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