Harwell Charters

Eastbourne is the Plaice to be! Jim Whippy’s blog

timh — Tue, 15 May 2012 07:42:17 +0000

May 12th/13th 2012

Saturday
At last we have had some good weather over a weekend and the boat was out both days. Saturday I was out with Graham Bird and we started on the Horse then moved to Long shoal using blue and white sidewinders. We had 3 cod to about 6lbs and a 2lb pollack but the tide died away and we steamed down off Hastings to go for the plaice. As soon as the tide picked up we had a string of around 20 plaice to near 3lbs using lug and rag worm on spreaders and put back numerous small ones.
Sunday
I was up at 4.30am to see Robertas and crew off early as the wind was forecast to increase in the afternoon. They went straight out to Long Shoal, their favourite mark and used various lures for the cod. The short tide meant very little movement for the lures to work and a switch over to lugworm baits produced some nice codling again up to around 6lbs. They finished with around 10 cod and they also had one bass. Not a bad weekend all round.

Boats aground at Sovereign Harbour

timh — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 12:44:28 +0000

Two boats recently went aground at the entrance to Sovereign Harbour. Check out LG weaving her way in during a recent charter! Read all about it at http://www.eastbournernli.org.uk/callouts.html

More Spring Cod – Jim Whippy’s blog

timh — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 06:55:59 +0000

On saturday 31st March Alex took Lucky Git out and found another spring run of codling has arrived. Last year was the first time we had seen a decent spring run of codling off Eastbourne and it looks to me the quota system for commercial fishermen is resulting in more fish for us anglers. Alex had 10 cod on the Horse just 4 miles out from the harbour and that where I headed on Tuesday 3rd of April with Nick Brace from London. Using pirks, shads and sidewinders we landed 5 cod in the first hour drifting over the Horse. We then went for a drift away from the rocks looking for a plaice but had another cod on squid and lug. A short session with the anchor down produced dogfish and whiting then as the wind picked up we had a final drift over the Horse while I filletted the fish Nick managed to catch a nice wrasse on a shad. Jim Whippy

The 2012 season is underway! Read all about it in Jim Whippy’s latest update.

timh — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 20:50:41 +0000

Jim Whippy with a nice spring plaice

Hi everyone, the spell of really calm weather tempted me to get out
for a go at the plaice that had been showing up a mile or so off cooden
beach. I had missed out on an unexpected run of thornback rays that
appeared in mid february just east of the Light tower, due to working
in london, and was keen to get out. So on Thursday 29th march I took
‘Lucky Git’ down to Cooden, a 20 minute steam and put the anchor down
about 1.25 miles out. The info was the plaice were coming to uptide
tactics so I put one rid uptide and another downtide. Bites were
instantanious but most of them were very small dabs. Some small whiting
showed up before I had my first plaice of about 10 ozs. Then I hooked a
flounder and a dogfish before deciding to up anchor and have a drift.
This proved the best move as I found a couple of medium sized plaice
followed by the decent sized one pictured. The weather was perfect and
the fishing was all action and will get even better as the days go by.
My catch wasn’t so good on the short tide (6.0m)as others had found
earlier on the 7.1m tides. My recommendation for inshore fishing is
always try and book a tide over 6.8m. Tight lines Jim Whippy

Species galore 1/2 a mil from the harbour entrance!

timh — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 09:09:15 +0000

Graham Bird and his daughter Hannah decided to take Harwell Charter’s Raider 18 out for an early morning session. The forecast was for force 3 but this quickly rose to a 4 shortly after the sun started to rise. The intention was to drift for plaice out by the Sovereign Tower but as
the wind rose they headed in for more sheltered waters ½ mile outside of the harbour entrance. Following reports of codling being caught in the bay they carefully anchored on a short rope between two rows of nets on a small piece of raised ground. Within 10 minutes Hannah caught
a gurnard in excess of 2lbs this was followed by half a dozen undersize whiting. As the sea ebbed the wind against tide made for lumpy conditions, however whiting continued to come aboard along with 3 sizable dabs. So with 5 species coming aboard including several fish for the pot they headed for the locks. The Raider 18 has exceptionally good freeboard and they are renowned for being a dry boat as this boat proved in the choppy conditions.

