This video is a bit of something new. Not only an overnight session on the boat but also for a species that I have not really caught before. I am enlisting the help of my friend Dave from @thesolentwarrior584 to help me find a Sole. A Dover Sole from the Solent area. We cover the rigs, the rods, the tactics and baits and teach you lessons as we learn them. As always this turned into a bit of a competition. But who will win?
You can find Dave’s video here – @thesolentwarrior584
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Right. There he is. Not so bad, mate. I’ll pass you them rods in that tackle box. Hello. Good afternoon. Welcome back to the fish locker. Out on the boat. Out on Dave’s boat. I’m out today with Dave Collins from the Solent Warrior and we are going to do a little bit of soul searching. Dave is going to try and help me find a soul. We are down in the Solent and we are looking for soul. Big soul. I I’m just to catch fish. Let’s go. It is a busy bit of water down here. fish. That’s the way that size to do most of the fight and hit the boat. Yeah. Be all right if it was four or five times bigger. Yes. There we go. This mark that we’re going to be fishing later on for Soul is that secret that we’re only allowed to fish it during the hour of darkness. Like I say, is a busy water around here. Oh mate, it’s okay. They are getting ever so slightly bigger. What’s he got? Nice. Catch everything. These lit in the cheese toast maker. Oh, that’s what you little booger. You got some you should get up and going. What we were just talking about there, what these bass are eating. Why you can’t see them? It’s because they’re that small. Sorry about that, Dave. That’s fine, mate. Just get birds fuel off. Get bird for dinner. Dave and I fish together quite a lot. Like he comes down to me and call and I come up here. Yeah, we uh there’s always a healthy amount of competition involved. And I’ve we come down here congre to trips congre and I I had it away. like he had the bigger fish, but yeah, I did the numbers and we went toping and you had an absolute monster of a chop. So, I think you you definitely won that one. Yeah. So, it’s all to play for. There is something about when you’re not filming and you’re not trying to consider everything going on for the camera. Lights, lenses, sound. Exactly. That extra 10% of your attention that’s taken away by looking after a camera is the difference sometimes of having them fish. We are approaching the right time of the tide and almost the location we want to be at. What um because I I don’t usually fish this area, like I said, I’m going to rely on an awful lot on what Dave’s got to say. It’s a little channel like a side shoot almost off the main channel in Yeah. So, it runs up into a creek. Um but there’s there’s two banks either side channel and it’s mud and it holds white rag run. If you want soul, you’ve got to try and find them worm beds. Perfect. Right, it’s just that witchy now. It’s just going to start getting dark. We’ll get the lights out. We’ll get the anchor shot and then we’ll talk to you about the rigs we’re going to use. [Music] Teamwork. In case anyone’s wondering, we are both wearing life jackets. This is mine around me waist. You can’t see cuz it’s it’s black on black. Yeah. Yeah. We’ll get all the lights out. We’ll get all the rigs sorted and we’ll talk you through the baits, the baiting up, the hooks, the rigs, the everything. Just going to get cold out and just see that wind change there. There’s just like a little bit of a chill in the air. I’m going to get me copets out as well. Actually, I tell you what, I like that. I’m going to have to get them for my boat. We’re just starting to set all the rigs and everything up. Now, the tackle that I’m going to be using, it’s just two spinning rods. And this is a slammer for 4 and a half thousand. And that is a 7 to 40 g spinning rod. It’s just the same stuff that we’re using for low fishing. And the rigs, right, I’m going to get Dave to talk you through all of these cuz you Right. So, what we’re going to do tonight as well is what I done on my last video here is we’re going to play two rigs off on each other and see what’s working. So these are all from Rover’s tackle in fair from Solen area. Just have a quick get yourself down there. These are weighted top and bottom with a wire boom. Now a lot of people think or say these wire booms create electrical field which draw the fish in. I don’t know. I will talk a little bit about that later because I do have a certain theory about that also but more for alasma branches. Yeah. for rays, for sharks, for the ampul. Yeah, but there is there is some method to that madness there with that. We’ll talk about that later. Um, so these weighted top and bottom. So it pins the lead will go on the bottom here and it’ll pin the rig down. So these booms are sat flat on the surface. Yeah. So you’ll have you’ll have a lead holding it down here and a lead holding it down there. That’s it. What we will do as well is we’ve got just one up one down flapper rigs which are exactly the same without the lead and without the without the bars in it. I was going to in my mind as I was driving down here I was thinking I’m going to try and fish a Wessex rig which is just a one up one down. It’s just another name for it. So yeah, I had I had in my mind what what I thought would work. Yeah, the um I’ll be very interested to see what the difference is between these two. Looking at these these are already pre-rigged at these hooks. What are they? They got like a size four straight straight J like abodine style. That’s it. And are we