21st May

Sharking........

A brood of recently fledged Rock Pipits welcomed us on the quay side

This day was to be split, with some more drifting for flatties, and then some fishing in a deep hole alongside some rock pinnacles in pursuit of tope and huss. The weather was once again perfect, with clear blue skies giving promise of great things to come.

Another fine brill for Peter Collins

The drifting was once again excellent. Plenty of fish to be found, and had we not another agenda for the afternoon, we would have comfortably beaten the boat record for flatties for the consecutive day, as 13 had been boated by the end of the drifting. This cracking brill for dentist Peter Collins was one of several noticeable specimens.

Another fine turbot for Muppet

Mackerel swimming in Shogun's unique bait tanks

We also began feathering up live mackerel in preparation for our assault on the tope. Shogun is equipped with some very unique perspex bait tanks, heavily oxygenated, that support a good few mackerel for a good few hours. In no time at all the tank was brimming, and we headed off for the scour that is known to house these sporting sharks.

Mesito bent into a tope in the beautiful blue waters of Alderney

Arriving at the mark, we were to be fishing at anchor for the first time on this adventure. Everybody loaded up a big hook attached to 200lb mono with a live mackerel, and on the say so from Rob it was leads away. The first leads touched down, and then tightened, and then plunged, as five rods were firmly attached to sharks 150 feet below. My lead was insufficient, and had kited up off the bottom, but with so much action happening I left it flying and got on the video camera. Eventually I will edit the results and get them on YOUTUBE, but it was an awesome scene. These fish don't pussy around, and screaming runs were happening, ducking and diving, and also the inevitable battle of the braid snap off's. But I think tow or three of that first salvo were landed. And the pace didn't really slacken off until the live baits ran out. After landing one tope, I started to fish for the huss. On the previous years trip, there were quality huss a plenty in this scour.

Radka attached to tope on my trusty 12lb class uglystik

Dodge with one of only two fish boarded for photo's

Result. Target species. Only about 10lb smaller than I was hoping for.......

This year however, they were far less numerous and far smaller, this chap being my only result. Maybe there is just too much competition down there with this years huge volumes of tope, or maybe bull huss have suffered badly at the hands of the commercial fleet. Here's hoping for the former......!!