Recreational Boat Fishing Trips are organised by Robin Lane. Contact Robin on 0787 6471 901.
These trips are non-competitive and target various species when in season.
Weekend trips for 2024. 19th Oct,23rd Nov,7th Dec.
Mid-Week trips for 2024. 10th Oct, 28th Oct, 14th Nov, 28th Nov, 16th Dec,
19th Recreational Evening Fishing Trip. Report sent in by Dave Price.
7 members from the club went out for an evening recreational fishing trip on Tuesday 24th September out from Lymington aboard "Double Six" skippered by Ben Wood. The weather was good with light winds and only a slight chill once the sun had gone down.
This was a short trip from 5pm until 9pm to fish the Solent with the target fish being codling. We were fishing within a short time of leaving Lymington and Ben anchored up on a deeper mark with the hope that the tide run would not be too strong as we arrived shortly after the tide had turned. We were lucky as the Solent can be very weedy but, on the night, there was hardly any weed around.
No codling was landed although Mark Boldick hooked into a very good fish that rather frustratingly came off as it went under the boat. We did land a selection of congers, dogfish and some good-sized bream. The biggest was caught by Robert Taylor at 2lb 6oz.
7th recreational Fishing Trip. Report sent in by Dave Price.
9 club members on Saturday 14th September went for a recreational fishing trip from Weymouth aboard "Meercat" skippered by Rayn Casey. The recreational members were once again lucky with weather having a cloudy day with sunny intervals and light winds which made for calm conditions all day. The target for the day was big bream on some wrecks that were quite a way off shore.
We started the day by going out to Portland head and catching mackerel for bait (and the BBQ). Getting mackerel has been a challenge on the recreational trips this year for a change we actually hit a few shoals and in a couple of drifts had a plentiful supply of mackerel for everyone. A couple of cuckoo wrasse were also caught whilst we were feathering here too.
With a good supply of bait on board, we then steamed out to the wreck and whilst on the way out there, for the first time on a recreational trip, we encountered a shoal of big bluefin tuna. It was an amazing sight with several very large fish smashing baitfish on the surface and then one tuna leaping fully out of the water to give us a really good appreciation of just how big these fish are. The skipper took the boat in closer to where the tuna was, but by the time we had got there they had gone.
We then carried on to the wreck to search for big bream. Martin Bobbett was the first to land a good-sized bream but they weren't being caught in the numbers that we had hoped for. The skipper moved us around a few wrecks to see if we could find them, but not many were to be found. However, we did land a good quantity of other fish including mackerel, cuckoo wrasse, pouting, red gurnard and pollack. Several congers were also caught with Tony Methven catching one around the 25lbs mark. On the last wreck Martin Bobbett also landed a good-sized bass and Mark Boldick caught the fish of the day which was a black bream of 4lb 2oz.
We then headed back to Weymouth but stopped off in the mouth of Portland Harbour to do some jigging for squid. According to the skipper, the squid have arrived early this year and we benefited from this with several members catching good sized squid and Nelson Phillips landing a decent cuttlefish too.
17th Mid-week Recreational Fishing Trip. Report sent in by Dave Price.
On Wednesday 4th September eight club members went on a fishing trip aboard "Ocean Runner" skippered by Ryan Jones out from Poole. The day was cloudy with light winds and as this was a trip mostly targeting bass all day then it made for good fishing conditions.
As usual for one of Ryan's bass trips, we started the day by catching live bait on feathers on a mark out from Bournemouth Pier. This was very successful and in a very short time we had live tank full of small scad. We then set off to drift over some banks for bass with live bait near the bottom on Portland rigs. Ryan had said this hadn't been particularly effective of late and he was right. After 3 drifts with absolutely no takes we gave up on this method and moved closer to the Needles to fish the live bait under floats.
This was far more successful and in the first set of drifts, the fish of the day was landed by Mark Boldick which was a fantastic 9lb bass. Anton Emblem also landed a very good fish. A few other bass were landed by members but nowhere near as many as on the previous trip with Ryan. When the tide died off and we waited for it to turn, Ryan went to a nearby wreck where we anchored up and a few pouting were landed and a very nice cuttlefish was caught by Neil Pullman.
When the tide started moving again, we went back to drifting on the floats near the Needles and on the ledge on the way back where Anton landed another fine bass about the same size as his first one. Also, Tony Knight caught his first ever bass whilst out with the club. It was a good enjoyable day's fishing and over the whole day 8 keepable bass were landed on the boat.