Fished it yesterday - only 9 boats out with quite a few cancellations due to the lousy wether forecasts. I say "only 9 boats".....thats if you don't count the hundreds of effin sailing boats!
Never have a seen so many in a single day - 3 races going on, big numbers, took over pretty much the whole ressie. Luckily we got on the water early and nicked a few fish drifting across the Draycote Bank end before we were forced out by the racers. We reverted to short drifts from Hensborough towards B buoy but the strong south easterly kept pushing us dangerously into the high speed yachts and even when they went in for lunch the fishing had been ruined by then. They came back out so we headed over to Toft and Fanborough Spit to try and get out of the way and find some fish and we picked up some good fish off the spit.
Weather was indeed lousy - got several major soakings, even endured a hailstorm and it was v cold. The wind was strong all day but we free drifted with Di7s and Owen's lures as the fish still wanted it fairly fast but were not that deep - the Di7s were probably only fishing about 6' down if that. Tried slowing it down with the drogue but takes dried up so went back to free drfiting. Had a few cracking overwintered fish, nothing major (biggest 4lb) but absolute silver torpedoes.
My pal and I matched each other for fish through the day and we each caught our 8th (limit) at the same time, at around 3.30, so decided to call it a day and head back for a cuppa. My bag limit weighed 23lb, John's a touch less - no monsters and no browns but a good averagae weight, even the stockies. Lost a few fish too. Considering the swarm of sailing boats and adverse weather a surprisingly good day
(nobody else seemed to catch that much, but then most we saw were perservering with floating lines)
Draycote Fishing well.
an interesting mix of apathy and panic
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