Anchorman Charter Boat – Hythe’s Only Commercial Fishing Charter.

I am proud to introduce Anchorman Charter, Hythe’s only Commercial angling charter vessel.

www.anchormancharter.co.uk

We are working alongside Dave by supplying bait and tackle for his trips and we are also taking bookings for his trips.

Here is Dave’s welcome message to you all.

My name is Dave Mumford. I am the skipper of Anchorman. My aim is to take you out fishing in and around the Solent and get you catching fish!
Depending on the time of year, we might be drifting for bass from the Needles Bridge, targeting giant cod in 90 feet of water at the back of the Isle Of Wight or maybe even hauling in the black bream from Christchurch Ledge. In fact, whatever species are abundant at the time, we have the tackle and skills to get you into them.

Leaving from Hythe in Southampton gives us great access to a vast range of species in and around the Solent, the Isle of Wight and the world famous Needles. We are well placed to fish all year round as the summer species such as black bream, bass and smoothounds are within easy reach and the winter species such as cod, whiting and conger are only 55 minutes away. In fact, there have been various UK specimen record fish caught no less than 20 minutes from where we set off.


Having been involved in the marine industry for 25 years, I have run various marine ventures from power boat trips to Sunseeker experiences. I have also been involved with the lifeboat at Calshot for the past 8 years, so rest assured you will be in safe hands.


During your fishing trip, I will offer you hot or cold drinks depending on the time of year and you will also receive one of ‘Chef Mumford’s’ speciality hot snacks!


I will also be taking pictures of your captures to go onto our website and to send to you if you require a keepsake. Also, if you wish to take fish home to eat, your captures will be gutted on-board and kept fresh in our vast fish locker ready for the table.


On board is a brand new fully working toilet room situated at the back of the cabin for your comfort and convenience.


Top of the range rod and reel hire is available at a small charge of £5 per set. We can also supply bait on request for a fee, but you are more than welcome to bring your own bait if you prefer.


I look forward to welcoming you aboard Anchorman.


Many thanks,

Dave

For any further information on Anchorman Charter trips please contact Dave on or call into us and we will get you booked on. Alternatively visit Anchorman's websit:

www.anchormancharter.co.uk

Chesil Beach Cod.

I had the day off work today as I was supposed to be going on a boat trip but it was called off, so I decided to go to Chesil Beach to try for a cod. The alarm went off at 5:30am and I excitedly jumped out of bed, loaded my gear into the car and began the drive down to Dorset. I arrived at the ferry bridge car park at 7:30am. After paying a small fortune for parking I began the long walk down to the Bridging Camp the wind was not ideal at 17mph westerly’s but the sea was the perfect chocolate brown colour. 

 

I opted for my favourite Pulley Rig, one with a Squid and Lugworm fitted to a 6/0 Pennell hook set up , and the other had Blow Lug on 4/0’s. I started the ball rolling with a couple of good sized whiting around the 1lb 8oz mark, a good start I thought. I then reeled in a Hermit Crab, which when I cracked the shell had the biggest white Ragworm I have ever seen, living at the back of its shell!

The Hermit Crab I caught went straight back out as cocktail bait with the Black Lugworm. As I sat down in my shelter and began to eat a pasty, I noticed a couple of hard bangs on the Hermit Crab baited rod, as I got up to check the rod, the line went completely slack. I thought to myself COD! After tightening down and catching up with the fish I could feel slow heavy lunges all the way in. 

 

As I got it into the surf it turned into a bit of a tug of war, I won, and beached the fish.  As I ran down and grabbed it a massive wave soaked me. I dragged the fish up the shingle beach and the hooks fell out, I was lucky that I didn’t lose it! The fish weighed 8lb 12ozs and had 3 whiting in its guts.

 

After that Cod I had a number of decent sized Whiting. I left the beach at 3pm with a bag much heavier then when I set off, which isn’t that much fun along the shingle, but I’m not complaining!

 

Thanks For Reading, Adam Fadli.

Paul's Bass-Tastic Session!

We turned up at Calshot Beach private section at around 8pm on the 25th November, the high tide was not due until 11:20 so we fished the tide up and not a lot happened for the first hour, I managed to catch one Dogfish then a Whiting and a small Pollock, then at last the bass turned on for me.

I say me because Tim and Chris were still fishless, then for the next hour I had 3 bass around the 43cm mark then a nice one at 3lb 10ozs

 My last Bass turned out to be the best one of the session and well worth the wait! It pulled the scales round to 6lb 14ozs!

Chris missed 2 bites I think were bass but Tim blanked with not so much as a sniff of his baits, I did take much joy in showing my fish off to Tim who I think at this point was crying inside...and Chris was more than happy with the trip learning something new and even though he blanked he has now seen a new way of fishing and will be more prepared in the future.

  
My simple rig for Bass has proved to be very effective over the years. I use a running rig with a strong clear 28lb fluorocarbon hook link baited with Mackerel. 28lb sounds excessive but if you get snagged up fluoro lines can be quite brittle hence the high breaking strain.

The maximum lead I used on this session was a 3oz lead.

Jingle Bells - Ready For Christmas!!

Bells Of Hythe is now ready for the Christmas Season! We have just loaded up with £8K in extra stock to make sure that we can provide for every stocking!

Remeber, click on the images to enlarge them. 

We have a lot of new products in stock from Thinsulate Hats at £2.50, Rod and reel combo’s from £20 up to £60, a brand new line in Kayak rod and reels not to mention the usual tackle boxes and filleting knives.

Remeber, click on the images to enlarge them. 

