Thunder and lighting fishing

After the exciting conditions at the start of the week, the fishing has settled back into the normal summer mode, with some nice Gurnard being caught and loads of Smoothound. Ben Hackett managed this one from the Ferrybridge end of Chesil. Normally I would say use Peeler Crab to target them, but they seem equally happy to take Squid baits.

Dan Church managed to get in amongst the Undulates that made an appearance all along the beach. This one at 8 1/2lb came from Abbotsbury.

Lets get back to what the title is all about. Unusually for a bank holiday weekend, the weather looks pretty good most of the time. However there are a number of thunderstorms forecast, especially on Sunday. If you should find yourself out fishing and get caught in a thunderstorm stop fishing immediately. Put your rods flat down on the ground or on the deck if you are on a boat. You don’t have to be directly hit with lighting to get a shock. I have experienced small electrical shocks through my hands whilst lure fishing. The lightening was striking the water about 3 miles away. Exactly the same thing happened on the boat this week. I refused to fish during the storm and my mates were giving me some grief for being a wimp. One of the other boats came over and told my mates that they had just been shocked from a lightning strike over 3 miles away at sea. My mates soon stopped laughing at me. Don’t take any chances, just stop fishing for a bit as thunderstorms normally pass quite quickly.

Sea Conditions: Water temperature 17.8°c

Chesil Beach:  Calm with clear water

Portland: Calm with clear water. 

Portland Harbour: Calm and clear

Weymouth Bay: Calm and clear

Chesil Beach forecast: Back to some good summer fishing. Expect plenty of Mackerel, Garfish and Scad on float or lures. You can bet that there will be some Bass following in behind to pick off the bait fish. 

Ferrybridge end should produce Bream, Gurnard, Rays and Smoothound. If you are heading to the Abbotsbury end, then you can expect pretty much the same with the exception of Bream. You will get the odd one, but they prefer more structure to feed around. You will have the chance of Plaice and Dabs towards West Bexington and Abbotsbury, but they are often at range at this time of year.

Best baits are likely to be ragworm tipped with Squid or Mackerel, fished on a two hook clipped down rig and size 1 hooks. I prefer to use clipped down rigs even if I am not going for distance, as it stops the bait flying off, which is a common problem on a flapper rig.

Portland: The island will almost guarantee fish on float fished ragworm. That will attract lots of Wrasse and the odd Pollock. Dusk and dawn should be very good for the chance of mackerel, Scad, Garfish, Pollock and Bass on lures.

Portland Harbour: The harbour is producing lots of small Bass that are taking just about any bait or lure you put out. This is a good sign for the future, but I try to not target them. Use larger lures and bigger baits to try and avoid them. Wrasse, Flounder, Bass and Pollock can all be caught from the area around Sandsfoot Cove. The FLounder and Bass use the gaps between the reefs to move around looking for food. 

Weymouth Bay: I have heard some good reports of Mullet being caught from Preston Beach. Not your normal Grey Mullet, but Golden Grey and Red Mullet. Golden Grey Mullet can be caught on small Mepps or bunches of Harbour Rag or Maddies, which are small white Ragworm. Red Mullet will take Ragworm or small strips of Mackerel fished on the bottom. 

As usual the piers will produce plenty of fish, but I expect that they will be very busy.

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]