Callig & Coalfish. The sea around the Isle of Man was alive with them in March. Unfortunately 99% of the fish were around the same size 1-2lb. Coalfish at this weight put up a great fight on the right tackle, where the right tackle is the lightest spinning outfit you can get away with for the weather conditions. It would be stupid to complain and I’m not going to, March is usually very quiet around here and so the opportunity to easily catch so early in the year is a welcome one.

January and February were strange months, strange in that there were still plenty of fish about. Now the south of the island always holds a certain level of Callig all year round but this year the numbers over winter are definitely significantly higher than normal. No real size but there is still the odd decent fish amongst all the 1-2 pounders. Added to that it’s also been a bumper winter for Coalfish, or Shitties as we like to call them. The previous 2 years had shown an increase in number in late Autumn but this year they’ve followed through and there are large shoals of them about (check out the video below). If you’ve never tried targeting them you’ve got to give it a go, I know some people think that Callig put up a fight but pound for pound they have nothing on a Coalie. Catch even a 1lb fish on a light braid/LRF setup and you know all about it! In saying all this the best of the fishing is still in the southern half of the island, draw a line across from Peel and head south, the other way only seems to be good for burning fuel this time of year.

November 2014 – Lots Of Fish About

I can’t over state just how much life there was in the sea in November. I’m not sure if it was to do with sea temperatures holding up the couple of degrees warmer that they had been all summer (12 celcius compared to the usual 10 for November) or whether there are other changes afoot in the Irish Sea but around our coast it was literally rammed with fish.

Might as well combine September and October because frankly the weather in October has meant it wasn’t worth writing up. There is nothing unusual about low pressure systems rolling in of the Atlantic this time of year but I think it’s fare to say we’ve had our full quota so far this year, especially when you combine the wind and amount of rain. We had a months worth of rain in the first 3 days, nice. Obviously I prefer boat fishing but I’m also more than happy to wet a line from the shore…as long as I’m not being blown off the rocks/getting piss wet through/frozen solid. One of which I don’t mind but 2 or more and I’ll find something else to do unless there are big Bass being caught. So October wasn’t really a shore fishing month for me either. Anyway, enough whinging, the fishing was actaully pretty good.

If anybody follows our Instagram account they’d have seen that at this time of the year we tend to concentrate on the inshore Cod fishing that takes off late summer/early Autumn. This year has been a bumper one for the “rock” Cod (the much deaper coloured fish that seem to actively hunt over kelp), but there’s only so much of the same fishing you can do before it gets boring and seeing as how the rest of the summer had been a bit of a washout in terms of full days out/offshore marks we took the chance yesterday to try one of the local wrecks. This is the latest we’ve ever tried fishing a wreck, mostly because you are never sure of the weather this time of year but the forecast was good, the tide was big enough to get out of the marina on time and with a high prospect of picking up some bait we went for it.

Bad weather made it a shit month. In much the same way as what August 2013 went rapidly downhill from the July so the same happened again this year. How bad? Two trips out in the boat and a couple of shore sessions was as good as it got. There were loads of fish about, just getting the chance was a real problem.

July is when we expect the sea fishing to heat up around the Isle of Man and this year was no different. The Tope arrived at around about the same time as the Mackerel, the odd Bass is being caught, there were loads of nice rock Cod down around Port St Mary and the first Black Bream of the year was caught.

The sea is warm but the fishing is relatively slow. June was a warm month and following on from our mild winter the sea temperatures are at least a degree warmer than what they usually are. If I go from my own records then I had 12 degrees for the 17th of June last year vs 14.8 on the 18th of June this year. Unfortunately for us the high pressure brought with it a long spell of north west winds, combined with a stiff sea breeze, which made things a little rough, the none bouncy days were few and far between and for the first time in years I didn’t get a full day out fishing in June.

May was a bit of a mixed month, the weather (wind) killed most of it but with the still higher than average sea temperatures some of the fishing was great…others not so great.

April 2014 was the best April we’ve had for as long as I can remember, whilst there wasn’t a single flat calm day there were plenty of chances to get out fishing and with the sea temperatures above average the fishing was pretty good as well.