After picking up the new boat in mid April from John Nicholson at Raider Boats in Carnforth I berthed it in Weymouth Borough Harbour. The first trip out in the boat went great but I realised the berth wasn’t suitable as it involved some tricky manoeuvring between rocks on one side and boats the other. At the beginning of May, I moved it into a better position in deeper water, although it means a little bit more of a walk with the fuel cans. It’s taken a while finding some decent inshore marks but on the second trip I landed several species including a spotted ray on the Lulworth banks. Later in the month I had another spotted ray along with more dogfish and pout than you could ever need.

Turbot
Gradually I worked my way out further eventually getting to the famous Shambles Bank where I have been trying for a turbot, so far with no success. To rub salt into the wounds, members of the Worldseafishing.com visited Weymouth with their boats recently and Terry Hill’s boat ‘Sea Mistress’ boated six turbot and a brill. I did have one good fish though. After boring myself silly dragging strips of mackerel over the banks for two hours I decided to anchor up at the back of the bank in deep water during the slack tide. It’s impossible to fish there in the full run of tide.

Ray
Just for speed I dropped the same turbot rig I had been using with a long strip of mackerel on and was rewarded with a good bite within 10 minutes. As soon as I lifted into it I knew it was a good ray. Luckily there was little tide as I was using a Fladen Super Sensor, more suitable for bream fishing than rays, but it slowly came to the surface. When you are on you own you need everything easily to hand and grabbing the landing net with one hand and keeping the rod held high in the other one, to keep the fish near the surface, I managed to net it safely. It was a blonde ray of 23lb 3ozs, which is a personal best for me. So with the weather due to improve I hope to nail that turbot so I can think about getting a few bass and some of those whopping great Weymouth bream.

Notes
The 100hp Mercury gives me a top speed of 33mph but with the fuel prices rocketing I have found keeping the revs down below 4,000 gives me 22mph at an economical rate. The Humminbird chart plotter with side scanning sonar has proved itself on my trips pinpointing the inshore wrecks while the side-scanning mode shows how the wrecks lie. Generally I use a split screen with plotter on one side and the regular colour sonar on the other. This way I can track to a wreck or mark and watch it come up on the sonar as I home in on the exact spot.

New models introduced into the Raider Family of Sports, Fishing and Leisure Boats
full details can be seen at Raider Models and Gallery page