CATCH REPORT APRIL 2007

With a slow start to the season very little has been caught until mid April. The season is now underway with eleven Anglers all averaging 10 codling's each to keep between 2lb to 4lb.The first decent Pollack was again caught this year by Jim Tate at 5lb 8oz (see photo) using light spinning gear and leadheads with jelly worms. David Scott and his 12 year old son Christopher had 21 codlings to keep between them the best being caught by Christopher at 4lb. The fish were being caught on mainly squid and prawns and the usual worm baits, most of the fish that were caught were full of pipe fish. With the water being so clear some of the codling's were caught mid water.

Top rod on the day was the( CODFATHER) Joe Haggerty who caught in excess of 30 fish of which he kept 10 codling's amongst his catch he had 5 different species Wrasse, Pollack, pouting, ling , poor cod, and codlings.

April 28th

With the settled weather the inshore rough ground fishing has been excellent with anglers still averaging 10 codlings to keep the best being around the 4lb to 5lb mark. Top rod was Dave Chapman with 21 fine codlings to Keep. Father and son both named Andrew Black had between them approx 16 codlings with Andrew junior(see photo center above) catching 8 himself, not bad as this was only their second boat trip. Sherif Omar had 10 codlings to keep and an extra surprise of catching a rare tadpole fish . Dennis Miller and Stu Wilson had their fair share and were also kind enough to leave the skipper a fry for his tea. The best bait seemed to be calamari squid and pink prawns.

April 29th

With a light Northeast to East breeze the conditions started a bit choppy with the water being a bit coloured which made the fishing a little more difficult .The day started with any amount of Poor Cod and Pouting, there were also quite a few good size Wrasse . As the day went on the water cleared and the anglers managed to catch around 6 Codlings a piece to keep. Since the fishing has picked up over the past couple of weeks the Anglers have had the good sense to keep only the fish they require and any Codlings less than 16 inches have been returned.

May Catch Report

May 3rd

When the weather was settled fishing remained very good with anglers having 10 codlings to keep. Father and son Nigel and Thomas Lake had a fine bag of 16 codlings ,best was 4lb to take back to Norwich. With the rest of the anglers the catch for the day was 80 codlings to keep with the best baits being prawns, squid and peeler crab and the usual worm baits.

May 5th

The West Denton angling club managed to catch 65 codlings to keep with many small fish being returned. The best codling so far this season was caught by Phil Carver and weighed just under 9lb (see photo). Jim Westwater had a codling of 6lb 7oz and Paul Vasey had the 3rd biggest codling at 5lb 1oz.

May 6th

Despite the weather conditions a group of anglers from the Blyth Community Center managed 22 Codlings to keep, quite a feat as the wind must have been gusting over 30 mph Westerly at times. Steve Halliburton thought he had the sweep in the bag with a codling of 4lb 1oz but it was not to be as David Robson had a codling of 4lb 6oz and then caught a bigger codling later of 6lb 3oz.

May 7th

With a stiff westerly breeze the fishing was still difficult but for those who could get their baits on the bottom there were some good quality fish to be caught. The best Cod so far this year was caught by George Bourne and weighed in at 11.5lb(see photo) followed by 7lb10oz codling caught by David Greatrex (see photo). George caught the 11.5lb Cod on a ripper baited with peeler crab and he also had some nice codlings around the 4lb to 5lb mark using razor clams. The total bag to keep for the day was over 50 Codlings with John Bell catching 16 himself.

In general the fishing from mid may onwards was dictated to by the weather as usual .When the weather was Settled anglers were keeping between 6 to 10 codlings on average each, with some good clean fish up to 6lbs.

