Invited to go sea fishing with a friend, who has his own 31ft Mitchell fishing boat moored at Weymouth. An early morning start for me ( 5:45 am ) meet at his house, load my gear into his Range Rover, and of to weymouth.
Friday morning started very cold, and when we arrived at the marina, got the gear to the boat ( they had actually salted the slipway down, but that was all! ) the boat was covered in a thin layer of ice. Now, for those of you not fully aware of leaving weymouth marina, the height between water and lift bridge is barely high enough to let a RIB through. So, its onto the cabin roof and lower the instrument mast and the radio aerial, (thankfully no 'elf & safety saw this) the getting up was bad enough, getting down was like trying to get of a glacier thats moving!
Every fishing boat that left headed for the Shambles Bank, so we followed, our first drift saw two bass in the boat, but subsequence drifts caught nothing but rough ground, ( 2 sets of tackle for me, 1 set for skipper!)
We decided to move to another mark, I had another bass and a small conger, skipper had a smooth hound, small brill and then we had the usual dogfish!
Up anchor, and try another mark, whereupon, we started to catch whiting, and then the skipper spoils it by catching a 3 1/2lb lobster! it had actually got the hook in its mouth! by this time the wind had turned quite cold, so it was decided to head for home/marina.
Yes, yours truly once again climbed onto the cabin roof