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Robbies 21lb smoothie |
That evening we sailed once again for a few
hours hound fishing. This time the biggies did come out to play,
all on board landed a couple double figure hounds, with Welsh
Boat Angling Team Manager Robbie Roberts taking top honours with
brace of hounds that each annihilated his previous PB of 14lb.
With starry hounds weighing in at 19lb 1oz and 21lb 5oz, Robbie
was King of My Way that evening.
Into the weekend
and it was once again onto the smoothhounds for regular clubs
from St Helens and Milnrow. Both clubs have had fantastic days
afloat …. and, sadly the odd poor one, but, that’s fishing I
guess.
Confidence was high with me for the
weekend, conditions seemed good and the run of hounds appeared
to be continuing. Smoothhound records had been set for both
clubs on previous trips, with sharks in the 19lb bracket, so it
was certainly an all-out assault to try and break these records
that had now stood for a couple years.
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It wasn’t to be for the St Helens guys, but plenty
of good hounds came aboard, with top honours going to Carl with a
nice Smoothie of 16lb. |
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On the Sunday, we had a fair amount of wind to
start the day, so with a quick chat to the crew, we decided to fish
inshore for a couple hours before the tide turned and ran with the
wind, thus making a less lumpy sea.
Inshore we were rewarded with codling, huss,
rays, dogfish and the odd dab before we moved out for the main
attraction this time of year, smoothies! Again it was a good time
with everyone one the boat catching smoothies. Best of the day
though went to John Settle, who caught his very first smoothhound.
The previous club record held by Ken Costello, also on the trip, was
just under the 20lb mark, John’s when weighed pushed the scales over
26lb! It was a monster of a fish, both large in length and also gut
size.
With the WFSA record standing at 25lb 6oz, we
proceeded to weigh the big starry a couple more times for
confirmation. With varying weights, the lowest reading offered was
agreed by all, but it was still a whopping 24lb 12oz; a new club
record and an amazing first for a PB, well done John. |
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The following week fished with mixed
results, the weather was not as good as previously and the
hounds were not as prolific as had been witnessed in
previous days. General fishing though again saw plenty of
fish coming to the boat along with a few smoothies. Fishing
though can be so fickle and taxing at times, on the 8th
we had a great group of local rods with the thoughts of some
big hounds, but we never really caught anything to get too
excited about, we struggled to hit anything of any real
note.
Then 2 days later I couldn’t go wrong,
same mark, similar rigs, peelers from same source! June 10th
was to be a day to remember. I was joined aboard My Way by
my good friends Dave Barham and Jim Midgley; editor and
photographer for the UK’s
Boat Fishing Monthly magazine. I was
nervous to say the least and fearing the worst given what
lack of smoothhounds had proceeded that week. Many skippers
will tell you, the best laid plans and all that, weather is
good, bait is good, marks are traditionally good, time of
year is good …. but the darn fish fail to turn up.
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This happened last year when we filmed
the Smoothhound edition of
Boat Fishing with Barham
for Online Fishing TV, only 2 hounds played the game, never
the less we managed to shoot a great show with rigs, baits
and fishing information.
You’ll be able to read about June 10th
2011 aboard My Way in
BFM sometime next year, for
now please follow this link to the editor’s blog
Record number of smoothhounds for the
BFM team 28 hounds to 20lb, between the 3 of us,
an awesome days fishing!
Waving good bye to DB &
JM that evening we set sail once again. With a good bunch of
novices on board we set out in similar fashion to the trip
for the young guys a week earlier – scratching around to
start with, ending with smoothhounds later on. Another good
evening, with our day’s smoothie tally for June 10th ending
on 38, superb! |
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Recent
photo uploads
Gallery 71
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Gallery
72 | Gallery 73
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Gallery 74 |
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