Full House At Shore Road.

This next picture is the reason we all go fishing.

Local angler Paul Madgewick shown here decided to take a trip down to Shore Road, Hythe and try his luck in a short day time session.

Paul used Ragworm on a two hook rig and cast to around the 60 yard range as the tide was on it’s way out.

Shore Road is not known for large fish but it does have a great reputation for multi species captures.

Paul recognised the bite straight away and struck into it, he did not however expect to see a double hit!!

Two Flounder’s, one on each hook!

Two days later and Paul returned to the same spot to try his luck again.

This time Paul managed two small Bass followed by 2 more Flounders, the first at 1lb and the second 1lb 8ozs.

Next he landed this fantastic third Flounder of 2lb 2ozs.

Good work Paul!

Anchorman Charter Needles Experience.

We set off on board Anchorman Charter from Hythe Marina at 7am sharp in search of some winter Cod and other species.

My aim was to fill up the Catch Gallery on www.anchormancharter.co.uk with photo’s of good fish so that paying customers can see what they are likely to catch when fishing on this vessel.

I was joined by Lee Woollon, Mike Stimson, Martin Cooper Steve Perry, Vernon Mumford and 3 other anglers all in search of some big winter fish.

We headed round the Solent and made our way around the Needles Lighthouse making our way towards a precise set of coordinates that were pre plotted into Skipper Dave’s navigational equipment.

After spending a while making sure that the anchor was bedded in and the kettle was on we were ready to fish!

We all knew that our target species was Cod and Conger so our rig was fairly simple. A 1/0 swivel with 6’ of 125lb monofilament coupled with a pair of very sharp 8/0 hooks!

The bait used was a mixture of Ammo Squid, Ammo Dirty Squid and Cuttlefish. We each found ways of presenting our baits either by simply attaching 2-3 squid or like me adding 2 squid with a wrap of Cuttlefish skin...Nice!

After a very short time it started to happen. I had just put down my cup of Coffee (courtesy of Skipper Dave) and my rod tip gave a very familiar bounce, I picked up the rod and fed out some line and sure enough whatever it was on the end kept on taking my bait back into the tide. I tightened up the drag and wound down into the fish. It was immediately apparent that I was into a fairly sizeable fish.

After a battle of about 15 minutes my first fish of the day was heading towards the boat, eventually onboard my fish was a Conger Eel of 27lb! Great start!

Next on the list Martin Cooper hit into another fish that felt good, he had a good tussle and finally emerged with a larger Conger of about 30lb.

The bites were coming thick and fast and soon Lee Woollon was bent into another Eel!

The lads all had a couple of Eels each and a few good Whiting, we were all having fun and with a constant supply of Tea, Coffee and Bacon Sandwiches the day was going well.

I could not help but think where were the Cod? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>-<)))’>

Steve had a small knock and he wound down into it but he refused to comment when one of the lads asked ”Conger?”

He kept the pressure on and I realised I was tangled round his line so I just realed in at the same speed as he reeled in at so as not to cut his line.

The Shakespeare Ugly Stick Braid hire rod hooped over and played the fish perfectly. 

Soon enough we saw the massive white mouth of a large Cod!

“Thought so” Steve exclaimed.

What a perfect specimen wonderful winter Cod of 19lb.

We all fished hard as soon as Steve had landed that fish, everyone wanted a Cod!

Martin Cooper had another knock and soon he leant back into a serious fish! He tightened the drag on the Abu Garcia 7000i reel that he had hired on board of Anchorman Charter and the fish kicked back and pulled his rod over.

After quite a battle we saw a very wide, very long Conger eel making it’s was towards the boat. Once on the vessel you always know when it’s a good fish when someone has to climb up onto the fish locker to lift it clear of the floor for weighing!

55lb 7ozs, 6’ 8” long...very nice! 

Not long after the return of the big Eel, Mike Stimson notified us that he had been getting an enquiry for a few minutes, he had been feeding the line back on a very gentle bite but had now decided to strike. Whack! He was in.

The fight looked slow and lumpy and Mike was sure that this was not and Eel.

He gave the fish some line and it took a few decent lunges, after a while the fish came to the surface and sure enough it was a Cod! Nice fish.

We got it up on deck and weighed it; it turned out to be 14lb 8ozs. A perfect little specimen.

We headed back after a great days fishing and everybody had caught a decent fish. Martin Cooper had the largest fish of the day with his 55lb plus Conger and Steve Perry had the best Cod at 19lb.

Huge thanks to Dave (Chef Mumford) for the trip and we will see you again soon.

http://www.anchormancharter.co.uk/

Cod Soup!!

This year the Solent and surrounding waters have been thick with Cod. A few years back and a 20lb fish would have been the catch of the season and talked about for the rest of the year but this year there have been some amazing captures.

This picture was sent to us by one of our customers Mr Ian Wilson. He fished with squid and cuttlefish and caught this monster that tipped the scales at a staggering 29lb 10ozs!!

This fish was a bonus for us as it was caught on the New Cono Flex Jedi Cod rod designed by me. Ian said it handles the fish well and was a very nice rod indeed!

Ian wishes to thank Kevin Duell the skipper of voyager who once again put him on the right mark.

New Years Monster.

New Year’s Day started pretty horribly with my alarm going of around 9am-ish with a mild hangover Grrr.

Anyway bait was needed so Rob, Steve and I set off to dig Lugworm. After around 2 horrible hours digging in the freezing rain I had about 1.5lb of lug to add to the 2lb of Lugworm I had dug the day before and as a bonus and my Hangover was gone!

After getting the gear ready and picking everybody up it was time for the long drive down to our chosen mark near to the bridging camp at Chesil which is a proven hotspot that has produced many cod for us last year.

After arriving at the beach at around 8pm, paying a fortune for parking (over £6!!) and walking miles along the beach, fishing could finally begin.

The plan was to fish one rod with a large Lugworm bait and the other rod as a tandem live bait rig set up. Rigs used were up and over rigs. One with a Pennell of 4/0 hooks and on the other a size 2 as the bottom hook and an 8/0 as the top hook. The wind was blowing somewhere between 18-20 mph and there was large surf and a big swell.

On my third cast I had a massive pull down and loads of slack line, so I picked up the rod wound down to loads of weight moving down tide, but for some reason the fish managed to fall off the hooks B*****s!

Ok try again! At around 12 o’clock after many little poor cod and pout the Lugworm rod went again, this time a classic cod bite! ‘Bang’ ‘Bang’ the rod went over twice and then loads of slack line. As I caught up to it I could tell it was a decent fish and after a bit of a tussle I dragged it up the beach, a magnificent Cod 10lb 5oz whoop personal best broken!!

It was then the turn of my mate Steve who landed a cod bang on 9lb. This was caught on the tandem rig, on a small poor cod.

At around 3:30am after another typical Cod bite, I connected with another Cod, but this was very different from the other fish. It felt very weighty and began moving down tide at speed. After playing the fish till about 40 yards out, all hell broke loose! The fish ran about 50 yards the kept taking line, it was like fighting a good Smoothhound!

After a long fight just beyond the breakers I eventually beached the fish. My mate ran down and dragged it out the surf exclaiming “Jesus mate it’s massive!!”

The fish slammed my Avon scales down to 19lb 10oz!! Only 6oz off of the magic 20lb mark!! I really wanted to put him back, but there would have been little chance of him recovering and getting through the massive breakers!

We left the beach at 6am as the weather had taken a turn for the worse and fishing became almost impossible. I almost had 30lb extra weight to carry back!! But was I bothered? Not a chance

Thanks for reading

Adam Fadli