A Taste of Lyme

Having not boat fished at sea since a very drab day in the Bristol Channel about three years ago, what a refreshing change a trip from Lyme Regis made. Aboard the Ameretto 2 (www.ameretto2.com) , we were hopeful for a good day on local reefs. The bream fishing here can be excellent- as I soon discovered.
Fishing squid and mackerel baits, we were quickly into bites and beautiful, broad sided bream. With my last bream a sample of about one ounce from a pier, I was awe struck with the quality of these cute beasties. For some reason they remind you of perch- whether it's that spiny dorsal fin or the jagging, head shaking fight, or indeed the barred sides. Many of the fish were in the two pound class- as you can see from Seb Nowosiad's beautiful sample here:

Whilst sea bream were a new challenge however, I was in good hands to learn a trick or two with those on board. You're only as good as your skipper and I was impressed by Steve Sweet's set up and willingness to make that extra effort- utilising groundbait was a real bonus, which he released via a weighted mesh bag or a giant bait dropper:

Does this help? You bet it does! About ten minutes after this was dispersed the rod tips got more suspicious taps than a morse code convention, with more chunky bream thumping on the lines.

One man who took a real haul of fish was John Gilmore, who had his set up spot on: the species responds well to colourful beads and I was also interested to note his use of small circle hooks. John doesn't strike, but simply tightened into the fish. And what a gentleman- he happily let others into his productive corner when the rest of us were struggling. His own set up was a fairly light blank- terrific fun:

Besides the bream we also got great variety in the form of mackerel, dogfish, poor cod, a solitary pollack, a scad and even a poor cod. First prize for oddities goes to John's starfish however- for some reason it didn't go for the bait but was just cuddling his lead. Ahhh!

Some uninvited guests also turned up in the form of gulls- multiplying rapidly at the end of the day as we gutted and beheaded the keepers. Talk about a scrum! One old, dead scruffy old gull also kept landing on the cabin roof. He got shooed away several times but the cheeky bugger kept coming back.

So, to cut a long story short, we enjoyed calm seas, rod jolting action, good banter and fish by the bucket load. In fact, for anyone who fancies a bucket load of bream or indeed a crack at autumn bass afloat, Steve is well worth a call: 01279 445949/ 07836 591084.

Baked bream for tea was a further bonus- I did mine with soy, honey and fresh ginger. Delicious! Not to mention an excellent bargaining token with the fairer sex when you get home a little late and tired.