I have had 2 fishing sessions at Fennes with Cousin Chris and a sailing trip from Walton on the Naze to Ramsgate to Dunkirk, Niewpoort and then back to Walton on the Naze.

The sailing was at the beginning of the Month for 4 days. We had good sailing weather but could have done with a little more wind for the trip back across the North Sea. We caught one Mackerel between us which was cooked for lunch. We spent a little time in Ramsgate, Dunkirk and Niewpoort. Niewpoort was the best place for me.

I finally bit the bullet and purchased a fishing pole. I bought a cheapo Ron Thompson 8 metre pole to see if I liked it.. It came with 6 made up rigs and a size 18 elastic fitted to it.

I am now a converted pole fisherman. Just have to save up for a lighter longer version. In the meantime, I will buy a longer power top and maybe an extension so I can fish out at 10 metres.

See pictures of sailing and fishing!

Well the weather was just about perfect but muggins here only caught one small F1 carp the whole day.   Chris did really well with the pole and had a good bag of F1 carp, bream, roach, rudd and tench.  He caught a lovely 16lb 6oz common carp and a nice tench which looked about 3lbs.

The guy next to us caught a whopper common carp. It weighed in about 28lbs 8oz. I say about because the scales were fluctuating a bit as the fish moved in the weigh bag.

The baits were mostly halibut hooker soft pellets for Chris.   Sweetcorn and soft liquorice for me and the guy who caught the whopper caught it in the near margins with a lump of spam.

Even though I only caught the one fish, it was most enjoyable. Loads of carp were splashing about, spawning in the reeds, right under our feet.

Must buy a pole for the next fishing trip.

More next time…..

Chris and I had our 3rd visit of the year to Fennes Fisheries, Braintree yesterday. It was out best days fishing so far with a good bag of Bream with a few bonus Carp thrown in for good measure. Chris fished mainly with the pole and I used a long range feeder method together with a float set up just on the edge of some reeds about 15 feet out.
I tried some soft liquorice bait for the first time with the feeder. I used a number 8 barbless lassoo set up. The fish seemed to like the liquorice bait as I caught a couple of nice Bream and a F1 Carp. I fished sweetcorn on the float rod and caught steadily throughout the day. Mostly roach/bream hybrids, quite a few rudd, one large Crucian and some nice Bream.

Chris caught more fish than me as usual using the pole method and soft halibut flavoured expander pellets. He caught mostly Bream, roach/bream hybrids, roach, some nice carp and a bonus tench.

All in all a good days fishing. Next trip is scheduled in 2 weeks.

Went to Fennes estates again last Thursday with Chris. We had quite a good days fishing in the top lake. Chris used pole and I used a match rod & reel. Chris caught a good weight of mostly Bream with a few F1 Carp and Roach thrown in. I on the other hand did not catch nearly as many fish. I caught a couple of Bream, a Rudd plenty of small Perch and some Roach. Oh yes, one of the Perch was about 1lb.
The lesson I learned is that the pole fishing is so precise when it comes to placing the bait and fishing in exactly the same spot, each and every time. The groundbait pot that can be fixed onto the end of the pole is also a good move. I am not so good at chucking in the groundbait to hit the same spot again and again.

Chris was using small expander pellets as bait which worked a treat. I used mainly red worms that I got from our compost bin. Only trouble with them is that the micro Perch love them.

Memo to me. Get myself a pole to try out!

Well, not much to report fish wise. Chris and I anchored the ‘Lollipop’ in the River Stour, just outside the shipping channel, not far from the end of the stone pier. We were hoping to see some nice spring Cod running up the river but all we caught were very small Cod and Whiting. They must have been last years hatch from the size of them. I won the smallest fish prize. It was a whiting about 4″ long. Shame really because I had loads of Lugworm for bait! The day was really murky but the sea was calm as you can see in the pictures. It started to rain at about 2pm and as we were only getting these small nibbles from tiny fish we up anchored and headed back to the marina at Titchmarsh. Oh well, better luck with the fishing next time!

