Bream bonanza

Can there be such a thing as too many Bream? Only if your double whole squid bait that you are using to target Cod, is eaten in a matter of minutes by the hoards of locust like Bream. That was exactly what happened to me at the weekend on Chesil. most were the size of the fish shown in this stock picture below. With the odd decent sized one amongst them. We must have been sat on a large shoal, but is did seem that everyone up and down the Ferrybridge section of the beach was catching.

I did manage to lose a Codling of around 6lb in the surf but that was the only one I had at that end of the beach. Reports from anglers fishing at the opposite end of Chesil towards Abbotsbury reported a lot less fish, especially smaller fish but the result was that more Cod were landed. Robert Raybould managed a couple of what he describes as pretty thin specimens. It is possible that there is a lack of food for them at the moment. There was a report of an 18lb Cod, caught from Abbotsbury on Friday evening.

One thing that I have noticed about this early run of fish, is that they are a lot smaller than the 8-10lb fish I expected this year. I hope that is a good sign. It could well mean that we have a new run of 3 year old fish in the 2-3lb range and the larger fish are still to come in. They may follow a run of sprats that we normally get in October.

Onc of the Cods food sources that do seem to be making more of an appearance are the Squid. I fished just down the beach from Simon Harris on Saturday. He caught a small Mackerel that he rigged up as a live bait and cast back in. After a short time, he noticed a bite. After winding in he was surprised to find something had taken a chunk out of his live Mackerel. I can see from the V shaped bite that it was made by a Squid.

Exciting news: After spending many months working on a solution that will allow me to stream live video from many of my fishing trips, Adrian our tech guru, has finally put it into place. You may have noticed at the top of the home page we now have a live video feed. This should automatically show live video when ever I am streaming it via Youtube. I will try and give a schedule of when I am going to do the live shows, but sometimes they might just be impromptu broadcasts. I hope you like this new feature. If the weather and mobile signal allow, I will be doing a broadcast tomorrow.

Sea Conditions: Water temperature 17°c

Chesil Beach:  Calm with lightly coloured water. 

Portland: Slight swell with lightly coloured water

Portland Harbour: Wavelets and clear

Weymouth Bay: surf starting to build  with clear water

Chesil Beach forecast: The wind will be out of the east of south east most of this week and it will be strong mid week. This makes for great casting on Chesil, as the wind will be behind you allowing long range casts. Get your casts high and they will carry a good distance. Use this to your advantage to target Plaice, Sole, Rays and Cod that should all be out there. I think that the PLaice fishing will be very good this week. Add Bream, Garfish and Mackerel in to the mix and it should produce some very interesting sessions.

Best baits will be Ragworm, Lugworm and Squid. I will be using single hook rigs to try and get as much distance as I can.

Portland: Now that we have hit October, we are into one of the best months for fishing on Portland. The Wrasse are all looking to feed up for the winter, so they are pretty easy to catch. There are some big fish to be had, but getting through the smaller ones first will be the hard part. This is when soft plastic paddle tails and fiiish Black Minnows come into there own. The smaller Wrasse normally ignore them, but the larger specimens attack them aggressively. 

This is the month that I normally start to catch consistent numbers of Bass from the rocky shore marks. Pollock can also be caught in good numbers on lures, if the water remains clear.

Portland Harbour: There seems to be a lot less Mullet in Portland Harbour his week. They may be shoaled up in an area I haven’t noticed, or they may be starting to head out to the open water for winter. 

There are still plenty of Garfish, Wrassse and Pollock around, especially on the areas that have reefs such as Sandsfoot Castle. With Easterly winds forecast for most of this week the harbour won’t be the most comfortable mark to fish. If you can find some Bass that will work the surf as it builds you will have some fun. However there are better marks for them.

Weymouth Bay: Preston Beach is my top tip for Bass this week. The surf will build and the Bass will move in to feed close to the shoreline. You only need to cast to the third breaker to find the Bass that will be looking for disturbed food. It is most likely you will need to hold your rod to stop the waves pounding your line into the seabed. The weed could be a problem, especially towards the end of the week.

Worm and live peeler crab baits will work best.

Guiding: The new guiding season is underway once again. Although we can only keep one Bass, we can certainly catch more. I am hoping that the winter fishing ban and the new commercial quotas, combined with an increase in the minimum landing size, will make for some great Bass fishing. I specialize in lure fishing and I am offering Fly fishing this year as well. I am still more than happy to go after the multitude of species in this area with bait, whether that is big Wrasse, explosive Smoothound fishing or targeting the tastier fish such as Plaice and Bream. If you want to book a session or find out more information drop me an email at [email protected]