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Showing posts from 2015

2015 Review

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Comparing last years fishing to this years fishing it has been a year full of improvements for me but also the odd setback that I need to address in 2016 .And it's also only just dawned on me that I actually enjoy scratching around for the smaller fish then hunting for specimen fish The improvement I am mostly happy with is my tactics for catching my favourite fish the Plaice .Four years ago I would probably have had 5 or so plaice in a season,  last year I had 9 and this year I had 54 . I believe its down to several things Firstly constantly changing/improving my rigs over the last 2 years until I found something that works really well . I also now have three good plaice marks along Chesil instead of one .Obviously there is greater numbers of plaice about which is out of my hands but that has helped me to fine tune my rigs in terms of catch rate and hook sizes etc.So now I have a couple months to work out how I can get closer to 100 plaice next year .I don't think I can i

Greedy Cod Abbotsbury, 13th Dec

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Having left everything until late this weekend I decided to go bait digging from 10:30pm - 01:00am Saturday night, then fish Abbotsbury from 06:30am .The digging was hard going towards the end as I split my pitchfork after an hour and a half but persisted with a now mini fork! and managed to find what looked enough to head back to the car for some kip.I was hoping to sleep until 6am then fish but I basically sat in my car trying to sleep until it was time to hit the beach.. Not much happened until the ebb when I started getting a fish a cast all be it whiting ,pout ,dogs etc and this was really hammering my bait supply after only a couple hours . A mate called me and suggested that I should try a live bait rig if my bait was that low .So I started to bait a small hook with little blow-lug .....the whiting found them with ease the only problem was they were all large whiting and pulling the weight free but I kept at it and noticed my rod had slack-lined again so went to r

Sole Hunt 28TH November

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With chesil being a bit on the breezey side! I tagged along with some lads who were also fishing hengistbury head for the first time ... So after a nice long walk down the road a hike through some woodland and wading through some bogland we finally made it to the mark having taken the long way round !!!! Bites were from the off with a couple small bass and a better fish lost . Then it was whiting pout and rockling for a bit ! Until finally my target sole arrived at 2lbs 2oz .Fun little venue ,bit of a hike though !

Tactical decision Abbotsbury 02/11/12

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After spending the Saturday night and Sunday morning down Cogdon targeting sole and plaice but getting nothing other then 60 odd whiting plenty of pout and dog fish I had a good long think of what to do to better my chances on the Monday and to make better use of my day off ! I set off in the morning for Abbotsbury wondering if it was really a good idea going after cod with the calm conditions or should I just try for plaice again.So i pulled over and called a mate and some how we come up with the idea that I should walk miles past the dragoons teeth at Abbotsbury to get away from the whiting and I would stand a chance of cod or plaice here.... So after a good 50 minute walk I made it to my old plaice mark but noticed the water wasn't as clear as i expected So I was out with the cod rigs ' 4/0 droppers and a standard  4/0 clip down .The baits I had were fresh blacks, yellow tails and rag but I wasn't feeling that confident with the worm baits as most fish have been taki

Plaice Hunting Cogdon

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Everything looked good for another plaice hunt at Cogdon this weekend and it didn't let me down although I did manage to set up right on a snag and promptly lost two fish in two casts one of which felt like a good plaice!But I persevered knowing that I was on the clay beds and was soon rewarded with a couple plaice around 34cm and nice and fat like most this time of year. Thankfully at some point in the morning I managed to pull in the snag which consisted of a lot of weights, line ,weed, dog fish and my rig with a plaice on that I had lost in the snag earlier ! The fishing was steady but fun with a few dog fish and 10 plaice ranging from 32-38cm .Most plaice were taken on a loop rig with a blacklug/rag mix and a couple were taken on my wishbone dropper .

Abbotsbury ,The easing of a storm

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The perfect time to hit Chesil if your targeting cod is when a good southwesterly storm is easing and the water is nice and brown although this is also very dangerous , as was the case a week or so ago when me and a mate had a session at Abbotsbury . The sea was still extremely dangerous with a big swell creating a big surf run off which will have no problem sucking you out to sea if you get to close so always look for the last high water mark before setting up just to be safe. The conditions made it much harder to get a nice fish out of the surf  as I found out within 30 minutes of setting up, with a nice codling of 5lbs 8oz .It was taken on my preferred cod rig when the water is brown a dropper rig 6/0 pennel with fresh blacks , but I am sure peeler crab would have worked just as well if you can get them ....There was no short supply of fish on this trip sadly it was mainly dog fish and good sized whiting .I did however get another codling  a bit bigger at 6lbs 4oz so not to bad