The first of the Mackerel arrived on the 20th the best of 2lb 4oz was caught by Andy Watson(see photo above). May came to a close with the Currock angling club from Carlisle Taking 70 codlings between 3lb/5lb caught from the inshore wrecks and hard ground .With the bank holiday Being a wash out and all trips cancelled due to the weather a group from Newcastle organised by John White had a few fish on the last day of the month and very kindly left their comments and photos on the following site, http://www.nesa.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=13355

June Catch Report

Stewart Chandle 14lb 8oz ling (above)

June 2nd,

With still a lot of South Easterly chop on the water a group of anglers organised by Ted Bleasdale managed to get a few Codlings up to 6lb and quite a few Mackerel from the ground and inshore wrecks off of Craster just as well they are used to rough weather as they work off shore on an anchored super tanker used as a drilling platform. The only sea sick casualty was the health and safety bloke.

June 3rd,

Tony Cook managed to catch 20 codlings the best being around the 5lb mark while fishing peeler crab and squid on a long flowing trace. Alan Wallace had 6 codlings to keep the best was over 6lb using pink prawns and squid. Dennis Miller fished away steady using his light spinning gear and he also had fish to 6lb.Total catch for the day was around the 80 fish to keep mark.

June 9th,

Colin Wormsley and their club from Preston Fished their points competition and had over 115 fish ,over 80 of which were Codlings .Amongst their catch were pouting ,poor cod, ballen wrasse ,ling, coal fish and Pollack.

June 12th,

Jim Tate and Joe Haggerty had their usual successful day using their light spinning gear ,they had over 30 codlings between them most of which were returned and Jim had a few Pollack. Jim Tate has posted a very interesting article on fishing with leadheads on http://www.nesa.co.uk/Articles/leadheads.html The usual combination of daylights, hokkis tipped with worm and squid has been catching codlings when you can get to the bottom through the mackerel .If big baits are used like crab, squid and mussel or mackerel strip the gear has time to fish on the bottom .

June 17th,

The South End Angling club from Carlisle fished on the Sunday, with the water being coloured inshore over 45 codlings were caught off the wrecks. Dooley had the best of the codlings catching 9 himself on cockles and rag worm the best being 6.5lb,5.5lb,5lb. Ken Bevanport had Ling to 6lb and Stewart Chandler caught the best Ling so far this year at 14lb8oz(see photo) on mackerel strip .Another angler was winning the sweep with a Ling of 13lb 14oz which was the biggest he had ever caught when it was beaten with Stewarts Ling.

Here are some of the catches from 2006

2004/2005 CATCHES

please note the above images are from 2004/2005

CATCH REPORTS AND IMAGES 2006

APRIL Fishing has picked up, the start was Wednesday the 19th, when a party of 4 rods caught approx 20 codlings and a few pollack, the best being around 4&5lb caught by Ian Stansfield.

Thursday 20th, catches on avarage were about 5 codlings per rod to keep, the best two codlings caught, were around the 5 lb mark.

Saturday 22nd ,There has been a marked improvement with over 40 codlings being kept and as many returned.The best Pollack of 7lb was caught by JimTate who was using a lead head and firetail on a 12lb class spinning rod,he also had another pollack at 6lb and returned around 15 small codlings all caught on light gear.Dennis Miller also caught 5 codlings up to 4lb on light spinning gear.This method of fishing at present is by far out fishing the conventional baited traces

May catches .

When the weather is settled there has been an improvement in fishing with better quality fish being caught around the 4lb to 5.5lb mark the best codling so far being 6.5lb caught on a leadhead/fire tail by JimTate.The best pollack(7LB) so far this month was caught on the 21st by 8 year old Joe Wilson (see photo) on an orange twin tail /leadhead,on the same trip another Pollack of 5lb was caught by Tony Oliver and the best codling was 5.5lb caught by Steve Swinney.

The best bags have been taken on small traces such as Mustad Flash-A-Boo traces on size 2/0 or 3/0 hooks when the water is clear.During the unsettled conditions the larger Hokkis and Daylights on size 5/0 and 6/0 hooks baited with rag worm or very fine strips of squid have been fishing well in these conditions it is important that the lines are as vertical as possible so the anglers were having to use weights up to 1lb to hold bottom.

At the start of the month the avarage catch was around 6 fish to keep per rod with the anglers having the good sence to return the smaller size fish .Reports of 60 to 80 fish per trip are true but in reality only 30% of the fish were of a reasonable size to keep.As the month has progressed the numbers of fish kept are around the same 6 to 10 per rod but the fish are of better quality.

