Sea Dogs

I have always wanted to go out on a chartered boat for a days sea fishing but held back due to the expense of such trips, however I recently got the chance to pick up a days boatfishing with the anchorman via groupon for around £59, which I thought was good value and included food, drink as well as bait and tackle.

Leaving home at 5am I could tell it was going to be a very settled day, miniscule amounts of cloud dotted here and there and plenty of sunshine, by the time we arrived at Hythe marina it was already 22c and feeling very warm, accompanied by a deceivingly pleasant sea breeze.

Having spoken with the skipper Dave Mumford earlier in the week, he told me to expect a variety of species including smooth-hound, bass, mackerel, dogfish and black bream. I have to admit I was rather looking forward to connecting with any of these, but really wanted to catch a bream or two, as I had been told that they are an enjoyable fish to catch and rather tasty too!

There was supposed to be eight of us in total, but the other four people who were Chinese had managed to end up at the wrong quay and were too late for departure, so off we headed without them. It was a real mixed bag of clientele, ranging from coarse anglers and those whom had never fished before, to people who had boat fished but had not done so for many years.

Leaving the marina behind I was rather glad that I had taken some travel sickness tablets as despite the sea looking rather calm, my land legs were beginning to tell me otherwise as we bounced across the sea to the first of our fishing marks, the sea spraying up at regular intervals meant a change to head cam only, as I did not wish to risk my main camera.

It took us around one hour to get to the first area, passing Cowes and the Isle of Wight, as we did there were many likely looking fishing spots along the headland and sure enough every so often you would see the odd angler, rods pointed skyward awaiting some interest.

having traveled around 24 miles we eventually reached our first fishing spot which was in the direction of Christchurch, the crew set about getting the rods and everyone into position and slivers of squid were made ready as bait for the day.

The skipper Dave went through a few of the basics with me and also informed me that when I did receive bites from any black bream to not strike as I normally would when coarse fishing, but instead let the fish feed freely on the bait until it more or less hooked itself, this certainly seemed rather foreign to me, as did using a reel with right hand wind.

Not long after fishing had commenced one of the chaps had two bream in quick succession, a superb start and he was rather happy as he had never done fishing of any type prior to this trip, not long after this I also had my first fish, a mackerel which took a liking to the bait on the retrieve.

The day was turning into a hot one, sun reflecting off the sea which sparkled like a bed of diamonds, there was the odd fishing boat dotted about nearby, yachts passed by every so often and regular banter was shared between the crew, one such being about how I would be left with a large white stripe round my head once I had finished filming with the head cam and sure enough as I am typing this I have a pure white area round my forehead.

It was not long before one of the crew Steve, started catching what was to be the majority of the black bream, taking around 12 during the days fishing! What I did notice was that he was casting a lot further than most of us who were fishing just a rod length out.

As the day sped on I eventually connected with my second fish a vividly, speckled dogfish and it seemed as if a shoal of these had moved into the area as everyone began to catch one or two, Steve however did not seem to be best pleased and mentioned how he would rather be catching more bream.

We moved fishing marks a couple of times during the day and a multitude of species were caught, including wrasse, smooth hound, mackerel, black bream and pouting.

But not everyone caught bream, out of six of us, three connected with bream, around fifteen in total and twelve of which caught by Steve, he did tell me that he felt they were being a little finicky with their feeding and he did consider quite a slow days fishing for them. Although I did not connect with any of the bream, I was kindly given a couple by Steve and have to admit they made for a very tasty supper!

I really enjoyed the days fishing, even more so as it is an area I have never tried before and it has now got me thinking about doing some shore fishing from some of the beach marks around Southampton.