going to get are we going to be getting much tide deer in this area on the flood? No. When it’s ebbing here, it’s it could be evil. But on the flood, we’ll only be having a little bit of tide. That’s what you’re going to be using like an ounce or two. Yeah. Yeah. 2 oz. You got your 1 oz at your top, 2 oz at your bottom. If I’m not if I haven’t got it weighted at the top, then I might put 3 oz on. Um but we’ll just adapt to whatever is happening with the top. I’m going to ask you what might seem like a daff question here. We’re talking about flatfish in the mud. Yes. I would normally think that anything they’re going to be feeding on is going to be little, well, you talked about the white rag earlier. It’s going to be types of worm. It’s going to be shellfish. So, muscles, prawns, worms, that type of bait. And looking at the types of hooks as well, the little straight jays. I’m assuming that we’re just going to be fishing with worm. Yes. Yeah. So, like I said, it’s a white ragman bed down here at the moment, what we’re over the top of. But what I’ve always found is the bigger sole like a big king rag. So a lot of people will put lots of little maddies or harbor ragworm on. I find that one big king rag like that. I’ve got you. Just work. And there you go. That’s a And this is all from Rovers as well. Yes. I tell you what, the monsters in there, aren’t they? Like flipping anacondas them things. The length of your forearm. Yeah. Amazing. Right. And like you say, you’ve got a bait up top and a bait down bottom. Awesome. Yeah. Right. Send it. I’m going to get baited up as well. I’m not going to catch if I don’t have a bait in the water. Being the type of person that I am, knowing that we’ve got a little bit of a competition going here, I have tried to tweak what I’m doing slightly. Now, saying that we’re going to be running two rigs against each other. The ones with a weight on either end and like a two up, sorry, a two hook, a one up, one down. I have made my own Wessex rigs and all it is is it’s just a bait above the weight and a bait below the weight. But what I have done slightly differently is these are glow-in-the-dark. See if we can show you there. Yeah, it will be interesting because I’ve always considered glow beads for salt. I’ve never fished for soul like this, so I don’t know, but I know that flounders are quite visual and I was thinking flatfish being the same. I know flounders are slightly more predatory than dabs. But yeah, I just I figured I’d try it to see if I catch some flounders on it, then I’ll be like, “Yeah, if you don’t if you catch all the soul and I don’t catch any, I’ll be like, “Oh, if you if you start catching soul, you know, you’re going to have to give me some.” Yeah. But yeah, all these are here is these are little tiny leads with a bit of glow-in-the-dark. And I’ve got a glow-in-the-dark lead on there. [Music] Now, mine stripped it. So, whatever mine was, it’s dropped off. Davis probably just picked it straight up, though. We’ll have a look and see what Dave’s c Oh no. Not feeling very good about this. It’s getting very heavy around. Oh, hello. Mr. Dogfish. Dave’s nickname is Dogfish Dave for obvious reasons. Obvious reasons. Yeah. Yeah. Man wasn’t a dogfish. That wasn’t a That wasn’t a dogfish bite on man. I’m going to try and rebait and drop back down and see if it’s still there cuz that felt like a a rattly fly. to help us see the rod tips. We have got four lights and all you see sometimes you just see the light going. I’ll do my very best to try and show you all the bites that we can, but chances are what’s going to have to be is your bite’s going to be right down to the back of the boat and you’re just going to see us bringing it in. You’ve got a bite on your left hand. At the beginning of the tide on this mark, there’s always seems quite a lot quite a lot of bass and they can be quite decent size. Sandpaper bass. Edit. You heard him say bass, didn’t you? This one feels like flounder. Nicely done. Nice. Just lay up flat on your hand for a second. Oh, yeah. Lovely flower. In fact, it’s got a couple of place spots. That is uh I would argue I would argue as well. It’s got the rough lateral line. Yeah. But it does have a couple of nodules up in its head which is the the spots for me aren’t strong enough. No. And the tail is quite thick. Whereas place have a real dainty tail, don’t it? I’d say it’s definitely a flounder, but it might even be have a little bit of hybrid hybrid in it. Yeah, cuz I always go on the nodules on the head. And that’s got a bony nodule there. But either way, yeah, as you can see, it’s a little bit of roughness straight down the lateral line. If the camera could zoom in a little bit, I don’t know if it’ll be able to pick it up, but that roughness is actually single scales. Yeah. I tell you what I’m going to do. But I’m going to grab the other camera to try and show you that. Yeah, that’s that’s an interesting one. And first decent fish that’s not a dogfish and show you with a little bit more detail. These scales that run down there. Yeah. Place usually have some little tiny bumps at the back of there. I would I would still say this is a flounder. I’m calling flounder, but it definitely has. Flip her over, please, mate. Have a look cuz you’ll be able to see by there. Yes, she’s flown. Nice fish. And hooked right in the lip. You couldn’t ask for better, could you? Hold on. Like that. Do you want to release? Yeah. Go for it. [Music] Hold on. I really am sponging off Dave on this session because I’ve realized that the filming equipment that I’ve brought, however expensive and fantastic it is, it’s not best