to find the bait, before it is robbed. Ragworm or hardback crab are by far the best baits, but the big Wrasse find it hard to resist the Fiiish Black Minnows.

Portland Harbour: the harbour is full of bait fish, which are being chased by Garfish and Bass. I witnessed Bass smashing into the bait fish, but they were at range. I only had my LRF rod with me, so I was unable to target them properly. The fish seemed to be congregated around the reefs at Sandsfoot with a few at Ferrybridge.

Weymouth Bay: if you are looking to entertain your kids this half term, then take them down to one of the piers in Weymouth. You are almost guaranteed of catching some fish, by simply dropping a ragworm down the sides of the walls. Wrasse, pollock, pout and small Bream soon attack your bait. It’s not just small fish that are there. I did hear reports of a double figure Undulate Ray being caught there yesterday.

Guiding: The new guiding season is underway once again. Although we can only keep one Bass, we can certainly catch more. I am hoping that the winter fishing ban and the new commercial quotas, combined with an increase in the minimum landing size, will make for some great Bass fishing. I specialize in lure fishing and I am offering Fly fishing this year as well. I am still more than happy to go after the multitude of species in this area with bait, whether that is big Wrasse, explosive Smoothound fishing or targeting the tastier fish such as Plaice and Bream. If you want to book a session or find out more information drop me an email at [email protected]

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Summer fishing in October

We are having a spell of great weather for the time of year and also a great run of fish. Not the Cod that everyone seems desperate to catch, but Plaice, Bream and Gurnard. I had a busy week guiding for most part and I was lucky enough to find a lot of Plaice. Thankfully most of them were not that far out. I met up with Bill Morris the UK distributor for  Trabucco. He had been very keen for me to try out the range of lightweight rods, reels and lines. All I can say is that going light made a huge difference. We were using size 4 hooks and only 0.22mm XPS Velvet Pro mainline. in addition we used 3 red hyper soft beads, which lifted the bait slightly to give it an added attraction. Between us we had over 20 Plaice in a very short afternoon session. I was only there for about 2 hours.

Bill Morris with a fine catch of Plaice

We did have a Gurnard as well, but Ben Stockley managed a far better mixed bag with Gurnard, Bream, Codling, Plaice and even a single dogfish, all during daylight hours.

Gurnard and Bream are still around

.

So does that mean more of the same for the weekend? Highly unlikely, as a it look like we are going to be hit with a fairly stiff South Westerly on Saturday. That should last late into Sunday afternoon, making the beach look good for Bass and Cod once again. The tides are much bigger this weekend, so that should also help bring in more Cod.

One of the goals I set myself this year is to catch a 20lb plus Carp on the fly. So far that has eluded me by a couple of pounds. However one of my friends Leigh Hirst,  has been fishing on the same water as me, on and off for a couple of weeks. On Monday she managed her first ever 20lb fish with this lovely mirror Carp. Not bad considering she has only been fishing for a couple of months.

Leigh Hirst, with her first ever 20lb fish with this lovely mirror Carp.

Sea Conditions: Water temperature 17°c

Chesil Beach:  calm with clear water. 

Portland: Light swell with clear water

Portland Harbour: wavelets with clear water

Weymouth Bay: Light surf with clear water

Chesil Beach forecast: if you are heading on to Chesil today, then expect fairly calm conditions with the wind behind you. This makes it ideal for Plaice, Dabs and Garfish. Tomorrow and Sunday will be very different. A strong SW will create tough but potentially exciting fishing conditions. Bass and cod are a strong possibility. Use big baits, with Squid and fresh black lugworm my favourite choice at the 

Guiding: The new guiding season is underway once again. Although we can only keep one Bass, we can certainly catch more. I am hoping that the winter fishing ban and the new commercial quotas, combined with an increase in the minimum landing size, will make for some great Bass fishing. I specialize in lure fishing and I am offering Fly fishing this year as well. I am still more than happy to go after the multitude of species in this area with bait, whether that is big Wrasse, explosive Smoothound fishing or targeting the tastier fish such as Plaice and Bream. If you want to book a session or find out more information drop me an email at [email protected]

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Searching for Cod Bass or Plaice

Sorry no post from Sean today due to personal reasons, so instead I get to talk about some new and some not so new  additions to the site that may have passed you by.

