So the day has arrived, we’ve all been waiting for it, the day of the fishing trip on a boat in Weymouth!
There were supposed to be 7 of us who went on the trip, but 2 dropped out at the last moment due to iffy stomachs. So it left the famous 5 of Steve Charlesworth, Pete Smith, Neil Bedford, Andy Miles and myself.
The plan was to arrive in Weymouth for around 06:30am and have a nice breakfast in a cafe on the end by the ferry port. Alas this wasn’t to be as it was closed for some reason, so we headed back into the harbour car park to get parked up ready for the off.
I’d forgotten to mention that me and Neil came across a very drunk lady on Weymouth front, who was in a very poor state (through drink)! She had been swimming in the sea with her mates, and they’d all buggered off and left her. We called her a taxi and hoped it turned up soon, as she was a real liability in the state she was in.
So we got our tickets for the car park, and headed off for a very quick breakfast as time was running out! We ended up in Subway, which isn’t the best of places but it was close to the boat, and we had to get bait and stuff yet still! Time was running out, so needs must and all that….
Here you can see Steve eagerly awaiting the chance to order his breakfast sub.
So after all of use had used the toilet in Subway (as there wasn’t one on the boat!), we headed off the bait shop to get some squid and ragworm to supplement the mackerel we were going to catch that morning.
We legged it back just in time across the bridge as it was raised at 8am, and we got onboard the Bonwey around 15 minutes later than planned.
Ready for the off… from the left Neil Bedford, Andy Miles, Steve Charlesworth,Pete Smith
So we headed out of the harbour in good spirit
Andy and Neil, get down to the serious art of terminal tackle making, well Neil did, Andy just made another rollup.
I was looking a bit bemused by this new reel type called a multiplier, I prefer the good old fixed spool reel personally! In fact in hind sight it would have worked fine on this trip.
Above & below are some shots of us heading off towards the mackerel ground, where unknown to me, Captain Mackerel was about to strike a blow to the mackie population!
Above, the famous “Portland Bill” lighthouse, very dramatic.
Hardy boat fisher Andy gives Neil some last minute tips, Steve is also sharing an interest in what he had to say.
Above you can see the mackerel fishing in full swing, well I couldn’t take any pictures during the mackerel fishing as it was a bit hectic. Enough was caught for bait and food, I even got my hands (well gloves) dirty at one point! Now that's what I don’t call fishing! Getting your hands dirty!
Now at this point we headed out to our first proper fishing grounds, the sea looks calm above yes? Well by the time we got out to our spot it must have had a 2m swell, which made standing on the boat impossible (especially as there was no handrail to hold onto!). It was going up and down like a ride at Alton Towers, I feared never to move from my spot, but the boat had other ideas as I went flying when I let got of my grip on the side and went knee first into Neil’s fishing kit box which did not fair too well to say the least!
After both Steve and Pete lost the 1lb lead weight and tackle on the mussel bed below the captain decided to move us out of the nasty swell into more calmer waters. Otherwise the £5 per rod would have started to cost him money as lead is quite expensive at 1lb weights.
So off we moved to another spot, a lot less choppy and we could actually walk about a bit on board!
Above everyone deep in concentration whilst fishing, well apart from Pete who seemed more interested in his lunch at that point!
Sea trials of the “postcrete” specials were about to commence, here you can see me posing with an 11oz appx 2nd generation prototype. To stop the anticipation I'll tell you now that the trials were found to be somewhat lacking. The weight was fine and it did sink to the bottom, it just took about 10 times as long to hit the bottom as lead. Maybe it was the fact it was 11oz of non dense material. Needless to say this, and other prototypes were given a watery grave!
First to catch a real fish was Pete “Rambo” Smith, his first dogfish! Neil (still with a bit of colour in him at this point) followed suit with another dogfish.
Andy then reeled out… yes a dogfish… this was a thrill a minute boat trip!
Much to my disappointment, the only fish that were being caught were dogfish, bloody things! It was the fact we could catch those off the beach that annoyed me!
Then out of the blue Pete caught a Flying Gurnard, it was a pleasant change to the bloody dogfish! It was a weird little fish as it made a sort of barking noise.
Steve was trying to re-enact the end of Jaws, unfortunately his shark prop was not that convincing!
Steve catches his first fish, yes it’s a dogfish! Shock horror the first non dogfish went to Andy with a nice Bream!
Andy and Neil above both on the go here… dogfish… no surely not!?!?!
Steve catches his first Bream, Pete follows suit… is this an end to all that is dogfish?
Errm that’ll be a no then! Doggie for me!
Pete catches another Bream….
It was probably around this time that captain chunder was unleashed, Neil puked up all over the side in a sudden bout of sea sickness. Of course we were merciful in providing any help, as we were too busy laughing!
At last I caught a Bream!! Here is our haul of fish, not bad really.
Andy and Steve gut the fish, as Neil looks away in horror…
Here I am with a mouthful of ginger nut biscuits, by this time we were on our way back.
Pete is enjoying the trip, unlike poor Andy who is still gutting fish!
Pesky seagulls are awaiting the guts to be thrown into the sea!!
Neil looks a lot happier as we were getting closer to land!
Lastly and by no means least here is the ghost of Christmas Past, aka Captain Chunder looking rather pale! The camera did not really show just how grey he looked. Imagine John Major’s puppet on Spitting Image, well you’ve got a good colour match then!
All in all it was a very good day, and I’d probably give it another go if the weather held up, just to catch the larger fish!