suited for this type of filming, whereas Dave’s is. So, yeah, this this footage is actually filmed on Dave’s cameras in a uh black. We had just seen a couple of bites coming up, one on each rod. And I will sneak a couple. A little baby. Just Just knock that off. That’s what we’re looking for. But about that big. But a little bit bigger. Well done, mate. Yeah. First fish to you. Oh, you got a nice rod as well. It’s a proper little jump. It was a really nice bite. We just had was a tangling little a little slipper. However slippery is a little tiny bit of markings on the underside. Yeah. A little baby soil. They have got a quite an unusual. When we catch a larger one, I will show you cuz they do have a very unusual mouth. There we go. Before I drop it cuz they are slippery as anything. Yeah, they have got quite an unusual mouth. Not like a flounder cuz flounder just got like an open mouth like that. These are like a It’ll make sense when I show you. Just noticed there we have had um I had a drop bite a minute like right at the start. I’ve just had a drop bite on that rod and you’ve had another one. Do you do you find you get quite a lot of drop bites when you’re fishing for salt? Yes. So this this particular area is going to hold good numbers of salt. Um a lot of them will be that size. Yeah. So we’re using big king rag. So they’ll be halfway through that worm before they found. You’ll find you’ll still get a big bite like that or even got the for tiny ones. Yeah. Yeah. They’re so strong for for a little fish like that. And are we using the same There’s a couple of a couple of different things like give it line. That was a big bite. Give it line, give it time. I mean, when you get a bite, don’t unless the rod’s going to be ripped out your hand, don’t be too quick to try and pull it straight in. Give it a little bit of line and give it a bit of time to let it properly get the hook in its mouth. Now, when you’re seeing these these saw baits, these rattling baits, are you leaving it? Are you what you count? Generally, I’ll give them maybe another two foot of line. Like I said, with these king rag, they could be halfway through that worm and freshening around a little bit. So, couple of foot of line and maybe 10 15 seconds. Unless it’s unless it’s constantly going, then I’ll pick it up and pull into it. I can still feel like a little tiny nudge on this. You can see the tip light here. Yeah, the bite. Don’t know if you caught it, but it was a it was a a real strong bite. How did he give you a bite like that? Yeah, the base on it. I don’t know if I caught it with the other camera, but the rod was properly hooped over. And it is just a sloppy. Just a little schoolie. In fact, there’s the hook and bait in his mouth. Just a little tiny hook right in the scissors. Tell you what, it was well looked. Here you go. Not making any friends on this boat. You when they’re this size, they are just wick for sticking you. Like four holes in me, haven’t. Yeah. Um what were those last couple of fish that you’ve had on? Was it on the weighted rig? The one with the weight on the top and the bottom? So the sole was on They’re both on the flapper. Both the bites are Oh, no. Actually, the dog fish. Yeah. In fact, all of the ones that I’ve had so far, the dog fish, the bass and the drop one were all on the one with the weight and chop on the top. Two dog fish have been on the weighted one and the two flaps have been on flat. There was another screamer of a looks like a bass. I’m going to call bass on it. The bass. The bite looked like a bass. Yeah. Yeah. Is that what you’re calling? You happy with that? I’m calling it bass. The bite you got off it was just like a like a schooloolie wrap. Now we are ready just in case. No matter how many times you’ve done this and you think, “Oh yeah, it’s a poll. It’s a bass. It’s a dogfish.” There’ll always be that one time when it’ll catch you out. You are thrashing me on the home turf, aren’t you? early days. Yeah, it is early. We’re going to be fishing till the early hours of the morning. The tide has the tide has changed now and it’s going in a decent direction with wind as well. So, that little that little channel that we’re talking about is just down the back of there. So, our baits are like on the edges and down into that little bit of a channel just maybe 10 15 meters behind the boat. I’m not going to mess around just too much. They’re just like a little bar of soap with pins in when they’re that size, aren’t they? Yeah. I can’t I can’t can’t do it without getting all out of here. There we go. Little tiny school bass. I’m going to give it half an hour and I’m going to get some tea on for us. Weed fish. What we’re going to do is we are just going to move spots slightly by a couple of hundred meters because we’re not sat quite right. We will uh we’ll come back to you. [Music] [Music] We’ll reposition slightly. Get the anchor shot back. We have had this anchor set for all of about 3 minutes. Just enough time for us to recast all the rods. I’ve just rebaited one of mine and cast it out. And Dave was immediately had like a really good like bite. Well, it looked like a really good bite, but what it is in fact is a little bar with pins in. It is a beautiful little miniature bass. Not what we’re after on that one. It is. Oh, it is div up again like that. I’ve just been demoted to cameraman again. Yeah. dog fish. Brilliant. There’s been many a session, a really hard session that’s been saved by a dogfish. But when you’re fishing for something like a soul, a dogfish is not a good thing to catch. You are absolutely thrashing me. Yeah. Need to pull me