First you may have noticed we have a new search option which replaces our old one which was pretty difficult to use, especially now as we have so many post to search! The new search updates live as you type so you can see immediately which articles match your search criteria. It also highlights the relevant text that matches your search criteria. Here are some example searches including how to do date searches.

You can find Search on the right hand column on every page

Next I’m sure you must have noticed the live video links that have been on the home page for a week or so. I know Sean is very keen to get broadcasting live and as soon as he is back in action you can expect live video from Chesil Beach.

Lastly an old one but a good one – MLS or minimum landing sizes.

We never really posted about this resource after we did our MLS survey last year,  so here is a link to our minimum landing size resource page, you can also find it in the tips section on the menu.

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Will there be Cod this weekend?

I have been asked a number of times already this week, if I think it will be any good for Cod this weekend, especially as we have fairly stiff North Easterly winds. Well despite the almost calm conditions on the beach, I am pretty certain that there will be a few Cod caught. Chris Buxton had a couple from the Abbotsbury end of Chesil, with the best going over 10lb.

Carl McCormack also managed a nice Codling of over 6lb on a size 4 Varivas Saltwater Champion hook.

It is not just Cod that have been landed. Carl had a lovely Sole and a PB Dab. Whilst his mate Gary Mitchell had a 2lb Haddock that almost pulled his rod off his tripod.

It is good to see that the summer species are still around. With reports of Smoothound Bream and Gurnard, still being caught.

The bad news is that all those fish were caught at range. The fairly calm and clear conditions are pushing the fish away from the shore. The good news is that because the wind will be from the east or north east for most of the weekend, you should be able to get good distance on your casts.

Sea Conditions: Water temperature 17°c

Chesil Beach:  1m swell with lightly coloured water. 

Portland: Heavy swell with lightly coloured water

Portland Harbour: Short surf and coloured water

Weymouth Bay: surf out to 70m with coloured water

Chesil Beach forecast: Not much has changed in the forecast from Monday. Strong easterly winds make for great casting on Chesil, as the wind will be behind you allowing long range casts. Get your casts high and they will carry a good distance. Use this to your advantage to target Plaice, Sole, Rays and Cod that should all be out there. I think that the PLaice fishing will be very good this week. Add Bream, Garfish and Mackerel in to the mix and it should produce some very interesting sessions.

Best baits will be Ragworm, Lugworm and Squid. I will be using single hook rigs to try and get as much distance as I can.

Portland: Now that we have hit October, we are into one of the best months for fishing on Portland. The Wrasse are all looking to feed up for the winter, so they are pretty easy to catch. There are some big fish to be had, but getting through the smaller ones first will be the hard part. This is when soft plastic paddle tails and fiiish Black Minnows come into there own. The smaller Wrasse normally ignore them, but the larger specimens attack them aggressively. 

This is the month that I normally start to catch consistent numbers of Bass from the rocky shore marks. Pollock can also be caught in good numbers on lures, if the water remains clear.

Portland Harbour: There seems to be a lot less Mullet in Portland Harbour his week. They may be shoaled up in an area I haven’t noticed, or they may be starting to head out to the open water for winter. 

There are still plenty of Garfish, Wrassse and Pollock around, especially on the areas that have reefs such as Sandsfoot Castle. With Easterly winds forecast for most of this week the harbour won’t be the most comfortable mark to fish. If you can find some Bass that will work the surf as it builds you will have some fun. However there are better marks for them.

Weymouth Bay: Preston Beach is my top tip for Bass this week. The surf will build and the Bass will move in to feed close to the shoreline. You only need to cast to the third breaker to find the Bass that will be looking for disturbed food. It is most likely you will need to hold your rod to stop the waves pounding your line into the seabed. The weed could be a problem, especially towards the end of the week.

Worm and live peeler crab baits will work best.

Guiding: The new guiding season is underway once again. Although we can only keep one Bass, we can certainly catch more. I am hoping that the winter fishing ban and the new commercial quotas, combined with an increase in the minimum landing size, will make for some great Bass fishing. I specialize in lure fishing and I am offering Fly fishing this year as well. I am still more than happy to go after the multitude of species in this area with bait, whether that is big Wrasse, explosive Smoothound fishing or targeting the tastier fish such as Plaice and Bream. If you want to book a session or find out more information drop me an email at [email protected]

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If you want to find out more info about sea fishing reels, check out www.myseareels.com

Sandbanks for weed, Plaice and a P.B. Bass

As Sean had predicted the winds proved spot on for cod fishing at chesil, with many fine fish being caught. However with my wife nabbing the car I chose to fish closer to home at the Sandbanks on Saturday. It was no real hardship as I had a feeling there maybe a plaice or two about. In preparation I dug some lug and ragworm on Friday evening, we don’t get many black lug in Poole Harbour but I managed a few blows along with some ragworm enough at least for a few hours fishing.

