November 2014 Monthly Report

The winter cod season is well underway now with the first cod hitting the deck on October 25^th for Martin Lewis weighing in at 21lb. Since then we haven’t enjoyed the best of weather only managing a couple of trips a week due to southerly winds and the temperature has yet to drop which is key to a good days cod fishing. In between cod we have enjoyed plenty of congers, rays, spur dogs, bull huss and whiting. Paul Hathaway pulled up a monster of an eel over slack water one day at the end of October, the fish really fighting every inch of the way. We eventually managed to roll it up into the big landing net and had it aboard but unfortunately it was too rough to weigh it. We estimated it to be around 65lb. You always know the season is properly underway when it’s time for the Lowrance British Cod Championships down in Lymington. Due to poor numbers this year it looked like we wouldn’t be needed up until the last minute when a mechanical problem forced another boat to drop out. Both days saw up to 30knots of south/south-easterly wind so we fished in Solent. The first day was just a practice for us as we didn’t manage a decent bite at all but we more than made up for it on the second. Fishing a different area the lads managed 13 cod throughout the day up to 7lb. They may not have been the biggest of fish but it was good enough to see Clive Webb into second place overall with 5 fish weighing in at 21lb all together. The most effective rigs were 3 down flowing traces with 4/0 hooks baited with lug worm and a squid head, I’m so used to fishing big all the time for cod so it was interesting to see a different technique produce such results. It may sound odd but I’m looking forward to it getting colder soon so we can see more cod turn up down in Poole Bay