Chesil Hunter's Fishing Reports

Arrived at cogden yesterday with an hour of day light left , so had a go for the plaice before sole hunting in the dark . I ended up with 8 plaice with them still feeding for the first couple hours of darkness .I then switched to sole rigs with size 4s and 6s hooks.... these small hooks were my down full on what should have been a big session as I was slack lined about 8 times in a short space of time with the lead being dropped very close to the shore but i didn't want to give up on my target. Then I noticed my line pointing straight down the beach so 100 yard walk down the beach while reeling in the slack I could see in the bright moon light a a nice plump 6lber coming in off the surf on its side happy days on my size #4 hook . Sole fishing went out the window after this and I got out the 6/0 hooks.... I then had a bass of 3lbs and another 6lbs cod and that was that happy with my catch but should have changed hooks much earlier

Sole is a fish I am always happy to see on the beach as it tastes great so I have put more effort in to finding them over the last couple of years and it is slowly coming together! But I still have room for improvement when it comes to finding the perfect tides ,conditions and tinkering with the rigs a little to improve the catch rate . Having said that I am chuffed with my progress landing some nice fish with the average sole this year being around 1lb 8oz          Most sole this year took lug and rag cocktails on the bottom snoods with 2g shots and glowing attractors , I actually started catching them very early in the year and noticed a pattern in there feeding time which was in the first hours of dark but didn't think much more of it until recently when  large amounts were being caught all along the western end of the beach mainly in the first few hours of dark. So this will hopefully help next year along with increasing the weights on the snoods to 4g to pin

Plaice fishing on Chesil is fairly predictable with the species returning from spawning around March with numbers increasing throughout April and then numbers decreasing through may when they move off  again for a few months . By August they move back along the beach having put on weight throughout the year so this is the ideal time to start targeting the big ones with September reaching the peak of quality plaice fishing . Then the sequence starts again with the fish moving off to spawning grounds and returning in March .... With this in mind I decided on a last minute plaice session after work for the last few hours of light to use up some bait and also the tide times and sea state looked good. On arrival I was pleased to see plenty of room along the clay beds and managed to set up just as slack water had ended and the tide had turned . Considering I only had half a rap of blacks and about 20 tiny rag I wasn't expecting much so kept baits small to last , As it turned out the fi

Eleven of us arrived at Branscombe with the match set to start a couple hours after low water , but sadly with it being such a stunning venue the beach was packed with swimmers and the like.... so we delayed it for an hour or so with the hope of everyone moving on for the evening which they duly did ! Most anglers opted to fish nearer the clean ground with me and a couple others heading in to the really rough ground which was a good 30 minutes walk in hot weather ! It didn't start so well for me losing 6 or so sets of gear in a row and was contemplating moving but thought i would try something slightly different first and this was just simply using a plain lead instead of a grip wire lead as i felt the previous cast were just getting stuck behind a ledge . Well it worked from the first cast with a double shot of Huss ' few know need to move' ! I then picked up a few of my target species wrasse but not the big one I was after. Just before and in to darkness i

With reports of a few Bream showing and not much change in the weather for the coming days I decided to take a day off work and fish a mark at the ferrybridge end of chesil . A couple of guys I know had arrived before me and had been catching mackerel not on feathers but there baited rigs , and I soon found out it was hard not to catch the mackerel as there was millions of them hitting the bait as it hit the water , one of the chaps I was with put out a 3 hook flapper with small chunks of mackerel and ended up reeling in a triple shot of mackerel !! So it was just a question of sticking at it and hope the bait would get past the mackerel ! well eventually I manged to find a nice sized Bream which was a welcome sight The other guys had enough of the mackerel and gave up for the day which was a shame as they were to miss out on some good sport. As low water approached the mackerel disappeared and it was none stop bream action through out slack water which was only for about an h

I had a great evening session at Cogdon a few weeks ago with the target being sole ...Again! . I set up just before dark and managed a few small bass right away Then it was a steady stream of dogfish until just after midnight when i felt a good bit of weight on one of my rods while retrieving ,  it happened to be a triple shot of dog fish , spider crab and a 2lbs 7oz plaice of which I wasn't expecting at midnight !   The dog fish kept the fishing some what active throughout the night but I was finally rewarded with my target of sole sometime around 01:00am , although I only found the one  I took note that my last three sole have all  been at a distance of 40 yards so I will be keeping the baits at this distance next time out!   I also had a 5lb smooth hound hit my sole rig which was close in at the time ,which certainly woke me up to say the least! and I also had time to drop what was probably a big ray . I finally went to sleep at 5am looking forward to some

My last couple of outings towards the end of may were much more rewarding then the previous two months combined ! So thankfully with the spider crabs now less active at the western end  'Cogdon'  it gave the fish a chance to find the baits first . And a steady stream of smooth hounds , dog fish, and plaice throughout both trip made for some entertaining trips . I also managed a nice sole my favourite fish to eat , and the signs are good for this Autumn having seen many early reports of sole already so i will be putting in the hours for them in the months ahead.

Chesil has been producing great numbers of smoothounds over the last 3 week with the average size much better then previous years .Normally a 6lbs fish would be a good weight for this beach but many are being landed between 6lbs and 12lbs . I have managed 5 hounds in a couple trips with the biggest just over 7lbs and they were all taken on a rag and squid cocktail , so spending lots of money on peeler crab is not always a must!

Fishing for me has been poor to say the least , I seem to be timing my visits to chesil either just before a good run of fish or just after . I had an 8 hour session at Abbotsbury at the start of April without the rods moving until my final cast when a nice bass gave my rod a good hit I also fished the weymouth flattie open and my club match for just the one knock !  But I am sure things will improve  with a few bream and hounds already showing but rays seem to be the main catches as you would expect this time of year. SPIDER CRABS are now about in numbers and will get worse so you could easily have 20 snoods cut in a session at the abbotsbury end but what i found last year is fishing the ferrybridge end when the SPIDER CRABS arrive was much more pleasant with only one or to hooks lost with some good sized plaice towards the camp !! AWAY FROM CHESIL I fished a reef mark on the Bristol channel at the end of March which was much more enjoyable with loads of codling between 4

Conditions have been perfect for plaice fishing over the last week and this has seen a big increase in numbers with some people bagging ten or so plaice and some of these catches at night as I did this Sunday which isn't unusual with a very bright moon!! I didn't have a very hectic session myself with only the two but both nice and chunky with a lovely bright colouring of spots! The week before '12th of march'  I arrived at abbotsbury to be greeted with coloured water which wasn't going to help me much but I did manage to get a small plaice and bass out....... but far to much effort went in to that trip for very little reward Back to the weekend just gone and I fished a match on the Bristol channel before Sunday's plaice venture and I managed 5 codling up to 4lbs. So for march it isn't going to bad at all                                                                                                 KEEP THEM COMING !!!!!!

Hi folks, sorry for the lack of reports ,It has been a bit of a lazy start to the year for me!! But back to it now that the worst of the months to fish Chesil are over and the summer species start to return . I have been out over the last couple of months and had a few fish but it has been hard work. An early session in the year at cogdon sore some bass landed which is often the case at that part of the beach in late winter There hasn't been to many whiting about since the start of the year but plenty of dog fish ,pout and rockling !! Which is why I chose to walk a long way in last months Three counties match at Abbotsbury  hoping that i would avoid the little fish for a big one which worked out ok just!! with a 5lbs + cod winning me the match But now my favourite species to target the plaice are starting to show and I think it will be a cracking year for them with regards to numbers of fish and the average size but only time will tell ! I have already had to attempts at th