Saturday 15 June 2013

100th Blog Post and The Summer Is Here!




The warmer weather has finally arrived and with it comes the summer species!

Where to begin!?

We have now finally found a very reliable supplier for Large Live Devon Peeler Crab! We are selling them for £1.10 each and we are happy to post them out overnight at a cost of £10.



We have also started to stock Devon Frozen Baits, this bait company is producing some very cool unique products that are proving a success with our customers.

Mini Blueys:



Mini Mackerel:



From the Boats we have seen some great Black Bream catches from local marks such as the Christchurch Ledge. The rocky ledge is perfect breeding ground for Black Bream this time of year and they have arrived in there droves!

Lee Woollon with a 2lb Black Bream caught on 'Lazy Daze' charter boat:



Steve Perry with a 5lb Black Bream caught on 'Anchorman Charter' boat:



We had also had a vast number of Bass move into the Solent and fish have been recorded up to the magic double figure mark already this year.

George Prodromou with a 4lb Bass caught on the ‘Lazy Daze’ charter boat:



From the Shore we have seen Bass, Smoothhound, Black Bream, Spotted Rays, Sting Rays and many Mini Species.
The Bass have been showing on either Ragworm or Squid baits from Lepe, Marchwood, Pagham and the Reclaimed Land Hythe. A lot of the Bass have been he early season smaller fish with a few pushing towards the 5lb mark.

George West with a 3 1/2lb Bass from Gypsy Lane, Lepe:



With the invention of LRF we are seeing regular catches of mini species. This one is a ‘Shanny’.

Chris Bayliss supplied us with this picture of an LRF caught Shanny:



The Smoothhounds cam in about 3 weeks ago and have been regularly caught since using both Crab and Ragworm baits. Park Shore and Pagham have been to very consistent spots for Hounds this year but we have had no huge fish reported.

Steve Perry with a 13lb Smoothhound from Park Shore:



We have also seen various species of Rays caught from the Solent recently. There have been various reports for Stingrays from the boats fishing around the Brambles bank and further reports of Spotted Rays coming from the shore from marks such as Lepe Deep Water Mark.

Steve Perry with a Spotted Ray:



Another species that is trending well on everybody’s hit list is the Sting Ray. We have had some colossal fish caught this year from Sowley near Beaulieu.
This first fish was accidentally landed in a commercial anglers net at Sowley near Lymington and weighed in at a staggering 43 kilos (94lb!) If this fish was caught on a rod and line it would have beaten the all time British record of 72lb by an amazing 22lb!!

94lb Sting Ray:



These next fish are also from Sowley near Lymington. The anglers use large bunches of Ragworm on long flowing traces.

Paul Swainston with his 46lb plus beast!:



Steve Perry with 2 fine specimens:



As the fish get bigger this year we will of course keep you updated so make sure you check back onto the Blog over the next couple of weeks.

Cheers – Al.