Gurnard, the fish of the summer

I always associate the first regular catches of Gurnard with the start of the summer fishing season. The Gurnard are normally closely followed by another of my favourite eating species the Black Bream. This week has seen a number of nice Gurnard landed and it comes as no surprise that my friend, Roger Morgan had one the other evening.  He always beats me too it every year. I think you will agree with me that this is a lovely looking Gurnard.

Adam Goldie contacted me earlier in the week, asking for some advice on a mark for Bream. He may have been a bit disappointed on not catching any Bream,  but he was delighted with a 10lb 12oz Undulate Ray instead.

I just want to give another little plug for our live fishing show. Thanks for those that have subscribed to our YouTube Channel already. Myself and Gavin Parsons have been busy working on what we hope will be a very exciting project. We are going to attempt to run a live fishing show on YouTube. The show will be presented by myself and we hope in time to have a number of guests from all disciplines of fishing. We believe that the best part is you will be able to interact with us live. You can ask us questions, which we hope we can answer there and then. We also want to feature your content. Have a look at this short trailer to see the sort of fishing action we will be showing. It would really help if you could subscribe to our YouTube Channel. We need to get 1000 subscribers to allow us to unlock a number of YouTube features that will benefit future videos so if you want to help us out click the Fishing Tails YouTube Subscribe link 

Thanks for the response to the poll that we set. It looks like 8pm is the most popular time to broadcast it.

Today’s report and forecast is a bit short on February details today as we are currently on Chesil in search of some Smoothound and Rays. We will be running a live Facebook broadcast from there at around midday today. It will stream on Live Sea fishing UK Facebook page and my own page.

Chesil Beach: Medium swell up to 1m with clear water

Portland: Swell with clearl water.

Portland harbour: calm and clear water

Weymouth Bay: Calm with clear water

Chesil Beach forecast: the weather looks a bit rough over the weekend, but today looks good for Mackerel, Bream and Smoothound .

Portland: Water clarity is good for Pollock and Wrasse.

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Portland Harbour: The big tides should be good for Bass in the harbour, as well as Pollock and Wrasse. Once again the Bass are in close, so keep your casts to 30 yds and you are more likely to pick up a fish, rather than at 100yds. I am hoping that we will see some Gilthead Bream showing soon.

Weymouth Bay: The inner harbour is much clearer now. I spotted a good number of Mullet cruising around. Use a small Mepps spinner with a bit of Ragworm attached to a single hook, to tempt the fish. Have a quick look at this Thin Lipped Mullet article for more details.

Preston should produce some Gurnard, Dab and Flounder during the day, with the chance of Rays and Smoothound at night.

Guiding: The new guiding season is underway once again. Although we can’t keep any Bass at the moment, we can certainly catch them. 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]