May ended with with strong winds from the North and swinging round East to Southeast making the fishing difficult .On the 28th the Anglers. net Angling club braved the elements and dispite a very strong drift managed to catch a few Cod the best caught by Linda Dees (see photo).

JUNE CATCHES

The start of the month was very unsettled with the water being dirty and still a big swell in the water.

The conditions settled for the weekend and Preston Anglers booked by ColinWarmsley fished a points competition species weighed in were codling,ling,pouting,coalfish and pollack the best codlings being 5.5lb.The sweep was drawn as all three codlings weighed in at exactly 5.5lb (see photo above)

Carlisle anglers had 40 codlings to keep the being 6.5lb caught by the quite man CoCo there were also ling and the very first of the mackerel being caught.

As the water cleared there has been a vast improvement in the fishing with over 40 codlings being kept by Anglers from Northumbria Water the quality of the codlings are better and the avarage weight is between 3lb to 5lb. For Dennis Miller,Bob Blackwell and Craig Bottemley persevered with the spinning gear caught Codlings and Pollack upto a 5.5lb

Thursday the 8th without doubt has been the best days fishing this season the fish have been the best quality, good clean fresh run fish and quite a few between the 4lb to 7lb.

Stewart Ford had codlings upto 7lb on flowing trace baited with rag lug and squid baits, Most fish have been taken on worm and squid bait but Tom Craven caught a fine codling of 6lb on a murderer baited with mackerel strip (see photo above).Billy Builtcliff was hooking more fish than anybody using peeler crab mussel and squid cocktails.The Codling are full of Pipe fish and Herring spratts and there have been reports of large quantitys of Mackerel being caught behind Coquet island but they are very patchy and very dependent on the weather conditions.

Catch report weekending June 17th

Catch Report Week ending June 17th Fishing is still steady with anglers averaging 6 to 8 codlings to keep between 3lb to 5lb total catch for the boat varies between 40 to 60 codlings per day with quite a few 6lb fish being caught on squid , rag and lug worm baits. The best codling last weekend was 8lb caught by Steve Tucker on Hokkis baited with squid strip (see photo). Billy Builtcliff had his usual decent bag of 10 codlings biggest being 6lb (see photo),using the best of baits such as peeler crab and mussel he always manages a decent catch. Most rigs and traces will catch fish if presented correctly and worked at different depths, there are "anglers and danglers", I have seen anglers with a tin of beer in one hand and the rod slung over the shoulder not being worked and they wonder why they have not caught anything. Lead heads and jelly worms are still fishing well on light spinning rods with fixed spool reels fished up tide, best codling caught with this method last weekend was 5.5lb good sport on a 12lb class rod.

Catch Report uptill 29th June

DENNIS MILLERS 8LB AND 9LB CODLING (above)

Bob Fenkle 10 lb (below)

Catch Report up till 29th June Fishing has been steady with good catches of quality codlings up to 10 lb the average size codlings have been between 2lb to 4lb. Now the mackerel have arrived there have been some good Ling caught up to 10 lb on fresh mackerel sides fished on flowing traces. Mike Gerrard caught an 8lb Ling on his first drop using live sand eel as bait on the hard ground off Dunstanburgh .Stew Johnson had codlings up to 6lb and a ling of 8lb off the wrecks using fresh mackerel bait on flowing traces. Without doubt the best catches on the day have been taken on twin tails and lead heads fished with 12lb spinning gear. Dennis Miller caught a fine 8lb codling one day and on his return trip the next day he caught a 9lb on the same spinning gear(see photos). Bob Blackwell also had codlings to 8lb using the same method (see photos). So far this year the best codling of 10lb was caught by Bob Fenkle ,Bob was using Daylights baited with rag and squid (see photo). The Codlings are still full of pipe fish this could explain why the lead heads are fishing so well, the lead heads are being fished at various depths and some Codlings have taken the lures just 10 ft from the surface.

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