I was dropped off and ready to fish around 3pm which meant  I had missed what I consider to be the best parts of the tide. Still I could fish the ebb running out to low water at 6pm.
I opted to fish on the end of one of the groynes well out the way of the dog walkers and also gaining me a few extra yards distance.

Casting two rods at distance. One set up with a bomber rig the other with a single hook paternoster with green and black beads. Both set for plaice but after ten minutes it became apparent that there was going to be a problem with weed as both rods were bowing under the heavy strain of a ton of it. Reeling in all the weight of the weed was hard work and on the first cast after removing what seemed like ten tons of stinking weed I found I had a double shot of small black bream! Shame as I didn’t know they were even there under the weight of the weed. To land the fish I had to walk back to the beach to offload the weed, had I done this on the  end of the groynes my tackle would have got snagged on the rocks.

Next cast the yet more weed, but this time a small bass mixed in the mess, and so it continued for the next fews hours. Tons of weed but nearly a fish a cast, nothing big but it was nice day and I was catching, not often that happens!

Around 17.30 I noticed the tide had started to ease and the weed had dropped off a bit so I packed up basecamp and moved onto the beach.  My hope was that the plaice come on to the feed around slack water so this was my cue to concentrate my efforts and get some good fresh baits out. Reeling in to put on change baits the weight on the end was heavy but not like weed more like a resistance on the end, I carried on reeling and was happy to walk a small plump plaice up the beach.

“Top tip”: With all the weed jammed in the top eye at the leader knot it’s best to walk backwards and land the fish before removing the weed. I have lost some good smoothhound faffing about with weed jams and not concentrating on the fish!

Slack water seemed to lasted about ten seconds, on the big spring tides it never lasts very long, so by 6pm the flood tide was tearing in. Another small bream and then back to the weed and more weed, signaling it was time to go.

Whilst packing up I was approached by another angler just starting his fishing session. He explained he was new to fishing and had a new rod, reel, a couple of shop bought rigs and a big helping of enthusiasm.

Which tide is the best tide to fish he asked?
I could write a book about how I think it’s done but simply put!

When fishing sandbanks I told him bass, bream and all other free swimming fish will feed quite happily through the flooding/ebbing tide. Other species like plaice ,flounders and rays I find tend to feed as the tide eases at slack water at high or low tide.
I think that is a good basis to start on. I didn’t want to get him started on moon phases, neap tides, spring tides, water temperature, water clarity and wind direction as it’s complicated enough already.

Keep it simple! A well presented bait in the water at the right state of tide can be all it takes.

Looking ahead:

With the fairly good weather forecast I think there’s still a good chance of plaice and bream. With some good bass on bigger or live baits around Poole and the harbour.
Some good bass fishing has been had on lures around the groynes at night, mostly smaller fish with the odd big one thrown in, good fun on light spinning gear.
Southbourne still has had some good bream and rays in the evening’s with codling showing on bigger worm or cuttle baits.

As the season progresses I will be offering guiding sessions for Southbourne fishing as well as flounder mullet and bass fishing in the harbour.

Lastly I will finish with a great success story from one of our readers  Aaron Corbin, in his own words.
“After checking out some of Leo’s previous posts I took a trip to lake pier today, pretty quiet with a small tiny bass, then managed to get this absolute monster! 64cm 7.5lb bass. A new PB for me.”

Nice to hear of someone benefiting from my musings well done Aaron and keep the catch reports coming!

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Bream bonanza

Can there be such a thing as too many Bream? Only if your double whole squid bait that you are using to target Cod, is eaten in a matter of minutes by the hoards of locust like Bream. That was exactly what happened to me at the weekend on Chesil. most were the size of the fish shown in this stock picture below. With the odd decent sized one amongst them. We must have been sat on a large shoal, but is did seem that everyone up and down the Ferrybridge section of the beach was catching.

