September 2016 will go down in history as the month when shit got real! Literally fed up to the back teeth with the lack of opportunities to get out fishing I did a quick calculation of how much money I’d saved on fuel, tackle, engine wear and decided to invest in my first ever fishing kayak. The thinking was simple, if the wind blows west I can launch from the east of the island which as it happens is much closer to home for me. Also if it’s a nice day but the tides are wrong for the marina in Peel at least I get the option of chucking the kayak on the car and getting to fish. Other than a bit of LRF I’ve pretty much given up on shore fishing for the time being. Obviously if the weather and tides are right the boat will always be the preferred option so with in mind plus the lack of storage space I didn’t want to spend a fortune.

This was the month that broke me. With the Mackerel now here in large numbers, in fact the best Mackerel season in many years all we needed was some settled weather for a chance at some great fishing. The month started great and we were out on the 1st, fishing deep water and finding nice Spurdog, Haddock and various other bits and pieces like Gurnard and Whiting. Feathers tipped with Mackerel accounting for all fish. But that was it, one fine day! What followed was a week of strong westerly winds and a last minute decision to say screw our Manx summer and go on holiday.

With the weather being so bad from the middle of June onward we had really high hopes for getting a spell of settled weather sometime in July, how wrong were we! July, summer? Two days, TWO DAYS we managed to get out in the boat. Even those were trips where if given the choice again I don’t think we would have bothered, there is very little fun in being battered in force 5-6 winds. But desperation set in and we set out to catch something, anything.

The TT normally brings with it at least 1 week of settled weather and so it was again this year, from the 3rd until the 11th we were able to get to sea most days and in sticking with this years theme of not hammering the Callig we took the opportunity to try a few different things.

May didn’t really turn out how I was expecting, fair to say the weather was poor. A couple of sessions from the rocks earlier in the month was added to a couple of trips out in the boat towards the end of the month when summer arrived but that was about it.

Well barring any other major disasters work is just about back on an even keel. Fortunately for me the weather has been shit so I’ve not missed a lot the early part of the year and what chances the weather did give us we got out and caught plenty of fish. From May onward we should be back to monthly updates but in the meantime that is what has happened since the turn of the year.

Apologies for taking almost 6 months to update but it’s been a pretty busy time and a few things had to take a back seat. It’s a very long and boring story but the short version is that I spent 4 years of my life working my ass off building a Titanic of a business that allowed me enjoy things outside of work. I then had 4 years where I could relax a bit, you know do things normal people do like go fishing etc The business helped companies make more money in return for them paying a percentage of the extra money they made. A really simple idea in theory but one which took a lot of setting up and strange work hours but with a very diverse set of clients I had the unsinkable ship. Or so I thought. In July 2015 it hit no fewer than 4 icebergs in the space of 2 weeks. The shit hit the fan. The impossible happened! So I’ve spent the last 6 months working my ass off to stabilise a sinking ship, we’re limping on by and I’ve got some pretty big decisions to make this year. The world has moved on a lot since I established what I do. The only real silver lining has been that it all happened at a time when the weather meant I didn’t feel like I was missing out too much. The good news is that no matter what happens there will always be time for fishing, I have to, it’s the only way I relax!

I was away the beginning of the month but heard the weather was rubbish, the rest of July seemed to continue in the same way. We did eventually get 1 boat trip out but it was both short and very rough. However the fishing was superb. The islands waters were literally alive with Callig, Coalfish and Wrasse. And that was on the west coast. From what I heard the east coast was even better…when people did manage to get out which was very few and far between. Seriously I can’t remember a summer like it, the last 2 were bad but 2015 seems to have broke all the records. Atleast it seems to have given the fish a rest and once you are bored of catching the usual 3-4lb Callig (Pollack) there are plenty of 7lb+ fish out there as well.

The fact that I’m rolling May and June in to one update sort of tells you everything you need to know about how much fishing I’ve done over the last couple of months, not to mention just how great the weather has been over here!

I’ve been hanging of on this because the way May was going I was going to roll 2 months in to one! However things have gotten a little better towards the end of the month so here is April in all its glory.