Finally got a chance to catch up and bring everything up to where we are at the moment, it’s been a chaotic few months with work getting in the way of the good stuff…fishing! This is how the first half of 2022 has gone, it seems to have been hit and miss with each month but I’ll break it down anyway.
January – March : Traditionally the dead time for fishing around the Isle of Man and this year proved to be no different. I didn’t bother with the boat as it was due out for a clean up, which went well and 100% as planned. Around mid March I finally braved the cold and set out to sit on a few rock marks, the usual small Callig and Coalfish were eager enough on both lures and small fish baits under a float. The key for me this time of year is heading south, the further the better. Saying that I saw the first Bass caught on the north beaches but it must have been a hell of a lot of work for 1 small schooly.
April : With the boat sorted it got its first fishing run on the 13th of April. I was out before that on a couple of test runs, the 1st ending very quickly with a lot of screeching from the shaft seal. Lesson there, even with a water fed dripless shaft seal you may still need to “burp” it to lubricate the working faces, or else it screeches like a banshee, stinks and makes you head for home very quickly! The second test run was much more successful and I managed to top the boat out at 23mph, 4mph faster than before the clean. It’s an improvement but given the state of the hull and prop I was hoping for more. I have a strong feeling the boat is severely under propped when clean/light so that’s another job/expense for next winter. The fishing. April has always been about scratching around looking for anything on the boat, trips south generated boat fulls of small Callig (Pollack to the non Manx), 40-50-60 fish up to 2-3lb no problem in a couple of hours. Thrown in among these on the slightly cleaner ground just off the reefs were also shoals of Coalfish, the better fighting of the 2 species for my money. The Lemon Savage Sandeel cleaning up again.
The end of the month I took my first trip north and the longest run I’d done in the Ocqueteau 715 (excluding the trip around from Douglas to Peel), the extra 2-3 mph at cruise making it just about a realistic prospect to get up to Jurby and fish for a couple of hours in the 3-4 hour marina flapgate window. I hit all our Bass marks on the way up but no joy, showing just how well the lads on the beaches were doing to drag out the odd fish so early! The rock marks up there delivered with the Callig, slightly nicer fish as well, hell of a long way to go and a lot of fuel to burn for the same fish I can catch within 5 minutes of Peel, but still you’ve got to be in it to win it. And that was it for April…Callig and Coalies.
May : Best summed up as a cluster fuck. We were on holiday for a couple of weeks at the beginning of the month but from the weather reports I didn’t miss a lot. By the time I’d caught up with work we were heading in to practice week and that’s where things went wrong, we got the weather but I couldn’t leave port safely (fully explained here). I lost 2 weeks of nice weather totally stuck in port.
June : Exactly the same as the end of May to begin with..stuck. I did get frustrated to the point me and the Mrs forced our way out once but it was not enjoyable…it took 5 people to man-handle the boat back in to it’s berth. The insurance risk is just far too high and totally not on for an expensive pontoon berth. After this I asked to be given a suitable berth for the size of boat I’m paying for, denied. Hopefully something will crop up soon but as it was I missed out on 2 of the best weeks weather (wind wise) we’ve had. So frustrating after spending all that money lowering the boat to then be scuppered by harbours again. Of course as always happens after TT the weather turned and there was no chance to get out until the 15th. Fed up of catching Callig (was still doing shore sessions) I headed out on to the banks to have a general drift around seeing what I could scratch up. Cue the first Mackerel, Codling, Gurnard and even some nice Launce of the year. By far and away my most enjoyable boat session of the year up to that point, and a nice sign that the Mackerel were around so early, even if you did have to travel 3-4 miles out to find them. The final trip in June a couple of weeks later was another born of frustration, with the weather being total crap I decided to go on the only half decent day there was, it was lumpy, I didn’t go far, but it did at least prove that the better Callig had found their way inshore and further north. 4-5lb now fairly common.
It was in June that I heard the first catch report of Tope from the east coast as well. The Bass were now playing ball along the north beaches and barely a day went by where there wasn’t a picture of somebody with one. Water temperatures seemed normal for the time of year but it was noticeable just how many baitfish (Mackerel and Sandeels) there were about.
July : The poor weather continued up to the 10th of the month where a break and a favourable early/late split in the tides gave a chance for my first full day at sea this year. Me and a mate were down early Sunday and we set off, way off. Over the next 10 hours we caught 14 species between us, including the best Haddock day I’ve ever had on any boat. The full species list was Launce, Mackerel, Whiting, Grey Gurnard, Red Gurnard, Tub Gurnard, Dogfish, Bull Huss, Spurdog (more on these later), Haddock, Codling, Pollack, Coalfish and Bass. We had plenty of Spurs to around 15lb, it’s the same as last year plague levels, something needs to be done really. Using any fish based baits is a total waste of time. In total we had 8 Haddock landed and missed out on many more, I put a camera down but just haven’t sorted out the footage yet. As we moved inshore later on the fishing was brilliant, a couple of Callig landed in the 6lb+ bracket but many more snapped off including some huge fish making a mockery of 15 lb line. Then to end the day a trip down the coast resulted in the first Bass of the year on the boat. It was an amazing if not totally knackering trip but I’ve been itching to get out again ever since. The immediate problem being that when we got back to Peel, harbours had decided to place the huge powerboats right behind me again (Southern 100 races on so the same people over as who were here for TT). Whilst I have a smaller yacht alongside so a little bit of beam wiggle room it still means I’ve got less than a boat length to turn in…so another 5 days where I couldn’t move the boat on my own. That’s close to 3 weeks so far this year, no doubt it will be the same for Manx Grand Prix so 5 weeks of not being able to use my boat as I’d want between May and September, not ideal. But being realistic the boat needs a bigger berth, just none available at the moment so hopefully it’s just a case of waiting. And that’s where we’re up to at the moment, I’m clear again for getting in and out but the weather is shite..heatwave != no wind. It’s been a breezy few weeks. I’m booked back out on the Casey J on Saturday (forecast is not great, watch this space) just to get a chilled days fishing in on a few wrecks.
If you’re on the shore July has really kicked off. The Tope are now on the northern beaches as well as no shortage of Mackerel to feed them. Bass fishing is more reliable, it does get better year on year, saw the first one caught around Port Erin as well. Rock marks south are loaded with Callig, biggest I’ve seen was over 10lb, hell of a fish from the shore that. On the boat we have Tope everywhere inshore, a little further out and you’re in the land of the Spurdog..soo soo many Spurdogs. I’ve found a new secret bait to avoid them which allowed us to get 14 species on that day but even so it’s still annoying getting snapped off when the Spurs decide to jump on a tiny bait and size 1/0 hook meant for something else, time and time again. Open up a quota based commercial fishery and give everything else a chance.
Here’s to hopefully a slightly less windy couple of months and good fishing for everybody (with less Spurdogs).
