Chesil Hunter's Fishing Reports

My last trip of the year and conditions looked great for my target 'COD' so I arrived at Abbotsbury very hopeful as the water was a lovely chocolate colour and the change in wind condition made it easily fish able  so out with my cod rigs and baited up with cocktails of black lug ,squid, peeler's and blue's sadly the only thing I cant account for is the fish and it was dire one bite all evening which resulted in a codling being knocked off in the surf gerrrrrrrr so I gave up at  3am . The plan was to sleep out in my sleeping bag but realised  it was a tad colder then I thought it would be so decided to sleep in my car and would find another venue for tomorrow That ended up being cogdon and after 4 hours sleep and 45mins defrosting the car and me! I was back on the beach not expecting cod here but always possible.I had heard of several bass coming out so stuck to lug and squid baits and I had this on my first cast of the morning                                        

This is my favourite time of year to fish Chesil when the summer fish are nice and plump and the codling start to turn up  .Pics from a session this year around August/September

Had some advice from a chap at Abbotsbury last summer on baiting up a pennel rig and just after he left I had this lovely smooth hound  Made a  quick video before letting it on its way

 1) Although they don't show up until fairly late in the year I intend to put a lot of effort into targeting sole from next august . I have been reading up on rigs and bait for them and will mix it up with my own ideas and see how that turns out 2) First of all though in  late Feb early march I will be going for some early spring plaice after putting  lots of time in to them this year I have a hunch where I might do ok for some early ones. Fingers crossed!! 3) Try braid instead of mono on my reels 4)Get some longer rods 5)Finish better then last in a match! 6) Need to think of some more targets for the summer species will add later 7) OK thought of one , I will work on ray fishing tactics and see how many different species of ray I can catch over the year

Well I had two targets this year and they were for better casting distance and I also wanted to target flat fish rather then just getting lucky! both were a reasonable success .In fact I got very lucky with the casting as I was fishing next to someone who writes catch reports for a magazine and was a member of a casting club and he came over and gave me some great simple advice ..me being a fixed spool user 1) make sure there was plenty of shock leader around the reel 2) use a casting glove and 3) picking that spot out in the sky really helps to keep it straight but I am still looking for consistency! having said that I probably wouldn't have had any decent flatfish this year if it wasn't for my improved distance My fishing bug started with"I am ashamed to say" being a mackerel basher! then moved on to bait fishing for bass and one September landed a cod and that was it completely hooked. But I never really contemplated targeting flatfish until last year after wonderi

Hello and welcome to my fishing blog , My name is Nicholas Barsby and fishing is a big part of my life , I have been fishing Chesil beach for 24 years and started blogging my reports mainly so I can look back at the previous years catches and keep all my photos in one place. But from next year '2017' as well as my reports I will be going in to more detail when it comes to the rigs and bait I use and why . Hopefully this will help a few of you beginner's catch a fish or two! Fishing is not only a hobby for me it is also work as I have designed many rigs for various Fishing Brands and have made around 40'000 rigs to date !! If you are fishing chesil for the first time but unsure on anything just get in touch and I will try and point you in the right direction stay safe!! Tight lines