finger out. Thinking with me stomach. That’s the problem. It’s counterintuitive almost. the the flatfish fishing I’ve done in the past on the beach on the boat up in the esties for things like dabs and flounder is you don’t leave a static bait like after a couple of seconds you’ll give it a little bit wind or a move because little disturbance of sand it causes like a like a trigger whereas here now and especially with having the leads on either end of the rig they really do like a static bait I’ve kind of said to yourself. I was like, I don’t deserve anything to eat yet until I’ve caught a proper fish. So, I’ve either really written myself off there. That was a nice little bite. Just talked that one onto the rod. Are you going hungry tonight or not? I don’t know which one this is. I don’t know if it’s the one with both legs on or what cuz I got fooled last time when I cast it out into like the deeper area. Picked up some weed and it kept trundling every two leads. It was like a Something about fishing at night, like fishing during the daytime, you have everything else to be looking at like sat enjoying watching the birds flying around or on a night you are like laser focused at those wood tips, the more you stare at them. Did that one move? That one. I remember like when I was younger uh going roach fishing with like a wager. Yeah. And just staring at that floor for that long that even when I closed my eyes, I could still see it as if it had been burned to the back of my subconscious. Something just teasing with it. It’s very, very bad. He’s not on the boat yet, though, is he? No. The bite was really, really gentle. And I’ve left it for a good like two or three minutes and it’s just like the tiniest little pluck. These do like a flatfish. Okay. Yeah, that’s a flatfish. That That was Alex, I’m going to stand here. Yeah. Is it heavy? Yeah. Going to have the net. I’m not going to touch the net till I’ve seen it. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. I’m going to walk up front. Yeah. And you can just scrub it from the back there. John, all the way through that, you didn’t see, but I was like holding me breath. Tell you what, when I felt it digging back, I was like, this that’s the biggest one I’ve ever caught. I mean, I’ve I’ve caught one before. It was a fluke and it was about that big. That’s the biggest one I’ve ever caught. I said they’re blooming strong there. So strong. So strong, Mr. Coins. Thank you very much. Well done. Yeah, it’s um Yeah, they are they are flipping strong. I’m just going to put the brighter light on for that. Yeah, we go. Tell you what, sneak in there. That’ll be a You look like you’re ready for a firing squad. Yeah, that that is that is a really big soul. I am over the moon with that. And yet super strong. It would give a real good scrap on the way up. The bite was the tiniest little bite. That mouth that I was talking about, it’s just like the weirdest little kind of lock and key that you can see there. Look. All right. It has It’s woped that hook down like this. We’re going to be keeping this one. I mean, one it it has it has waloped the hook quite quite far down. So, I’m not going to be able to unhook this one properly. But yeah, that is a little scrippy scrappy one. All right, let me just knock this one down here out the way. Lights going on on the other rods as well. Yes. So that that move that little location move that we we only moved a couple hundred meters but we’re just looking at the charts and looking at where like the tide was running on it just didn’t seem right. So definitely the idea to move was the right one. I’ve just dropped that soul down into a barrel of water here. Literally a barrel of water that was actually we were just talking about earlier, weren’t we? that all of the flatfree should come on the on the flapper, right? Yeah. That one wasn’t. That one’s on the weighted rig. Oh. So, that’s kind of thrown it out. So, whereas we thought we saw a pattern forming, that has just thrown it out because the largest so far came on one of the ones with a with a lead on the top and a lead on the bottom. The lead on the bottom is a glow-in-the-dark lead and it did come on the bottom hook. So, I don’t know. That maybe needs a little bit more experimenting. I guess the um I’m going to persevere. I’m currently in the process of not only unhooking that saw, trying to rig up another rig, and on my other rod, we’ve had another really nice bite. So, yeah, we do seem to have come into a nice part of the tide where the fish are either moving through. I mean, this is it. I’m purely speculating here because I’ve I’ve not done very much of this fishing before. Are these fish here all the time on this ground or do they move through with the tide? Like when the tides I’m asking, sorry I’m asking you this. Yeah. When they when the tide’s flooding in, do they move in with the tide and they move back down or are they always here and they just feed on one part or feeding constantly or what? I don’t know. But the ed just doesn’t work here. But whether that’s because of the strength of the tide when it’s in here, right? Do you find you get more weed on one side than the other? Yes. On the edge. Um, but I think that’s because it picks all up off the the shallower ground when it floods and then spits it all back out on the E. That would make sense cuz there’ll be some ground that will dry out of a low water. Oh yeah. Yeah. This is the little lead that I was using. A little glow-in-the-dark lead here about 4 foot of swell. So this this sloppy you see every now and again. Like I said, this is a very busy water that we’re fishing