2/7/11...Hounds Save The Day...Shelley,Luff Bu, Waldrens, Charlie's.

I really gave the boat the runaround today searching, sounding and trying to familiarise myself with marks that I've not yet visited in my travels. First stop was Shelley Rocks where a couple of Orkney Spinners were fishing around loads of pot markers and a small commercial. Plenty of small pollack and a few mackerel took the feathers and it was interesting to see this shallow , rugged reef on the sounder. If it hadn't have been so crowded I might have stayed but i've a feeling a revisit with either plugs, or drifted live mackerel, would be worth a go.
Eavesdropping on one of the 'spinners' in conversation, I did hear mention of a 12lb bass. Could it have come from here, I wonder.
Moving west to Luff Bu I set up the keepnet for the mackerel that I'd boxed up from Shelley. It all seemed to work quite well until the tide picked up causing the net to drag too much almost tearing it apart. The mackerel stayed healthy and it was worth a crack, but I think a tank is the only answer and I've got enough space on deck if I'm going solo. Two up might be a different matter.
Things were pretty quiet, think I had a doggie, and it was the same when I moved to Waldrens-no takers to the live mackerel.Listening to the other boats on channel 8 revealed a similar situation -nobody was getting much.
In the end I decided on a move back east to Charlie's to fish for smoothound as quite a few have been showing up locally on the beaches. Being so close to shore the weed was a real nuisance and the whole squid were being ripped apart by what I later found out were tiny bream, having tested the water with a size 4 double pat to find out who the culprits were. See the pesky critters in the picture. They're capable of destroying a whole squid in seconds.
Two good sized (double figure)hounds did prevail, and another lost, to save the day on squid, along with the Inevitable dogfish just to pass time . I love hounds, especially from the boat where, with all that free space, they fight like tigers even on the heavy outfit.