Chesil Hunter Facebook page

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  Just a heads up i have created a Facebook page where I will put up a brief summary of all my fishing trips ' live from the beach when I can find a signal! '  My reports on this blog will be more detailed a day or two after a trip !! So feel free to like my page ...! https://www.facebook.com/1ChesilHunter/timeline

Plaice And Cod Hunt Abbotsbury /Cogdon 25/26 September

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 A  late decision to go fishing meant I would have to dig some worms as the shops would all be shut by the time I arrived on the coast .So I left home Friday evening  to coincide my arrival for low water when I could get at the worm beds which was about 11pm ! And i arrived bang on schedule although this didn't help much as I really struggled to find any worms for the first hour ....Thankfully i  persevered  and for the next hour and a half I had enough blow lug for the weekend . It was now 1:30am and I spent the next 20mins driving towards Abbotsbury wondering if I should fish or get some sleep for a good days fishing in the sun ....well  I opted to fish ! So from 2am - 6am I fished the cottages at Abbotsbury with not a lot to show for my troubles in fact all I managed was a 3lbs conger one dog fish and a couple poor cod and the spider crabs made a return pulling my rods over just about every cast ! High water was about 6am and not much was happening so I decided to get some k

STORM HENRY SEPTEMBER 2015

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After recent poor sessions me and Pete had been waiting for a good storm to stir up Chesil and if the forecasts were correct then the coming storm ' named Henry' was hopefully going do the job mid week . Being fish able and unfishable can be a close thing so I was constantly texting Pete to go and have a look but he kept replying its fine Nick ! So I did some work in advance to get the afternoon off .The day finally arrived and I was hearing that the sea was rather rough but I had the afternoon off so I was going to at least try and fish it! I arrived at low water with only a few anglers on the beach , Henry had left being a  big brown sea with rafts of weed and  I also noticed while walking to my chosen mark at Abbotsbury that the other guys fishing were just using one rod and just standing down the bottom holding the rods up high out of the waves and weed and it was clearly working for them as they were reeling in a few cod . These were the conditions a bit later when P

Battle Of The Marks Session 1 15TH SEP

The first session coincided with a weeks holiday which I dedicate to fishing chesil at the start of September this being my favourite time of year to fish chesil normally !!!! Conditions were very calm with Crystal clear water,  In fact this had been the conditions for more or less the entire week . We decided to fish from 6pm - midnight  Pete fishing his favourite mark in the west and I fished my favourite mark in the east. We were hopeful for plaice ,Bream Gurnard in the first few hours and maybe a cod,ray or bass in the evening with the normal dogs and pout mixed in ! But what we in fact encountered was probably the hardest/worst  fishing of the year . All I could manage to get out was 3 Pout and a small strap conger during the session and I actually put in 80 hours fishing that week for 6 pout 1 eel  and a couple mackerel off the bottom 'plenty on feathers though ' which is by far my worst weeks fishing in September .Pete didn't fare to much better with very few bit

Battle Of The East and West Marks !!!

As some of you are aware I will be taking on Pete 'aka Chichester pete' in a friendly 10 session ...BATTLE!!! Partly because Pete thinks I am bonkers walking as far as I do !!  But it's mainly to see how Pete's mark in the west compares to my mark further to the east ,over three months . Although this is just a bit of fun.... there is dire consequences for the loser! We are going to keep it as simple as possible and the points league system we have decided on will hopefully give a good account of how each mark has fished RULES OF BATTLE 1] A SESSION IS SIX HOURS LONG AND TO BE FISHED WITHIN A CERTAIN TIME FRAME OF EACH OTHER [YET TO CONFIRM TIME FRAME]. 2] WE MUST FISH THE SAME MARK EACH SESSION OR AS CLOSE AS ONE CAN GET . 3]  POINTS WILL BE AWARDED FOR THE FOLLOWING IN EACH SESSION   1 POINT ....... For each lb in weight achieved for the total bag  ,                                     example 16lbs 15oz =16pts   1 POINT ... Maximum for each of these

August fishing 2015

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For me this August on Chesil has not been as productive as last year . Having said that I have still managed to get some nice plaice and hounds out but there is definitely not as many codling about as at the start off this month last year. For a bit of a change this month Instead of spending £30 a week on bait  I have actually been digging most of what i need and found it quite enjoyable, sort of !! And I will most certainly continue to do this .Below was my first dig and the cod and hound that followed a couple hours later at Abbotsbury. I had a long hard session this Saturday [22/08] with only a mackerel hitting the bait in day light but just as I was putting my tent away and the sun was going down I had a codling so stayed on for a couple more hours to see if another would show but just pout,poor cod and an eel were to be had .I also timed my walk back  from the camp perfectly to coincide with torrential rain !!! I ventured off Chesil for a weekend this month as a

