For this months boat fishing trip out of Minehead, and we were treated to fantastic weather – flat calm, hot and overcast. A small tide meant we’d be able to get out and fish the deeper water as well.
When we boarded the boat the skipper, Marcus suggested that maybe we should try a drift or two over the sandbanks for bass. He’d been meaning to give it a go for a while and with the tide and weather being right, we thought it was worth a shot. Mike and myself lowered our baited hooks over the side for the first drift, and we watched the sandeels flutter down out of sight. moments later and the bait hits bottom – a few seconds after that and I’ve hooked the first fish. We were all stunned to see a lovely 3.5lb bass come to the net. What a start to the trip! Not sure if Marcus genuinely expected us to catch a bass or whether it was the most outrageous fluke. Either way, it was an auspicious start to the trip.
We finished the drift and encouraged by the early success had another drift but to no avail. Mike had a couple of bites but we didn’t connect with anymore fish, so headed out to try for the smoothhounds in deeper water.
Mike was straight onto fishing crab on both rods whilst I opted for crab on one and herring on the other. We both started to catch the occasional smoothhound along with the odd dogfish, whilst I landed a really fat Bull Huss on a fillet of herring.
The rest of the day was a leisurely and relaxing affair, with a steady procession of smoothhounds and the occasional dogfish. We finished the day with just short of 20 hounds between us. It turned out to be a good day’s fishing – nice and easy fishing in the calm conditions – it’s amazing how much more enjoyable everything is when you’re not being thrown around in the boat by waves.
A Fledgling Fly Fisher 