Guernsey 2017

[foxfish]

Golden greys tend to feed over the sand but also rest in the weed, try L'Eree opposite the ice cream van, almost guaranteed a GG in the shallow sandy area as you get in the water.
GGs really blend in well with white sand, more often than not, feeding in pairs or threes hard on the bottom. They are caught by rod anglers on worm baits fished over sand & used to be a great winter fish for shore fishermen, although like most things that live in the sea ... not so common nowadays.

 

[little sarge]

Dive-1
Got up early doors and headed East with Brandon. Entered the water at about 6 once it was light. Viz was pretty decent and found a nice small reef with plenty of string weed on it at the edge of the tide which dropped off to about 4m. Sat in the weed looking over the reef with my gun sticking out, a few small bass, mullet and gar swam past but i decided to hold out for something bigger! Sat there for a while and noticed some shapes on the edge of the vis, they came in a bit closer and dissapeared again. Wasn't sure if they were black or white bream at first but dropped down and waited for them to appear again. Only one came in and I could clearly see it was a white bream. Waited for a clear shot and took it. The bream weighed in at 1lb 11oz and was 34cm long. Got out shortly after as I had to be at work.

Dive-2
Headed out on the boat with Fro, Edd and Matt after work. Saw plenty of silver fish and missed a shot on a nice 7lb + fish which was swimming in a pair.
Still took a pretty decent one and watched lots of 2-3lbers and schools swim by. My dive was almost over when a seal came to play. Lovely and playful and the colours were amazing, a really light grey that almost looked white under the water. First time I have seen a seal whilst in the water and most definitely the high light of my spearfishing year so far! Not going to lie it made me jump when it appeared along side me. Cheers for taking us out Fro it was a great evening.
Bass was 5 1/2 lb

 

[foxfish]

Great report Kerin, thanks for posting.

 

[Eddy1666]

Was a fantastic dive , must have seen well over 100 bass and tons of other life including The elusive guilt head (missed a over ambitious long shot) Even came across a small sunken boat which had bait fish all over it like a mini ship wreck . The femail seal was amazing to see as it swam past us doing barrel rolls and watching what we where up to . First one I have seen in the water, they move so quick!
all in all one of the best dives this year for me, so much going on and so much to see

. Took a 3lb odd bass for my tea tonight but saw half a dozen 6lb plus fish which Where out of range and one I missed at close range..... Got loads of footage on the go pro that I'll have to edit and look through so I'll try and get a video up soon , should be some good bits ! Cheers for taking us over John was awesome!

 

[foxfish]

We will look forward to the vid....

 

[portinfer]

Forgot to post a dive from a few weeks back - 29th July.
Woke up early and tried out west at dawn. Driving down was all dark low cloud and shitty drizzle but wanted to get in. Pretty murky in the shallows but saw this bass pass below & shot it from the surface in about a metre and a half of water. Saw some large mullet but little else.

Went in yesterday after work. Was meant to be scoping out a place that has been on mine & Tom's list for a while but realised that at 6:30pm there isn't too much light about so followed the weed/sand edge at 4m depth for an hour before heading back in the shallows with the sun behind me.

Saw a lovely ray on the sand pretty much as I was going in - not sure I've seen one in daylight before. It had rounded wing tips so was possibly an undulate? I need to look at more fish ID books!

Kept seeing smallish grey mullet zipping past and as usual after realising that they aren't bass my brain switched off... but then I realised that most of them were golden grey. Pretty excited to see them and could clearly see the gold spot on their gills. Didn't line up anything as they were pinging about in the shallows.

I'd seen a few single min-bass on the way but no shots taken. Just before 8pm I got shoaled by a large herd of min-bass. I was just floating with the gentle current slowly pushing me over the bootlace and kept stock still. The shoal kept coming back every 3 or 4 minutes to have a look at me and I didn't take any shots. I'm rubbish at taking shots from the surface and thought I'd do some really shallow aspettos by grabbing rocks or weed and dropping down.

Did a few drops and the first one was mostly min-bass but just as I was ignoring them a few larger bass came past right on the spear tip. I'd run out of breath so had a 3 min breathe up and tried another drop - same thing but they were really weaving in and out and quite a few of them - hard to line up. Took a shot at the end of my breath (1:20 ish - need more!) at the largest one but could see larger ones in the gloom coming in.

Tried a few more drops but only saw single min-bass after that.

Is it me or are there stack loads of small bass around this year?

 

[foxfish]

Thanks Edd, it is so nice to read a few positive reports.

