Hello, I am your skipper, Paul Whittall, aboard Offshore Rebel IV. I hope this new feature on the web site will be of use to us all enabling me to keep you up to date with what is happening as I am allowed daily access to this page!
Offshore Rebel is one of the new Isle of Wight South Boat Cats. The boat offers plenty of room and is much more stable than a mono hulled boat making fishing that much more pleasant. She cruises at 17 knots with a fully loaded boat. This means I can offer a fast Channel Island crossing at just 3 hours 30 mins. We are on the furthest mid-channel wrecks in two hours and on the inshore marks often within half an hour!
I enjoy all sorts of fishing and am just as happy to take a family out on a two hour inshore evening trip for mackerel as I am on day's offshore wrecking trip or a full blown five day charter to the Channel Islands.
Check out this very short video clip of Offshore Rebel at sea.
Weymouth is a wonderful port for inshore fishing offering a massive variety of species to try for.
Anglers will notice how Weymouth has become the major port for the big competitions. This year the port hosted the Weymouth Conger Festival and the YYS International plus many other events. The European Federation of Sea Anglers return to Weymouth in 2007 for their Championships.
The reason why the major events are taking place here is because the Weymouth/Portland inshore sea area really does offer everything for the angler with the added bonus that fishing can take place, if it has to, in virtually any weather.
Weymouth has sand banks, rocky reef marks for drifting or anchoring, very deep water marks (300' just south of Portland Bill), shallow marks, fierce tidal areas, slack tidal areas and plenty of inshore wrecks. As the months change so the main target species changes so there is plenty of variety on offer right throughout the year and every trip can be different.
Inshore fishing for 2008 costs £380 for a 9 hour day. With 8 on the boat that's just £47.50 to fish from a £150k boat in some of the best and most productive waters in the UK. I'd say that is still a pretty good day out! Remember the boat can take 12 so a day can be even cheaper...but then there are lots of lines in the water. 9 chaps, for example, would be just £42
each.
This year the blonde ray fihsing has been excellent so here's a photo of a fine specimen ray caught by Barry Luxton from a mark one mile west of Portland Bill.
Wrecking
There are a lot of wrecks off Weymouth and they continue to offer good fishing.
Yes, I was there in the days when all you had to do was chuck anything in the water and 28 fish came up attached to your hook. We didn't even need to drift over the wreck...just be somewhere near it. OK, those days have gone but there are still more fish on the wrecks than anglers think.
Diving a wreck is a real eye opener. There are fish everywhere! But that is not to say they will take your bait or lure. I think that one of the main reasons why anglers catches have decreased is that there is far more bait fish around compared to the predatory fish which have undoubtably decreased in quantity because of of the sustained pressure on them.
This means you have to be that much better as an angler than say just ten years ago.
I know I am very fortunate as I have customers who have been with me for years and who are very good anglers. But we all need to keep trying and improving. I am sure you have all been on a boat when very little is being caught and the skipper or crew wanders out, throws down a line and hits into a fish immediately. It's not luck! It's all about fishing the correct way at the time. Skippers and crews are there to help and advise you. There's nothing wrong with taking a bit of advice if it's going to increase your catch rate!
There's stacks of good tackle about these days and much of it is very reasonably priced so there's no need to come wrecking with outdated tackle that you struggle with.
Photograph. In June 2006 we headed for a very large wreck to the north of France and caught some cracking cod with 3 over 35lb coming to pirks or storm lures. Marc Wilson caught the best of the day at just over 36lb using a storm lure on uptiding gear...what a great fight!
As you all know the fuel price for pink diesel has gone up dramatically and has virtually doubled since 2004. Most 'fast' charter boats do about ONE gallon to the mile!!! So, with fuel at nearly £2 a gallon and an average wrecking trip clocking up 80 miles then you can see that fuel for wrecking is £160 for the day as opposed to £80 in November 2004.
As a result of this we have to increase prices just to cater for the fuel increase. Be assured the charter skippers are now earning less than in 2004!
I have always encourage anglers to limit their numbers on the boat. My boat is a big boat so in order to keep the cost the same we could take the suggested number of 8 up to 9 anglers for the various inshore trips. This would mean you continue to pay the same as 2004 but the extra person would help towards the fuel increase.
Most groups come with ten when wrecking already...which works out at £48 each or £50 each on the Individual Days.
Prices for 2007 are
BOAT CHARTER PRICE
Wrecking..........£480 (7.30 to 1800)
Alderney..........£480 per day
Inshore...........£360 (0800 to 1700)
Bassing...........£360 (0800 to 1700)
INDIVIDUAL PRICING for 2007
INDIVIDUALS for Wreck fishing. Quoting for 10 on the boat.
Wrecking 0730 to 1800. £50 each.
INDIVIDUALS for Inshore Fishing. 0800 to 1700. Quoting for 8 on the boat...it is cheaper if you go with more!
Inshore...........£45
Bassing...........£45
Sorry about this; I am keeping the rise as low as possible!!
Last Updated: Sun Oct 28 2007