in down. You got a big bite. Good. Now, this this is a busy water down here, and there’s constantly tugs and tankers and everything else moving around. I’m going to try and show you very clumsily the baiting up of these worms. I mean, these these hooks are that small. And all you got to try and do is grab hold of the ragworm by the head and then feed it through up the hook. And like I say, these are only small hooks. All I’m trying to do is I’m just trying to get enough worm up the hook that I can slide the head up past the eye of the hook and then pinch it off to give it a little bit. The reason why I don’t want to leave the reason why I don’t want to leave loads of worm on there is cuz a fish could be pulling and pulling and pulling and never find a yoke. Also, really short hook lengths on these booms. Maybe only maybe two or three inches. Yeah, there you go. Looks like And all I’ve been doing, all I’ve been doing is been giving this little lead. Was it on the glowy lead? Yeah. Just been giving it a little blast so it glows in the dark. Whether or not that makes any difference, I do not know. If I catch another one now on this glowing lead, I’m going to say absolutely makes a difference. But I do also find I do also find that we as anglers, we try to find reasons for things so that when it’s not working, there’s a reason it’s not us. That’s That’s brilliant, mate. I’m over the moon. Thank you. You are absolutely put us on the money. Just going to have a see if this fish has calmed down any. There you go. It’s been sat in this barrel of water for a while now. chilled out a little tiny bit. Now, identification wise, how would you be able to spot this from any other type of salt? Has one got there’s one thicker, one fatter, one longer one. So, there is that’s I mean the the general so we get here a go so but there is another sole that can be caught locally called a sandy sole. Very very very rare. Have you seen how many lights are on this one there? Look, if you can see them all. Oh yeah, he’s got stack. Well, he’s been sat on sea bar for ages. Yeah. And that that unusual mouth there. We’ll have to get the tea bar in to try and get that that hook out. Yeah. Tell you they are really strong. Yeah. I was surprised. Yeah. Can you um you give me a little bit of a demo and then I’ll how to try and knock that out and see that you Yes. I would I’ll have a go at it. How I would normally do if it was a deeper flat fish is I’d go in through the gill like I would do for a flounder. Yeah, you can’t really do that with these, but I would cuz it’s confusing for me cuz the shape of the mouth. Look how big the mouth is. Oh yeah, actually. Yeah. Wouldn’t they open it right up? It is a decent size one. So you can actually see at the back there. It’s just a funny shape. I did actually eventually get it out with one of my homemade this gorgeous. And I did it the normal way that I would do it with a flounder being that you go in underneath the gill under on the underside, wrap it around the line and pull it through. But because it was the first time that I’d ever done it one of these large soil, I wasn’t sure if it would work. But yes, it does. If we get another one, hopefully I’ll be able to show you. Yeah, that it just works with deep hook platfish. In fact, I have a video teaching you how to use one of these homemade discorders to unhook deep hook flatfish. I’ll tag it in here now. Are you very quietly sneaking out a fish there? Yes. Confusing. This just goes to show that I’m I’m literally I’m learning this as I’m doing this. The shape of that mouth. I thought it was like the whole shape of w and uh David showed me then when it opens its mouth, it mouth is actually quite wide. So I was able to put the disclosure through and pull the hook through. Every day is a school day. Yeah, I was just going to say this. That’s really Yeah. N job bar. It got a bit big on it. I was just going to say here that that grew a couple of centimeters when you got it next to the boat. That is a nice fish. That is a nice fish. That one. That’ll be a probably a 50 cm fish. That uh 54. Don’t know if you can see that there. That hook just in the corner. Well done. It’s bent the hook even. Yeah, mate. That is a That is a swimming bass. It’s a nice fish, isn’t it? Pop it down and It just goes to show us. Yeah. Not just a little tiny one from there. Is that a good bike? It was been rattling on the phone for a while. This has been the don’t I think might have sold on them now. No. Someone definitely keeps playing on it. But that’s the um uh the Wessex rig, right? With the floating beads with a little lumin. Oh yeah, it’s going to get in there. Are you sure you haven’t got a sold on? Uh I don’t think so. If I just want to see another soul here. So we can almost prove ourselves the justification for staying on this mark. Do you know what I mean? It is a soul. Yeah, it’s like a soul for a toddler’s gym show or something. Slick. Yeah, definitely like this little pectoral fin that they’ve got does have a black dot in it. That’s an ID marker for sure. But this one has got I don’t know if it’s just more prominent cuz I’ve noticed, but the edge of where the gill plate is seems to be stronger. And that one was on to completely throw it out again. That is my Wessex rig. This is my homemade Wessex rig. And this has got the Lumi leads on. So, there’s two more. There’s another fish to the Lumi leads. It’s not a monster, but it’s still a fish. Considering the size of this thing, it’s give a cracking bite for it. It might be bass trying to eat it. There we go. There you go. Right, I’m gonna rebreate this, chuck it out, and then I’m going to cook myself some food. Dave deserves some, too. I’m gonna cook us both some food. I’m in your way. I’m making a pig’s ear baiting up. I stuck this hook in me about three times. This is me getting too eager. I’ve literally just hopscotched the rods because I’ve casted over Dave and I had Mau on the right and David is on the left and then Dave’s rod’s just gone on the right and I’ve got to go and pick because it was mine. Unfortunately, it’s not. This is kicking about a bit. What’s this dogfish? No. Well, you are without a doubt rushing me on the dogs. Well, you can keep the dogs. Just let me just just for anybody that isn’t familiar with dogfish. Most people living on the south coast of the UK, they will have had their fair share of these. Their skin, this is this is a cat shark. Their skin is incredibly rough. You can probably hear it thrashing about. The safest way to get hold of these is to get hold of their tail and their head in the same hand like that. Because what they’ll try and do is they’ll try and bring the tail up and rub you and their skin is really rough. It’ll rub your skin off. So hold the tail and the head in the same hand and then unhook it with the other. God, these little tiny hooks are they set well, don’t they? Yeah. that one back. Yeah. Yeah. Look, hold it in the same hand. Thank you very much. Thank you. Dave and I fished together. When was it? Was it this winter or was it been last year? Anyway, it was freezing cold and Dave saved the day by getting out like a little toasty maker and I was like, that is that’s changed my life. Now, I bought one straight away. Sorry, my my headlights. I bought one straight away. Dave said cuz we’re coming down here and we’re going to be fishing overnight. He was like, “Don’t worry, I’ll bring the toasty maker.” And I was like, “I’m going to do you one better.” So, what I have brought is in my little freezer bag. We have chocolate milks. We have steaks. We have peppers. So, yeah, we’re going to have steaks, peppers, and where is it? Where is it? Where is it? [Music] Oh, slap your mama. Yeah. So, yeah, we’re going to have flatbreads with steak, peppers, and slap your mom with a little bit of butter finished off with chocolate milk. cameraman and chef [Music] do the two sh this man can come again people who don’t have a boat like oh what should we do to buy a boat I was like the first thing you want to do is you want to make friends with someone with a boat and then pay them handsomely to take you out and bring loads of food and you’ll always be asked back. I mean, look at the pair of us. It doesn’t look like we go short of a meal. That’s why John’s cooking up a storm fish. I’ve got something very small up in the shallows. All right. Is it on your rod or my rod? on mine. Okay. When they’re this small, they can feel like a uh a flatfish cuz the tail piece on them so quick. They’re kind of rough and rattle, don’t they? Yeah. For me, medium rare is just perfect and Right. Got all three rods going off at the moment. You want a bite? Get dinner on the go. Yeah, this feels like a small bass. Little bass is not what we’re after. I don’t mind a big one, but Oh, that was those two rods again. The middle rod knecial. You can stick your mayonnaise on there, buddy. Okay, lovely. Look at this. All we need now is a fish here. This will be when all the fish come on. Look at that post. Get there. Well, sirloin steak with spiced peppers and a little tiny little bit of that. Hang on. Hang on. Come here. Go. Beautiful. You can’t. This is James’ favorite part as well. It’s the gravy that comes out the steak. Perfect. And to be washed down with a chocolate with a chocolate milk. Oh, we’re quite happy just bringing cheese sandwiches on the boat. Ruined forever. Now I’ve got to bring sirloin steaks. It’s like going cod fishing in Norway, isn’t it? You’ll never fish the same in the UK again. It was one of the things that I’ve learned when we out in Canada fishing with the Fraser River Lodge. Now, not only is the scenery absolutely lifechanging and the fishing is out of this world. It’s you’re fishing for dinosaurs, monstrous great white sturgeon. Big bite. Very big bite. middle just disappeared in existence. But the guide partway through the day would get a stove out and would cook a full meal. We do we do like ribs and steaks and cers and prawns and it just I love me food anyway. I’m there telling you whatever it is. It’s still there, but it’s tiny. Brilliant. Finish up the rest of this food real quick before it goes cold. And we might on about moving back around because the reason why we moved before is there was a little bit of like a slackery that pushed us off the market. It’s happened again. Probably going to move back. Just get some food down this first. I’ve still got a mouthful. Still got a mouthful of food. Oh, smooth. A smooth. Yeah, a smoothie. He’s a bit lost. What’s he doing down here? To be honest, I was saying to people, I said the first few smooths I’d ever caught had always been on ragworm with squid. Yeah. Got a massive dorsal for it, aren’t they? I do like small ones. I’ve heard that about you. There are there are two Well, they call it two different types. There’s a starry smooth and a common smooth. They are they now know that they’re both the same species, but yet this one has no spots, no stars. Right, we’ve been adequately fed for now. We’ve had a couple of fish out of this spot. We’re just going to wrap up all the gear so we don’t have falling around. We’ll pull the anchor up and we’ll move back to that with the mark. Just going to do the washing up. Done. Got some fresh