Great photo of the Sovereign Light Tower, Eastbourne

Jim Whippy’s blog

timh — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 21:14:05 +0000

Tues 30-8-11
We finished the month on a high. Jim took John Lee and his mate Barry, who hadn’t fished off Eastbourne before, for a go at the plaice. They were rewarded with a catch of 16 fish but several of the smaller ones went back to fight another day. Barry caught three fish once he got the hang of it and will no doubt be out again. John took the helm as Jim is getting him up to scratch so he can hire it to take some mates out at a later date. Despite the massive 7.9 tide fishing was quite easy and only a couple of leads were lost. Spreaders proved the right rigs with green, black and orange beads as attractors.

John and Barry with some great plaice

Jim Whippy’s blog

timh — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 21:44:17 +0000

Friday 26th August
Jim’s brother John asked if he could take his grandson Chris out to catch a plaice. Chris is off to study in Warsaw University this month and fancied hooking one of the red spotted beauties before he goes. The trio set off in the 8am lock despite a very wet day forecast and headed out east of the tower. Fishing with spreaders baited with lug, rag and squid strip they were soon into fish. First one fell to Chris, a small plaice but it was a start. Then John had a small codling before the plaice came on the feed as the rain poured down. In all they had 11 plaice up to 3lbs and despite not feeling too good, Chris rounded the session off with a 5lb codling to go with a 2lb plaice he boated. They headed in at 1pm thoroughly soaked but happy with their impressive catch.

John and Chris with plaice

Jim with plaice

Jim Whippy’s blog

timh — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 22:13:21 +0000

Sat 20th August

Nice flatfish!

Tommy and Kelly had a super day afloat in ‘Lucky Git’, armed with a little inside info from Jim. They headed off to an area west of the Light tower and were soon rewarded with a decent plaice. Kelly on her first fishing trip took some time to find her sea legs but after a few more nice plaice, the sun came out, the sea went flat calm and she recovered to enjoy the experience. Amongst the plaice they had a plump codling then a small bass before finishing up catching several bream near the Royal Sovereign Buoy. The couple were enjoying themselves so much they contacted Jim and agreed to stay out for an extra hour, returning with a good bag of fish and a bit of sunburn as well.
Monday 22nd,
Steve Venton and his crew didn’t fair quite so well after their early drive down from London. They did pick up a plaice straight away and followed this up with a small codling. Later the trio added some bream, pout and mackerel to their catch. They must have enjoyed the experience as they were soon back on line to book another trip. When they come down in September there could well be some better cod and whiting to add to the range of species available.

Coming into the lock

Jim

Latest from Jim Whippy

timh — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 17:21:21 +0000

Friday 29th July.
The boat was out on Friday 29th with Jim and Graham aboard. They pushed out to try the wrecks 12 miles out but found south easterly against the tide made fishing difficult. They only found one cod and the best fish of the day was a 12lb pollack for Graham. He was so pleased to have beaten Jim on the day.

Monday 1st August

A Tunbridge Wells angler booked Jim to act as fishing guide and it was just as well as the tides were a massive 7.6m making many of the deep water marks unsuitable to fish. Using sand eels they picked up some pollack on the Horse and Tony got himself a bass. Nice present for his birthday. A spell at anchor produced some black bream and dogs then they had an hour in the goldmine near Beachy Head catching some small plaice and dabs finishing the day on 11 species including a tub gurnard.

Australian Angler enjoys Channel success

timh — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 21:59:29 +0000

John Lynch Bream

John Lynch from Perth, Australia travelled nearly 9,000 miles to the UK and managed to grab a day fishing with Harwell Charters self-drive boats in Eastbourne. John caught 12 different species of fish and was amazed at the quality of the fishing. ‘I thought the English Channel was polluted with no fish, I could’t have been more wrong!’ he said. This black bream estimated at 4lb was caught on a wreck 10 miles offshore.