Three lads came over for the weekend hoping to fish the point west beach area in search of a shore caught Tope. The weed apparently was there in masses so that was out of the question.

However provision had been made for an outing on local charter boat Trampie which operates out of Douglas harbour with its Skipper John Maddrell.

Plans were made to meet the three lads, two of whom are regulars to fishing in the Isle of Man and the other it was a 1st time. Both Darren and Neil have been out with me before on Bones and it was a bit lumpy to say the least.

We set of from Douglas at approx 9:30am on a nice Sunday morning and got the relevant bait of Launce and mackie at the back of Douglas head before setting of for our 1st mark of the day which was Castletown Bay in search of Pollock.

With me being recently promoted to 2nd Class Bilge Rat whilst serving on Falusi 11 at the 3 Day Festival it was down to me to rig up the visiters so that they could have a nice days fishing without having to worry about changing rigs.

Fishing to start with was however quite slow with just the odd Pollock up to about the4lb mark being caught by all anglers. Neil However soon got to grips with the fish and he proceeded by the end of our session here to get the two largest pollock, both were 7lb.1oz and 7lb 5.125ozs respectfully. Both Woody and Daz caught decent fish to over the 6lb mark but on the whole most fish caught here were of the 4/5lb mark.

We dropped anchor at the Sheddings next and although there were several good knocks the visiters blanked on trying to get a Conger Eel.

Trampie then had a quick visit to the Wart Bank mark to see if there were any Flatties around , it seemed that they did not want to play so we headed for the fishing mark that every body claims is theirs, but is mine in search of Tope.

The anchor was dropped and the fishing begun, chummy was put down and so were the big baits. The skipper did a grand job keeping the boys fed with local Manx burgers on baps which were going down well with hot coffee and tea.

To start with we thought that we had hit Dog Fish central but then other fish started to turn up. I had put a 5th rod out with my "KILLER" rig on and whilst i was taking a brace of Doggies of Neils rig Daz picked up that "KILLER " rod and managed to lad his 1st ever Tope a fish wieghing in at about the 25lb mark.

No sooner had this happened when Woody latched onto a nice double figure Bull Huss and not to be out done Neil caught 4 more Huss but none were near the double figure mark.

The "Killer" rig then Went off again and it was my good self that brought a lovely Tub Gurnard to the surface which would have been around the 4lb mark. Grey gurnards and even more Tubs were taken by all anglers but even going on the drift did not produce more tope.

From here we went to a mark that the Skipper said can give you Cod and sure enough it did along with some jockey Mackie of over the 2lb mark.

It was a ver successful day all in all and at 8pm time was called and we steamed back into Douglas Harbour. The three lads from Liverpool said they had a great day out with lots of good humour and fishing, catching 9 separate species in total with the Pollock session tops for the most fun.

I saw the lads off this afternoon having given them all the fish that i filleted for them last night and they said a very big thanks to the hospitality that Skipper John Maddrellhad given them and that that they would be back for more next year. They are also going to bring their own boat over next July to partiscipate in the 3 Day Festival.
WOODY WITH ONE OF HIS BULL HUSS


DAZ WITH HIS 1ST EVER TOPE


MY TUB GURNARD


I am awaiting the pics of Neils two best Pollock and will post when i get them.

Admin316  

I would like to add how hard the second class bilge ringy worked at keeping the scousers fishing
NEARLY drawing sweat !