 

We have also discovered a seasonal treat with Costa’s selling Black Forest Gateaux Hot Chocolate so Hythe is well worth a visit!

Remember we will be open right up to 5:30pm on the 24^th Dec and re-opening at 8:00am on the 27^th Dec.

Merry Christmas!

Catch Of The Day.

Slipped out of lymington on a blustery November morning on board Voyager, skippered by Kevin Duell. Due to the windy conditions only 4 boats made the marks off the needles. Nothing much was happening close to the needles so Kevin decided to brave the weather conditions and move further out to sea, where we were soon into a couple of nice conga's and I picked up a nice Cod.

The high point of the day came following the loss of Jims rod and reel over the back. On advice from Kevin, Jim, using another rod, hooked into some fishing line and after what seems an age pulling in line we retrieved £350’s worth of rod and reel together with another conga which was obviously responsible for the whole escapade!

The moral of this story being, when fishing always keep one hand on your tackle!

Cheers

Ian Wilson

Hythe Reclaimed Land Is Red Hot!

I fished Hythe’s Reclaimed Land today with my angling companion Scott Gilfoy and it could not have fished better!

If you are thinking about fishing soon then that is the place to go.

Two hook rigs and Ragworm for bait was the winning combo on the day.

I caught 15 Bass and 4 Flounders and Scott caught 14 Bass and 5 Flounders. So just to recap that is 29 Bass and 9 Flounders between us!!!

I will show you a couple of pictures now but all the information and rig details and the hot spots will be on our ‘Fishy Tales’ section of www.bellsofhythe.com by tomorrow night.

Here are a couple of pictures to get you started.

Do not forget to click on the images to enlarge them.

Cheers.

Scotty Too Hotty with a double hit.

Me with a double hit.

Weed, Wind, Rain, Bass.

On Tuesday night Scott Gilfoy took a trip down to Burton Bradstock on the famous Chesil Beach to try and winkle out a fish or two.

The weather was not what he expected it to be with the wind blowing directly into his face from the sea. There was also some rain that had not been forecast.

There was also a lot of weed on arrival as the tide was low and there were large clumps of it floating about on the surface.

The method of fishing was to fish one rod close in just behind the breaking waves and the other rod cast out to about 50 yards, not too far at all but this is where he has caught fish in the past.

The first fish that Scott caught (a Bass of 2lb 8ozs) fell to a Ragworm on the 50 yard rod just after dark. Next came a thick run of Pout for about 2 hours! All of the Pout looked like they had come from the same mould and all were about 9” and weighed 7ozs approx.

Then the tide came up to its highest point and the fishing fell dead, this was perfect time to top up on Coffee and Cigarettes and hide from the wind for half an hour or so.

About an hour later when Scott had recast he managed to land a Banzai Dogfish, a perfect little miniature version of the real thing about 6 inches long.

Then came what he had gone all that way for, Scott recast out closer in this time, about 40 yards roughly and tried a smaller bait, a strip of Mackerel on a 1/0 hook. 

After 10 minutes the rod tip folded over and then line touching the water was making its way uptide heading left up the beach, it was obviously a good fish.

After hitting the rod Scott followed the fish up the beach and had to duck under another anglers line until he was level with the fish, after a 2 minute battle Scott surfed the Bass up on a wave using constant pressure and the fish was his.

The fish weighed 6lb 7ozs and was a perfect specimen. After a hard fished session this was a great reward for Scott’s efforts.

Black Lug, Bait Elastic, Sun Tan Lotion???

Local angler Paull Curtice had a fantastic session at Abbotsbury a few days ago and who would have thought that he would end up shirtless and drinking cold drinks on the 1^st of October?

Paull who used Black Lugworm as bait managed 7 separate species on the trip with the biggest fish being a Plaice of around 2lb.

He also caught Sole, Dogfish, Pout, Whiting, Gurnard and Poor Cod.

Paull could not believe that he would be sunbathing at this time of year but as you can see in the pictures it was red hot.

It looks like Chesil Beach is in full swing at the moment and after this unseasonal warm spell disappears I think we could be in for some serious Cod from there.

New Forest Brand Hunting Catapults 2012.

Here is the latest promo video for New Forest Brand Catapults including 7 new designs.

To view, click the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyfZwE4kp40 

The Perfect Rig?

As we all know your choice of rig from the beach can be the difference between catching and blanking.

I have been interested in rigs for a number of years now and have made some good ones and some not so good ones. The important thing is to try things out and see if they work as you never know when you might stumble across a fantastic idea that will catch you more fish.

We already know that fish target species and bait size are key to the hook size that you use but what about snood length?

The longer the snood the more likely it is to get tangled so a lot of anglers will opt away from a longer snood however, a longer snood looks far more natural in the water and will (I believe) catch you more fish.

I like to fish one up and one down using two hooks but I have had problems in the past with tangles.

One of my friends Mr Ian Golds decided to overcome this problem by starting a snood at the top of the rig and a snood at the bottom of the rig and clipping them both down in a revolutionary way.

Friend of the shop ian Golds.

The rig took off like wild fire as its results were staggering!

This is the rig, you might know it as the Loop Rig or from its more commonly know name The Portsmouth Rig.

Click on the image below to enlarge it.

As you will notice there are two snoods at two different positions on the rig and that can open up a lot of opportunities. You could use 10lb line and a size 1 hook for the top more moveable snood and 30lb line with a 3/0 for the more positioned rig.
That would mean a couple of beads and some "Bling" on the top snood for smaller species or flat fish and a couple of Peeler Crab on the bottom snood for Bass/Smoothound?
The possibilities are endless.

You do need quite a few bits to make this rig but believe me the end result is well worth it.