Fishing forecast for Chesil Beach, Portland & Weymouth. 8th November 2012

The fishing has been pretty much as I forecast for the past few days with plenty of Whiting, Pout and Dogfish being caught and very few Cod. The Pollock are around in decent numbers, both from the Portland end of Chesil and on the rock marks. I don’t expect things to change much for the next few days until the tides start to pick up again at the weekend. What is noticeable is the water temperature is falling pretty quickly. It has been dropping on average 0.2 degrees per day for the past 8 days. Looking back at last years temperatures the sea did not reach 11.8*c until mid December. This is going to mean a rapid departure of what is left of the summer species unless the temperature decline slows up for a while. So make the most of what we still have around for the next couple of weeks.

Water Temperature: 11.8*c             Weymouth High Tide: 12.04pm, 1.69m

Wind: W 12mph

Sea Conditions:

Chesil Beach: Calm with a small swell of around 1m. The water has pretty much cleared now

Portland: Calm with a small swell and almost clear water.

Portland Harbour: Wavelets  and clear water.

Weymouth Bay: Calm with clear water.

Chesil Beach forecast: Due to the small tides and disappearing summer species it will be a case of scratching  to pick up the odd fish during the day. Most likely you will still be able to find some Bream and the odd Plaice and Gurnard, with a few Pollock from the Portland end of the beach. Further to the West at West Bexington and Cogden you will have a slightly better chance of a Cod or Whiting and if you want to scale down youshould be able to get some Dabs. Night time should see plenty of Whiting in amongst the Dogfish and Pout. Ragworm tipped with Squid is normally the best bait. The best rig to use during the day is a single long flowing trace blasted out as far as you can. It is days like today that the longer casters really do have much more success than your average 80yd caster, which is 90% of the anglers on the beach.

Portland: The Bass and Pollock have pretty much been absent around the Island for the past few days especially around the Bill. This is almost entirely due to heavy netting very close inshore by commercial fishermen. Even the Wrasse fishing has been effected. I did manage to catch some Wrasse on blue Slug-go’s yesterday but it was hard work.

Portland Harbour: Smaller tides generally mean poorer fishing in the harbour, but it is likely that a few fish will be around at Ferrybridge and Sandsfoot Castle. Main target species will be Flounder with the odd large one a possibility.

Weymouth Bay: Best chance of a fish will be from the Pier with Garfish, Pollock, Wrasse and Mackerel the main bulk of your catch. The clear water will make it much easier for some fun with the Squid. Both the Pleasure and the Stone Pier are good marks for Squid.

Boat & Kayak fishing: With the weather more settled than it has been recently the charter fleet have been out in force. I know they have been joining the commercial Bass fleet in the Race and catching a lot of Bass. Some have stuck to the more traditional marks around the Shambles and continued to catch good bags of Plaice and Bream. It wont be long before they switch to target the Cod and large Whiting from the Adamant. Good catches of Ray can be had in the next couple of months with Blonde Rays preferring the colder months.

Guiding: That’s it for now until after I come back from filming.  My next available date is from the 29^th of November. I am taking bookings for both Bass and bait guiding sessions for December. If last year was anything to go by then the Bass  fishing should still be good up until early January. These can be tailored to your requirements including mixed days of bait and lure fishing. Drop me an email for more details [email protected]