After we steamed out to Portland bill we set about drifting around the water by the light house in search of Wrasse! Now the only down side to fishing the ground at this location is it is very rocky. So when we rigged up we had to be prepared to loose some gear. This was not so much of a problem as there was no tide, so we only had to use small weights. I used a 4oz bomb weight with a two hook flapper rig loaded to the teeth with rag worm fresh from Chesil Bait N Tackle. This rig was extremely effective at not only catching the Wrasse but also being able to pull the rig out of the rocks when we snagged up and have a hole rig still attached.
In the first half hour we were all pulling in the Wrasse form Cork Wings to Huge mother pigs of Ballen Wrasse. I lost count! Something to try next time will be lure fishing for the Wrasse of a boat. Just over a hour later I hooked into another fish, But this time it felt a bit heavier than the other fish I had been pulling in ! Only once I Brought the fish to the surface did I realise that I had caught a Huge Cuckoo Wrasse! Now Man alive the colours on this fish were out of this world; but just for minuet I thought I was fishing somewhere in a tropical ocean! But I soon composed myself and remembered I was in Weymouth ! This is also my PB Cuckoo as I have never caught one before !
Due to the size of the fish I was advised to take it in to be weighed. This posed a problem, I would have to kill the fish to take it in. No I said to myself there must be another way. I looked at the cool box on the engine hatch and decided to fill it with salt water and put the fish inside. I recovered the fish in the cool box and monitored it all day whilst changing its water every hour. I felt like I was corse fishing. Thankfully the fish survived all day in the cool box witch aloud me to demonstrate that you DONT have to kill fish to weigh them in for a competition, but instead all you need to do is take care of the fish to make sure that it survives until you release it back into the wild! On arriving back at the club house we quickly carried the fish in the cool box in to the cub to be weighed. The weight of the fish came to 0.84kg (1LB 13 and a half oz). Thats a 148% specimen! Not only did this win me the trophy for Best specimen caught by a junior in all the five days of the festivals but I also smashed the cub record for Cuckoo Wrasse Prior to the previous record of 1LBand 11oz. this made the day all worth while!
#catchandrelease
After we finished fishing the drifts around Portland bill we decided to fish opposite Chessil beach. At this point I changed my set up to a running ledger with a 8oz weight and 2.0 Hooks. This aloud me to cut up my fresh caught mackerel into thin strips, Perfect for Pout! This rig proved very effective catching me Bream, Pout, Pout whiting, Wrasse and dog fish. after about two hours into fishing in this spot Austin Weeding hooked into his first ever Tub Gurnard that he caught on rag worm and a one squid's head. I estimate it was 2LB, but that does not matter as he was over the moon with catching this fish because he set about catching one all day! Well done Austin!!! :)
After this the fishing slowly died down, and all the time had gone! I really enjoyed fishing this comp! As result I will be definitely fishing it next year and hope to see others fishing it to as I highly recommend it! I would also like to say a big Thank you to Trad Casey as I would not of fished this competition with out him supplying his boat!
have a fantastic weekend everybody! tight lines Luke :)
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