Sorry for the long absence from this blog. I have not been fishing for a while. The cold weather makes me a bit of a fair weather fisherman these days. Apart from that, the Cod in and around Harwich have been absent for the last 2 months. Off chasing Sprats I guess.
Cousin Chris has put his yacht Lollipop back into the water at Titchmarsh marina and we are going fishing on Thursday, weather permitting!
I cycled down to Earlams beach this morning to catch the 10 am low tide. It was a beautiful day for the Human race. It took me 15 minutes or so to get there on my (t)rusty bike. I visited the usual spot and was pleasantly surprised to see that the Lugworm had multiplied since my last visit. I dug around 180 worms in just over an hour. I will report again after the fishing trip.

I had a few hours fishing on the Ha’penny pier yesterday afternoon. It was a calm murky drizzly sort of day. No one else was fishing so I had the pier to myself. I now know why. No fish, no bites, nada! I had the best sort of bait which was live shrimp that I had caught in the local boating lake. I use a small dip net and I can catch enough in five minutes for a few hours fishing.
I fished for about 3 hours and came home. It was all very pleasant but there was no activity on the fish front whatsoever. Better luck next time. I spent most of my time throwing a few shrimp at a tame Turnstone (see pics)

Had a quick trip down to the promenade at Harwich to use up the rest of the lugworm that I dug last Sunday. The worms were mostly half dead, limp and starting to pong so I thought it might be a waste of time. I arrived at the bottom of Barrack Lane around 11:10 am, just an hour before high water.

There was another Angler there who was just setting up. He was using Squid and Mackerel.

First cast, I get a small Bass which I returned safely. Thereafter I got bite after bite until about 12:15hrs.  All the fish caught after the Bass were Whiting and I caught about 12 in total. 4 were big enough and one of them went to 1lb 1oz and was 37cm long. Biggest whiting so far this year. The smelly worms did the trick and the other Angler caught nowt

!

Had a great days fishing with cousin Chris on his yacht yesterday. We were fishing just inside (out of the shipping channel) the guard bouy in Harwich harbour. It was a windy south westerly with a steady 20 knots.

Luckily we were not far off the pilot station, in the lee of the land. It was still a bit on the lumpy side, especially when the pilot boats came in and out.  Half of them slow down and obey their own speed limits but the other half give it the full throttle and do about 15 knots or so.

The pilot cutters wash made the good ship Lollipop rock and roll. You get used to it after a while!

We were using Lugworm for bait that I had dug the day before at Earlams.  I managed to dig around 180 worms in about 1.5 hours.  As usual, we had plenty of worms and we didn’t get to use them all. I brought the unused worms back home and re-wrapped them for the next trip on the pier on Sunday or Monday

We finished up with about 8 whiting between us and I caught the bonus Codling. I didn’t even see it bite. I was just winding it in to check the bait! Sometimes you just get lucky. It was only lightly hooked in the bottom lip so I was lucky to get it into the landing net! The Codling weighed in around the 4lb mark. Not a huge fish but a nice size to fillet.

All the fish were filleted this morning and they are now in the freezer!

Thanks again to Chris for taking me fishing. Hopefully we can get one more trip in before the boat comes out for its annual scrub.

Fishing off the guard, Harwich harbour.

Had our usual (we we try to) bi monthly trip over to Fennes yesterday 24th Sept. The weather was beautiful for this time of year. Light westerleys with a slight ripple on the surface.

I fished two rods. One on the float and one out on the ledger. I started catching Perch almost straight away. I tried spam and strips of ham that had been in the fridge at home a day or two longer than it was safe to put in a sarnie!

I also had some large shrimp for bait that I had bought from Iceland, Dovercourt. Nice store.

Chris was fishing with his Maver pole.  He was using the full 13 metre section.

We ended the day with lots of fish coming to the net. I had a couple of nice Perch, the largest being 2 lbs and a common carp around 5 lbs. I caught the biggest Perch on a ledgered shrimp!

Chris caught loads of silver stuff, some nice Bream and finished with a ugly carp!

A good days fishing.