pineapple for dessert as well. [Music] So, we’ve moved back to the original mark now cuz that current seems to swirl around in here. See if we can’t pluck out a couple more fish. We are going to be keeping those two fish. We are going to be keeping the larger soul and that really nice bass what Dave’s caught there. I’ve covered this in several videos before and it’s about the humane dispatch and bleeding of fish. Now, I don’t show the dispatching in any of my videos cuz I understand that some of the viewers don’t like to see it. If you want to know how we do it, Google or Aikajime depending on your accent. So this bass has been in there in in all that water in that barrel and it’s bled out. So when you take them fillets off now, they will be a nice pearly white bass has usually got a little tin tinger pink to it, but much better quality meat. I Yeah, that that is my PB salt. That hook did go a little bit deep into it. Now, I toyed whether or not to keep it or not, and just as it was, we kept it in the bucket to see if it would recover because I kind of thought, “Yeah, I will.” And it just wouldn’t. So, Dave’s going to take that one home as well. Your Mrs. doesn’t actually eat fish, does she? No. It just means you’re going to be eating like a king for the next two days. Yeah. Well, what I mean, the bass I mean, the soul will get in tomorrow. Um, in fact, you you know Doo, don’t you? Yeah. So he’s a fish monger. Okay. And I always eat my soul as fresh as I can. And he said, “Do me a favor, Dave. Put it in the fridge for 5 days.” I was like, “I don’t know.” He’s like, “Please, please trust me.” He said, “Fill it off. Get it on a plate every day. Dab it dry. Leave it in there for four to five days.” And I was like, “Listen, Google.” I said, “This sounds mad, but I’m going to do it.” completely different fish. I’ll I’ll leave it up to you or however you want to do it, but I’ve countless times um like friends of friends of Hannah’s friends of our friends. Yeah. I said, “Don’t you catch a lot of fish? Can we have some fresh fish up here?” And I give them fresh fish and they’re like, “Don’t taste very fishy.” No. That’s because it’s fresh. That’s because what you’ve got is four or five hours out of the ocean. Yeah. Not the stuff that you’re picking up that’s four or five days if not a week out the ocean. That’s unusual. I do know that fish comes off the bone better after a day or two. So like coddling sometimes. This was fillets. So there’s not on the bone but um a lot sweeter. A lot sweeter. When I was saying about coming off the bone, there was there was old boys when we used to go out catching cob and I used to fill them on the way in and they’d leave them all in a sack and I was thinking what are you doing with there? And he said they’d leave them until the following morning. Yeah. Until rigger mortis had worn off again. And they said that they come off the board easier. Screw the bus. How are they fired up? That I think it’s time for a location move. We aren’t quite sure where we’re going to go yet. This This wind just will not pick a direction it wants to go and it just keeps spinning us around. So, yeah, we’re potentially going to go and fish like a completely different mark, maybe a mile away, or we might try and nudge further up inside of this creek. Give it a go. We’ve committed to the move now. That was disappointing. We just picked up the rod to try and bring it in and there was a proper like a so like a proper flatty rattle. Yeah. Yeah. It’s dropped off on the way up. Hauling and shooting anchor are the two most dangerous times of this type of fishing. What we’re going to do here is Dave’s on the controls and I reach over and hold the rope so that we know that it’s not going to go into the prop and as he steams away we’re watching the boiler stop. Where you go? Yeah. Sometimes it just stops on the fl. Okay. Just like that. Oh, little smud. Tell you what, they’re tripping me up today. I keep forgetting about the headlamp. Another little smooth, but this one, I don’t know if you can see, has got very faint stars on there. So, this is the starry version. Hey, is this Are we drawing now? I don’t know if I had two or three bass. You I think you’ve had the biggest bass. I’ve had the biggest saw. We both caught a smooth. You’ve caught more doggies. I’ve had a little slip. You’ve had a little slip. Probably level pegging at the minute. Yeah. All still to play. That’s not what we want right now. I mean, we’re finding fish, but not the right ones. No. Oh, hello. Dogfish double up. What we saw in that must almost be like a defense mechanism. Hold on. picked up that other line on the way in. Don’t want dog fish. We were just talking about the area. I don’t know if you noticed. We’re talking about the tides as they run. Normally in most areas you will have like low water slack and then the tide will flood and get high water slack and then it’ll air. So you just have one tide, a low tide to a high tide to a low tide to a high tide. And there’s usually like six and a quarter hours in between. Some areas of the country like here, sometimes you get a half a tide where you’ll get like a half a flood and then it’ll eb for a bit and then it’ll rest and it’ll almost do like a double tide as in it comes in halfway and goes out a bit then comes all the way in and goes out a bit then comes back in and then goes all the way out. Pool is bad for it and here is it’s I think it’s a bounce back almost. So the tide floods up and it tries bouncing back against itself a little. Yeah, I agree what you’re saying. The the tide’s flooded into an area and then it’s it’s trying to bounce back against itself. Well, P Harbor, that would explain it cuz it all floods in through a narrow neck. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, we’re struggling with that being that we’ve now had like half a tide. I was just looking at it there and it’s the tide appears to be going the wrong way. And that’s why that one. Oh, there it is. My line. I don’t think it can be salvaged. That rig of Dave’s now is in about six pieces here. I’ve just been cutting the braid up. So, I cutting all the mono to get the braid out. And I’ve just been handballing it a little bit and then put it to the rod tip. And there’s actually there’s a fish on here. I’m going to give you an option. We could we can completely like two words and three. We can completely cool it or we could shoot further up tide. I don’t know whether this is anything to do with the tide bouncing back now. I don’t know if we could be flogging ourselves or whether we can move somewhere else and find a fish, but it’s completely up to you. I would like I would like to try and keep fishing. I would Okay. It’s It’s an unknown a complete unknown for me. And if you don’t know either, I would like to give it a chance cuz then at least we’re going to know either way. Okay. Clean that camera. There we go. I don’t know if it’s still on. Oh, I don’t know if it’s still on. Josh, it shook its head to start with and it hasn’t done anything since. A proper proper bite. What is going on? Do you think it could be squid? Possibly. Where the line that’s had an eel? Yeah. Yeah. Snotty or something? Snotty on there. Yeah. Yeah. That explains that. It’s twisted itself up on it. Span right up and coiled itself into a ball. So that probably had a European eel on it. Just Well, yeah. Look at it. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Just spinning up. Well, that explains it as well because they’ve been sat there. It’s been chewing and chewing. just spun itself and yeah, popped off. As Dave’s just said, yeah, they them eels are are very good at it. What they do is they they tie a knot in the end of the tail and then work it all the way up so it tightens around and pulls the hook out themselves. They’re um they’re quite clever, but also at the same time frustrating. I do believe that what we’re going to have to do is because it’s cold and it’s late and we we’re a little bit despondent at the lack of fish is we are probably going to call it I mean at least the wind’s dropped off. Yeah, we’re probably going to call it in the next 10 or 15 minutes. Just enough time to pull one more fish out hopefully. The biggest dog fish of the day. Oh no. I mean, if that ain’t just a goldfish, it was born today. Practically still got the egg sack on it. This thing. I didn’t even realize it came that small. Took dragging everything. He did look like a good Look at that. Yeah, if you lean right back. Just see angler double figure bullus. Yeah. Yeah, that is the tiniest little baby. See how it eyes are shining back? Let’s go. That is a tiny tiny dogfish. I do remember you um you finding them hatchlings on the on the beach. Yeah, those were baby bullish. They Yeah, they bull hust, not dog. Yeah, they’re literally hatching on the beach. Yeah, that was um that was wild that we were it was on a foraging video when I was out with Hannah and James and because we had like a we had a big spring tide, but there was also there was a lot of air pressure as well and an increase in air pressure. Anything over 1036 forces it out. Every 10 mibars above 1036 forces it out 10 cmters. Right. So if you get like 1056, it goes out an extra 20 cm. Oh, okay. these um dogfish eggs, these bullhus eggs, because there was usually underneath 10 centimeters of water. The extra air pressure had forced the tide out, they were all stranded. So these little hatchlings were crawling out of the Percy’s and trying to make their way back to the ocean. We found out they’re all about literally that thick all in it. Let’s get packed up. Let’s get back to the Well, yeah. Get back to the digs. Really? Get back to the van. Yeah. Back to the van. [Music] We are back alongside now. We’re going to get everything off the boat and into the van. I aren’t entirely sure who is winning. You’ve definitely caught more dog fish. I think we’re level pegging. We caught We both caught one smooth each. You caught a bigger bass. I caught a bigger soul. I did catch a conga. Yeah, I’ve won. I’m not having that. Dave Dave’s going to come down fishing in com with me and we’re going to have this out once and for all. We’ll see you then. He’s here. Let’s get this settled once and for all. Let’s go. Yeah. Hopefully. Done a good job there, Dave. We are finished. We are just tidying down, getting ready to go back in. Now, if you want to see how this session went on, you’ll have to watch it on Dave’s channel. But it was close. It was. No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t. The winner absolutely thrashed the other person, but you won’t know who it was until you watch Dave’s video. I hope you enjoyed joining us. I hope you found it interesting. All the very best. See you later. If you enjoyed this video, make sure to check out the Fish Locker YouTube channel where we have hundreds of videos from our adventures just like this one. We upload new videos every Sunday evening. So, don’t forget to click subscribe and we’ll see you on the next one. Let’s go. [Music]
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To watch Dave’s video when he came down and fished with me in Cornwall. Check out his channel here – https://youtube.com/@thesolentwarrior584?si=RtGwYowHRoCqWmU4