Ferrybridge 18th july

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It was a long and productive session starting Saturday 10am -1am Sunday .Although it's a long old walk I decided to fish my plaice mark once again as it hasn't let me down yet and then target the hounds in the evening . I could see a lot of weed on the top but it wasn't a problem for most of the day and the bites were frequent from the off with a small  gurnard ,whiting and some small hounds taking my plaice bait.   For the next couple of hours my baits were getting striped within 10 minutes ,it might have been bream but i was trying to avoid them anyway . I had a text from a mate asking how I was doing when my rod dropped back but reeled in to find nothing so I put it straight back out in the same place and sat down to text my mate when the rod dropped back again!  This time I could feel a fish on and a lovely 1lbs 12oz plaice was landed So i was rather happy with that and another would follow not long after with a nice gurnard By lat

Abbotsbury/Ferrybridge 10th/11th July

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I met up with a mate this weekend 'Andy from north Devon ' I said I didn't mind where we night fished but wanted to fish for plaice and bream at ferrybridge Saturday morning .So we decided to fish Abbotsbury through Friday evening and into the early hours .We started fishing around 7pm with clear water and hardly any wind I had set up 20 yards or so away from Andy in a spot that has produced plenty of flounder and dabs in the past and I had a nice Little rattle on my first cast which was a nice fat dab so not a bad start to the day . I started using peeler crab on a pulley pennel before the sun went down and managed 3 smooth hounds in 3 cast, this picture being the smaller of the 3 hounds  but to be honest the others were 4lbs at best ! Just before the sun went down a big shoal of white bait were chased on to the beach by horse mackerel, And later that night a fox enjoyed tucking into them!! So anyway  it was soon dark and with this my mate started to catch hounds

Three counties Match Report 4/06/15

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Are July match was a rover from Ferrybridge, Most fished in front of the bird sanctuary or just past and then there was me who opted for the long long walk past it to my mark .There was a good breeze blowing when we arrived but the sea wasn't to bad at all .The match started at 6pm and this turned out to be great timing with the wind dropping right off as we started to fish  . I had already put my first rod and was just coming back to my stand with my second rod when it got knocked over which is not handy when your just about to set the other rod down in the stand ! anyway I managed to juggle the rods and stand around and reel in the first fish of the evening which was a nice little hound . So not a bad start at all I soon had the pre-baited rig out and sat down  with anticipation of the next bite and I didn't have to wait to long at all with a nice hit on my distance rod which was a beam [my target ] Then I missed a few bites before I had another bream this time on

10 species ferrybridge 27/06/15

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 I arrived at Ferrybridge at 8:30am on low water but still had a good 40minutes walk to my mark, which has been coming up with the goods over the last couple of weeks. I eventually made it to my mark and had my rods in the water by 930am. I didn't have a bite for the first hour or so but as soon as the tide started to run the bite come along and first up was a gurnard  Not long after this I had a plaice that i was targeting , on a loop rig with rag/squid                     This was soon follwed by another of similar sze and I also missed a really good knock around this time I then had to wait a few hours for a rattle followed by slackliner , this happend for 5 casts in a row and the first 4 knocks I had nothing to show and was thinking I have either developed a knack for missing plaice or its bream...thankfully on the 5th slackliner it was proved to be the latter  Time was now getting on and just before dark I had a good knock , it was in fac

Ferrybridge 20/06/15

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I wouldn't normally go to this end of the beach for plaice fishing but it seems to be chucking a few out so gave it another go after having a couple out last weekend, Loop rigs were working better last week so made a few up with stronger snoods ! Rag dungy and squids were the baits . It started really well with both rods getting knocks on my first casts landing one but missing the other . I then had anther good knock about 20 minutes later resulting in another plump plaice both coming to ragworm. I was to miss a few knocks for the next hour ,until a rod dropped back and I was to land my 3rd plaice of the morning with the top hook also missing! while I was getting this one in I noticed my other rod line was slack and thought I may have pulled it in so straight on to that rod but it was in fact another plaice with a spider crab on the top hook ! So after a few hours fishing I was thinking this could be a really good day ..... pffffffffffffff For