I did manage to lose a Codling of around 6lb in the surf but that was the only one I had at that end of the beach. Reports from anglers fishing at the opposite end of Chesil towards Abbotsbury reported a lot less fish, especially smaller fish but the result was that more Cod were landed. Robert Raybould managed a couple of what he describes as pretty thin specimens. It is possible that there is a lack of food for them at the moment. There was a report of an 18lb Cod, caught from Abbotsbury on Friday evening.

One thing that I have noticed about this early run of fish, is that they are a lot smaller than the 8-10lb fish I expected this year. I hope that is a good sign. It could well mean that we have a new run of 3 year old fish in the 2-3lb range and the larger fish are still to come in. They may follow a run of sprats that we normally get in October.

Onc of the Cods food sources that do seem to be making more of an appearance are the Squid. I fished just down the beach from Simon Harris on Saturday. He caught a small Mackerel that he rigged up as a live bait and cast back in. After a short time, he noticed a bite. After winding in he was surprised to find something had taken a chunk out of his live Mackerel. I can see from the V shaped bite that it was made by a Squid.

Exciting news: After spending many months working on a solution that will allow me to stream live video from many of my fishing trips, Adrian our tech guru, has finally put it into place. You may have noticed at the top of the home page we now have a live video feed. This should automatically show live video when ever I am streaming it via Youtube. I will try and give a schedule of when I am going to do the live shows, but sometimes they might just be impromptu broadcasts. I hope you like this new feature. If the weather and mobile signal allow, I will be doing a broadcast tomorrow.

Sea Conditions: Water temperature 17°c

Chesil Beach:  Calm with lightly coloured water. 

Portland: Slight swell with lightly coloured water

Portland Harbour: Wavelets and clear

Weymouth Bay: surf starting to build  with clear water

Chesil Beach forecast: The wind will be out of the east of south east most of this week and it will be strong mid week. This makes for great casting on Chesil, as the wind will be behind you allowing long range casts. Get your casts high and they will carry a good distance. Use this to your advantage to target Plaice, Sole, Rays and Cod that should all be out there. I think that the PLaice fishing will be very good this week. Add Bream, Garfish and Mackerel in to the mix and it should produce some very interesting sessions.

Best baits will be Ragworm, Lugworm and Squid. I will be using single hook rigs to try and get as much distance as I can.

Portland: Now that we have hit October, we are into one of the best months for fishing on Portland. The Wrasse are all looking to feed up for the winter, so they are pretty easy to catch. There are some big fish to be had, but getting through the smaller ones first will be the hard part. This is when soft plastic paddle tails and fiiish Black Minnows come into there own. The smaller Wrasse normally ignore them, but the larger specimens attack them aggressively. 

This is the month that I normally start to catch consistent numbers of Bass from the rocky shore marks. Pollock can also be caught in good numbers on lures, if the water remains clear.

Portland Harbour: There seems to be a lot less Mullet in Portland Harbour his week. They may be shoaled up in an area I haven’t noticed, or they may be starting to head out to the open water for winter. 

There are still plenty of Garfish, Wrassse and Pollock around, especially on the areas that have reefs such as Sandsfoot Castle. With Easterly winds forecast for most of this week the harbour won’t be the most comfortable mark to fish. If you can find some Bass that will work the surf as it builds you will have some fun. However there are better marks for them.

Weymouth Bay: Preston Beach is my top tip for Bass this week. The surf will build and the Bass will move in to feed close to the shoreline. You only need to cast to the third breaker to find the Bass that will be looking for disturbed food. It is most likely you will need to hold your rod to stop the waves pounding your line into the seabed. The weed could be a problem, especially towards the end of the week.

Worm and live peeler crab baits will work best.

Guiding: The new guiding season is underway once again. Although we can only keep one Bass, we can certainly catch more. I am hoping that the winter fishing ban and the new commercial quotas, combined with an increase in the minimum landing size, will make for some great Bass fishing. I specialize in lure fishing and I am offering Fly fishing this year as well. I am still more than happy to go after the multitude of species in this area with bait, whether that is big Wrasse, explosive Smoothound fishing or targeting the tastier fish such as Plaice and Bream. If you want to book a session or find out more information drop me an email at [email protected]

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

If you want to find out more info about sea fishing reels, check out www.myseareels.com