Two PB's and some great fights!

The usual half day on a Friday, combined with no wind and bright sunshine meant only one thing, time to get the kayak out! Parking was going to be a pain and after a mate couldn't join me on the trip, I decided on fishing my homeground out of Lyme Regis. Luckily, I eventually found a parking space and was afloat by around 3pm. The idea was to do some bait fishing for bream so after feathering up a bagfull of Mackerel, I paddled out a couple miles to vauge area I thought I stood a chance.

The fishfinder didnt pick up much rough ground so I must have entered the GPS co-ordinates slightly wrong. Anyway I eventually found a bit of rough ground, surrounded by flat, clean ground.

I used a bait dropper to send several cut up mackerel down to the bottom as groundbait and fished a combination of 3-up flapper rigs and running ledgers. I casted one rod away from the boat to where I knew there was some clean ground and dropped the other right below the kayak onto the rough ground, in hope of a Bream.
After around 20 minutes, the rod I cast away from the kayak soon slowly bent round and just carried on bending!!! I only ever use spinning rods but I may have to reconsider after this because I was in a stalemate with the fish for a good few minutes, I knew at this point it was a Ray. I only just managed to get it off of the bottom after alot of heaving and made slow progress towards the surface, after a good 15 minutes (using a 30g casting weight spinning rod) a beautiful 8lb 5oz thornback hit the surface.

This sorted out my dinner for tomorrow night and after this I started to get plauged with Dogfish, I was going to give it another 10 minutes and head in when I landed a small Bullhuss of around 2lb. I then rang the local tackle shop to sort out a time to weigh in the Ray as I thought it could be a Lyme Regis Sea Angling Clubs best Ray for this year. As I was on the phone and about to pack up, my rod over the rough ground (with size 4's and 10lb snoods/traces) started going crazy! I hung up and quickly grabbed it thinking Bream!!! You could then feel it was too heavy for a Bream so I thought it may be another Ray.
I was wrong on both counts and after one hell of a fight, I netted a 10lb 7oz Bullhuss on a hook I usually use for Mullet!


I didn't mind bringing this fish in to weigh as they last for ages out of the water, so I landed in about half an hour and after a quick weigh in a few pictures, this Huss swam away with no problem, much to the horror of all the kids swimming in the harbour!

So two PB's, not bad for a quick session after work!