Slowly picking up...

 Been a busy month workwise and with the gardening, fishing has taken a back seat. Moreover I had to change the keel to my boat as the old one was beyond repair this time. I put on a similar length keel from Aliexpress and after careful inflation (its wider) it seems to be doing OK.

I had a couple outing with clients from shore and boat and the results have been pretty good for this time of year. I think the reasonable weather we've been  having helped a lot.

The fish haven't all spawned out yet and they are in declined condition but seem very keen to improve that! As long as we had settled conditions and hit the right tide state, they wouldn't be too fussy.  Loud colours and softplastics done the deal. Slow jigs gave some fish as well.

Elvin and Manzhu with a double header!

Girl power!

Good conditions...

Some decent fish about...

She's in again...

And again..!

A few warriors for Dave!

Chilly but sunny!

It's great to see some better weather and I might be putting up a post with a new boat soon... 

It's also time I dusted the trout gear and go after the spotted beauties. I've got a new rod I want to try for them along with endless wee hard lures!

Tight lines 

Slowly edging towards Spring.

 The weather has given us glimpses of Spring the past couple of weeks and I've had a few outings in salt and freshwater. Had a few nice fish on a short SIB session after work and got some nice underwater footage that I've yet to edit!  The pollock were up for larger and more natural baits than the reaction lures I tend to use this time of year and there seemed to be a mix of prespawn and postspawn fish.  My Northumbrian friends lures did well again.

A solid fish OTD.

A couple days ago I tried to open my sea trout account as well.  Took me a while, but I did find a group of sewin at a slightly different place of where I usually catch them. They were patrolling a rocky point close to some deeper water.  Got 3 fish stuck, landed 2 and had a couple missed hits as well. Only small but they were there and pretty as ever!

Beautiful silver missile.

 I also managed a very short session on the kayak, on our way back from a day trip. Fitted the fish finder to it as well and I was salivating at what I was seeing!  Definitely will be doing more of that soon. Typically, I only got 2 bites and landed a nice but skinny brownie...

Good size but skinny. 

The inflatable kayak has been a pleasure to use so far and my only gripe is that the rudder could be improved as the turns are quite wide. I'm sure I'll work something out for that...

My time has been more limited than usual the past couple months but now with some of the covid restrictions getting lifted, I hope to start the guiding and even more fishing! 

Tight lines 

Inflating my boat.

 In various forums, Facebook groups etc that I follow, panel-floor sibs tend to be considered too faffy, heavy and generally hard work to set up every time. Most recommendations tend to be towards models with high pressure V-floors.

Having models of both Sibs (wood floor YAM 380S and V-floor Honwave T-32 IE) I like them both but tend to prefer the solid floor as it feels more like a "real boat", especially when it comes to fishing.

The time it takes to set up is comparable between the two sibs. The V-floor takes approximately 10 minutes while the wood floor 15 minutes. Deflating is the opposite as the YAM just needs a roll up while the T-32IE requires extra deflation with it's foot-pump in order to fit in it's bag.

Below  I have a video of how I inflate my YAM 380S in less than 15 minutes.

As you can see it's fairly easy and having two pumps, really speeds things up. The recent addition of the trolling motor adds a bit of time but its worth it! 

Tight Lines