Catch report & fishing forecast for Dorset including Chesil Beach, Portland & Weymouth. 24th December 2012

I wish I had tidings of good news and reports of lots of fish being caught, but the truth is this has been one of the worst fishing periods this year. The high winds and amount of fresh water along the coast is making fishing very hard.

This will be the last post until boxing day so I will try and cover the forecast for the next couple of days. For those of you that might be lucky enough to get some new fishing toys for Christmas, you will need to wait a few days if you are thinking of fishing Chesil. Conditions on Chesil are once again bad and tomorrow they are going to be even worse. If you are thinking of going fishing then Windspit might be the best option.

Water Temperature: 9.9*c             Weymouth High Tide: 3.58pm, 1.67m

Wind: SW 24mph gusting almost 50mph

Sea Conditions:

Chesil Beach: Very rough and dangerous, the water is heavily coloured

Portland: The West side of the island and the Bill are very rough. The East side is more sheltered with a swell of 2m.

Portland Harbour: Wavelets with slightly coloured water.

Weymouth Bay: Calm but heavily coloured and lots of freshwater coming out of the harbour.

Chesil Beach forecast: The beach is just fishable, but I wont be risking it for a few Pout and Dogfish, as that is all that seems to be about at the moment.

Portland: Whilst the West side is a bit too rough to fish, marks such as Church Ope Cove and Chine may well provide some good fishing. Large fish baits will help catch large Bull Huss and Pollock. The water is going to be too dirty for Wrasse fishing but there is always the chance of a Cod.

Portland Harbour: Not a lot happening in the harbour at the moment.

Weymouth Bay: I had a walk down the piers earlier and did meet a couple of dedicated anglers who had caught quite a few Whiting. Preston Beach will provide some shelter from the South Westerly winds and should produce some Whiting. Rockling are regularly starting to appear in the catches.

Poole Harbour: Large amounts of flood water are having a big effect on the flounder fishing. One or two fish have been caught but I would have to think long and hard as to whether it was worth travelling a long way to catch a single Flounder.

Fish of the month or week competition! I am going to start running a fish of the month competition and if I can get a sponsor or two interested, I will run a weekly competition. I will release more details of the prizes in the next couple of days. The competition will be for what myself and the sponsor think is the best fish for that period. It may not be the largest fish, as all factors including location and tackle will be taken into account. The fish must have been caught from the waters of Dorset or Devon and have been caught during the period of the competition. You need to email me a picture and give details of where, when and how it was caught. To ensure your secret spots are kept secret I only need to know the rough location so get sending your pictures in now to [email protected]

Guiding: Due to the Bass fishing falling off I am only taking bookings for traditional bait fishing sessions for January, I will be targeting Cod, and Whiting from the beach and large Wrasse and Pollock from the shore. I am happy to fit in a few short Pollock and Wrasse lure sessions from the rocks, but these will be limited to 1/2 day or 2 to 3 hour sessions. These can be tailored to your requirements. Drop me an email for more details [email protected]