 

[portinfer]

Octopus!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b090xs6y

 

[portinfer]

Saw this and thought it was well shot. Bit chilly.

 

[Magpie]

Saw this and thought it was well shot. Bit chilly.

Shouldn't you be trying to fix your "car"?

 

[Magpie]

Just in from a night dive with Ed, in fact the most extreme night dive we've done and we've been at it for err, well over ten years now. A spot we've talked about for years and we finally got out there and tried it. I took some video which looks to have come out ok, here's a couple of quick screenshot teasers while my lobster is boiling, full edit to follow at some point.

 

[foxfish]

Great, looking forward to the vid, don't boil them for to long.
We had 7 lobsters to cook durring the Sunday prize giving, I cut them in half and fed them into the wood oven. The temp was not that high but still around 600f, the fist one went in for 2 mins but it's claw meat was still a tiny bit opaque so the others went in for 3 mins and were apparently the best lobster ever!

 

[westcoaster]

Was a great dive on Monday night with the other guys, so many fish around, found a bass in the string weed and kelp within around 15 minutes of being in the water, saw around 20 bass, some decent size 5-6lb shoals swimming in the tide and tide running too fast to get a shot in, plenty weaving in and out the bootlace swimming in the tide, great to see, then some slightly bigger bass out of range, then whilst in calmer waters saw some of the biggest fish I've ever seen, pretty sure these were hugemongous mullet and I wouldn't like to guess what size they were. Epic swim with great company. Go Pro battery was faulty so had about an hours worth of footage, bit gutted on that.

 

[Spirit]

Great, looking forward to the vid, don't boil them for to long.
We had 7 lobsters to cook durring the Sunday prize giving, I cut them in half and fed them into the wood oven. The temp was not that high but still around 600f, the fist one went in for 2 mins but it's claw meat was still a tiny bit opaque so the others went in for 3 mins and were apparently the best lobster ever!

I can vouch for that. Best that I have ever had.

 

[Magpie]

So, last night me and Ed finally decided to attack a patch we've both dived in the day and thought would be worth having a mooch around at night. We've talked about it for years but because it's a bit of a trek, including crossing tidal streams, we'd not done it until now but we decided to take a kayak as a base station and set off at sunset.

Early on we realised that towing a diver from a kayak didn't work too well, so we abandoned that idea apart from when crossing some tide. Got to the area, anchored the base station boat and started diving. Straight away it looked fishy, lots of food in the sand, and it turned out to be ray central. Big and little, mostly blondes but at least one small eyed. I ended up with a couple of plaice and a free running lobster. Left some borderline sole and red mullet. After a while of one up one downing it was obvious the wind had picked up and was blowing directly offshore the way we needed to get back.

We decided not to push it and pack up to set off with Ed swimming and me paddling. Turned out to be a good decision as despite running with the tide the wind against it has kicked up quite a chop to the extent that Ed could make pretty much the same progress in the water as I could paddling. After a bit of a fight we made it back into the lee of the land and it calmed down enough for Ed to make some more dives while I got the base station back to land.

Some good lessons learned for longer night expeditions. The kayak was useful but would probably leave it behind next time unless it was definitely too far to swim. The area looked great, with the potential for some special fish, but it'll have to be calmer conditions before we think about trying it again!

Here's a vid, not the greatest as I always forget that the camera flares out if I point my torch directly at the target. Oh and it's not advisable, or needed, to shoot flatties, but I was out of air so didn't have time to stab it.

 

[foxfish]

Good shot anyway!

 

[little sarge]

Nice video Tom. Are you sure that's a torch and not a light sabor?!

 

[Magpie]

Well like a light saber it is hand built by its user so if you want to call me a night dive Jedi...

Looking how best to bodge a flip up diffuser onto it for filming, should be straightforward.

 

[portinfer]

Good night dive!
The currents were ok (3.3m low) but still a loooong old swim.
Further out it got pretty deep and I was being towed behind Tom's kayak just thinking of the scene in Waterworld where he's trolled behind a boat to catch monster fish. Unnerving.

 

[little sarge]

Me and Ed decided to brave this wind and swell and get in for a night dive this evening.
Saw a few species including some small but beautiful tub gurnard, it's amazing the way they walk along the sea bed. Loads of hand sized sole around but none big enough to even think about taking. Took a lobster for dinner tomorrow.
Felt a bit sea sick by the time we got out as there was a fair bit of chop. Vis was ok but not perfect, better than we expected though to be fair.