Cod, Cod, Cod & More Cod - Shads Doing The Business

I spent the day yesterday with Paul on Sea Otter 2. Sailing with us were a group of regulars including the Shaskespeare rep who had a bag of goodies to try tempt the cod with.



Whilst myself and Paul stuck with the tried and tested storm shads, Nigel tried a few of the shakespeare range and a new shad from Berkley called the "Hollow Tail Shad".



Im not sure of the market price of the hollow tails but one thing I can say is they will be well worth a look. The lad had the biggest and possibly the most fish of the day, all on a browny/yellow coloured hollow tail.

The day started slow, and the vibes coming from the skipper were not good. Paul feared that the weekends northerlies had coloured up the water and knacked up the fishing. We fished the last of the flood tide on a couple of wrecks and only 2 cod came to the boat in a 90 minute period. Myself and a few others switched to bait, whilst Paul persevered with the shad, saying that bait would not work on these wrecks as the fish were feeding on sprats. The skipper was right and I never had a single fish on the bait. I continued to study Paul who hit into a couple of fish just as the tide turned in the opposite direction.





"They are going to come on big style" said Paul "Get the shads on, the switch has been pressed". How right he was. The next drift saw every rod on the boat go into action. The change of tide had meant all the spratts had balled up on one side of the wreck and the cod were having a feeding frenzy. The next 3 hours was just solid cod, there wasnt a drift over the wreck without at least 2 rods in action, and often most rods on the boat were bent over by the pull of cod.











Paul then told us that we had to move off the wreck to give it a rest. "But dont worry" he said, if theres fish on that wreck then its garunteed there is fish on every wreck in this area. So we steamed back inshore a little way. As promised, first drop on the new wreck, saw every rod bend into action, and this continued untill it was time to steam home.







Back at Whitby I helped out by filleting the fish for the lads. Out of the 6 anglers on the boat they said they had had 150 cod, some kept and some of the smaller ones returned. Best fish as mentioned earlier fell to Nigel the shakespeare rep, a plump cod of around 15 pounds which took the Berkley hollow tail shads. Most fish of the day was a toss up between myself and Nigel.







I was fishing the blue storm shads and Nigel was on hollow tails, there was much between us with roughly 35 cod each. I only kept the better of my fish with the biggest going roughly 9lb.

This was probably my best days boat fishing in the past 20 years (In terms of numbers of fish). All in all not a bad day out

 

Will you be with us at the weekend Glen, I will be off on Saturday and Sunday?

 

If there is any space onboard Ill come along.

 

I take it from that report glen that the algee has gone?

 

Completely

 

Not sure mate, will speak to the old man later

 

I have to agree with Glenn. A great day out with Paul Kilpatrick on the Sea Otter ll. As usual Paul was "hot to trot" and if it hadn't have been for a couple of tortoises in the car park we would have been through the swing bridge and heading out to sea by 7am sharp. As it was we missed the bridge and then spent the next 25 minutes getting tackled up ready for the next opening at 7.30am. We were soon on our way and Paul had a couple of marks in mind that had fished quite well the week before. The weekend blow had kept Sea Otter ll in harbour for the last four days and Paul was hoping that the Northerly winds hadn't stirred the water up too much. As we steamed out it was easy to see the greeny tinge of the disturbed water, but Paul was still hopeful that the water would be OK at our destination.

The first mark only produced 1 small Cod which, much to the delight of it's captor Gilbert, won him six quid for being the first fish of the day. After two or three short drifts Paul decided to up sticks and head off for another mark a bit further out. The first drop here saw Paul quickly into a fish on blue shads and the rest of us soon started to follow suit with sometimes all seven rods on the boat being bent into fish at the same time. Paul worked hard at keeping us in the zone and our shads were up and down like the proverbial you know whats. The fish boxes were soon filling up with some nice fish up to 8 or 9lb with lots of 3 - 4 lb fish as well.

After popping another average sized fish in the fish box we swung around and started another drift. I dropped down and felt the familiar thump of the lead hitting the bottom, a slight lift and then two or three slow turns of the reel handle to swim the shad off the sea bed resulted in a good solid take and then some seriously strong lunges from a good fish. A good steady pace on the jouney up to the boat. with a lot of heroic efforts by the way of the fish trying to get back to the sea bed, resulted in a fine 15lb fish coming into the boat.

All in all we had between 30 and 35 stone of fish to the boat for the day and everyone had a great time.

The Berkley shads in question are the Berkley Hollow Belly Swimbaits. The ones I used were 5" Pearl White which come three to a pack for around £7.00. They not only have a large paddle tail which gives them a very lifelike swimming action but they are also hollow inside which enables them to swim more naturally and allows for a much better hook set. They are also infused with the famous Berkley Powerbait scent which I am sure must also give them a much greater attraction when fished at these depths. The jig heads that went with them are the Berkley All Round SW Powerjig heads which sell for around £8.00 for four. So a Hollow Belly plus Jighead equates to around £4.00ish - quite expensive, but having said that I didn't lose any and only had one Hollow Belly damaged by a fish whilst the Jighead was still good to re-use. On the basis of how succesful these lures were they would certainly seem to represent good value for money. The fact they are scented is fairly unique amongst the many Shads that are currently available.

Thanks to Paul for a great day out. It's always a pleasure to fish on the Sea Otter ll.

NigeC

 

This report has got me fired up for next thursday, can't wait now. Well done lads.

 

Sounds like you had a cracking day............
Just hope Mick can do the same for Team Sea Urchin next Thurs........ Fingers crossed ray: ray: ray: ray:

 

Superb days angling very well done to Bigcod for finding the fish

 

That looks like fantastic fishing - well done to Paul.

 

Cracking report Glenn, some very nice fishing there lads. Keen to get the yak out now!

 

A superb report with great pictures glenn :happy:
Nice to see killer with his usual smile on the pic taken from forard :whistle:
A pal came with me to haul my pots this morning and when we were done we plodded off onto some wrecks down filey way.
The fishing was very hard and the water is green with algae still plenty of silt on top :ugly:
We ended up with only around 15 fish and i must have tried 10 wrecks :cry: Browny was in and around us with a party on Lizzard i had a natter on the vhf with him and it was the same on his boat,very very slow... :cry: tight lines :happy:

 

I think the lads enjoyed themselves nigel we have had some tremendous fishing lately from the same marks over the last week it has fished very well indeed i thoughly enjoyed yesterday myself the crack was good and your 15lb cod made the day i will send your photo to andy williams with a couple more.

paul.

 

great report, im gonna get me some of those shads!!!!!

 

....and your shad rig set-up seemed to work a treat!

 

Not bad, considering its "wrong".

I had A run off with Paul again today. Not as many fish but a better stamp of fish today. My biggest went 12lb. Pictures to follow.

 

Would love to come with you one day Glenn.....

 

Hello,
That's a great day out Glenn, I'm looking forward to next Thursday just got to keep our fingers crossed for the weather.
Regards Ian

 

'Paul then told us that we had to move off the wreck to give it a rest.'

Nice to see a skipper who thinks about his and our future sport. Well done Paul.

Cracking write up and pictures. As said above, I NEED to get some time booked out with Paul. Just need to organise a day off work. :crazy: