I arrived in Brixham at 06:40 and shortly after Barry and Roy turned up with Jeffrey (apologies if the spelling's wrong) bringing up the tail. The weather was good with a light south-westerly, some cloud but warm.
We boarded the boat along with two other anglers, Ian and Roy (again). Anyway, off we steamed for some bait and managed to get enough mackerel for the day's fishing.
We anchored uptide of a wreck in 260' of water and, started fishing for eels using mackerel flappers and/or squid cocktails. Shortly after lobbing my bait over the side I had a bite which ended up with a 25.5lb conger..... a pb for me as my previous best (admit it Worms, you've only ever caught three before of 10, 11 and 12lbs). I was dead chuffed! It also beat the Sporting Wanglers record of 20lb (I was on an official trip
).Fishing was good with numerous 'straps' caught by all until Ian caught a cracking 56lber. I'd never seen a conger that big in real life, wow, what a fish! Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of that one and it appears that I was the only person with a camera on board!
Next result for me was a new species ling of 6lb (****s Barry, after gutting and head removal and spending the best part of 48 hours between coolboxes and fridges etc. I got 6lb of steaks and tail fillets off it, I'm claiming at least 8lb!).
More 'straps' for all aboard and then I noticed a knock on the rod tip. I paid attention to Barry's advice and, let the knocks go until the tip of the rod curved over. I let the fish tighten up and slowly leant back into the fish until I knew it was hooked. I then pumped for all I was worth to get the fish off the bottom. The new MTI 20/40 is amazing. In the garden when doing drag tests etc. I thought I had made a dreadful mistake and that the rod was too light. No way, sensitive tip and braid mainline with 10' 40lb mono leader and the fish was on. The backbone in that rod is amazing for such a slim blank. The reel, Avet JX, just required a little nudge of the lever off strike position towards full as the big eel engaged reverse. A mackerel flapper on a 10/0 'Meathook' on a 2' 250lb mono leader with 200lb ball-bearing swivel was the terminal gear.
Eventually it was on the surface and brought aboard. The fish was weighed and achieved 63lb on the scales. I was gob-smacked and knackered!
Roy managed a pb of 35lb
Barry was much too shy to let anybody photograph him catching fish but at least Jeff got a pic of a double hook up!
All aboard mateys!
Jeff himself had a few as well!
.Here's Barry looking pensive!
All in all we boated about 20 conger so a fair days fishing (a nice relaxing day after the sharks on tuesday
)After a shower and a change of clothes (take some clean trousers next time Roy!
) we left our digs and had a meal and a couple of beers (or ciders) prior to a night of well earned sleep. The next morning we were up for a days wrecking for cod.Unfortunately, although it was a gorgeous day the fishing was slow and, apart from two decent double figure fish of 12 and 16 pounds (not to our crew!) we had to make do with some gurnard, small cod (yes I threw mine back too Barry), pollack and pouting.
Oh well, still better to be out on a boat than working and a damned good weekend. Many thanks to Bary for the invitation and the helpful advice whilst on the boat. I'll see if I can get an Irish Sea conger trip organised for next year!
Oh, nearly forgot Barry, many thanks for the rod!
Thanks are also due to Dean for putting us onto some good marks and being an alround good egg. A great weekend and another AN poster met!
