I’m not normally a big boat angler focusing all my efforts on the shore angling side of things but a couple of times a year I will venture out on one of the local charter boats with a group of mates to sample the thrill of being out at sea fishing the deeper waters for what we hope will be larger fish, with the warmer brighter weather we were encountering in June the shore sport on the East coast started to slow down, so a plan was hatched with 2 of my good mates to spend the day afloat in July trying to find some better fish offshore.
We decided to go out for the day with AAA charters boat AMINO, we have used this boat a fair few times previously and always have a great laugh with Pete Everett the skipper and he always manages to find us the fish, Pete operates from Levington marina in the summer months, located near the mouth of the River Orwell this means it is only a short ride to get out into the deeper East coast waters and head to the mark of choice.
The Friday night before the trip I went to my little hermit spot where I know large amount of good sized crabs can be collected fairly quickly and managed to get myself 40 fresh prime hermits for the trip, I know the hounds, cod and bass will readily smash a well presented hermit so my plan was to fish with these all day and see if I could get a half decent fish. My alarm went off at 6am to the sun beaming through the gaps in the curtains, it looked like it was going to be a lovely day for it and with light winds forecast it was hopefully going to be a great day at sea. Arriving at levington marina it was apparent I was the first one there but that soon changed with my 2 good mates Damien Baldwin and Paul Lowe turning up along with one of their work colleagues Jon Clifton. Damo and Paul are seasoned anglers both fishing from the shore and boats for a fair while between them whereas for Jon this was he’s first time fishing out on a boat so I was hoping that he would see some fish and we might have a new member to our little group of fishing buddies.

Pete drove the boat round to the jetty and we loaded up, the boat itself is called AMINO and she is an aquafish 23 and with a 20 mile code of practice and 150bhp engine she is a great boat to get out on, as we left the marina mouth the banter was well underway with all four of us laughing constantly as stories of our past trips were shared amongst us. The decision was made to head offshore around the 7 mile mark to fish near to a feature known locally as the rough towers an ex WW2 naval fort located off Felixstowe. It is known to hold fish of all varieties but hopefully for us there would be some hounds there waiting to chow down on our crabby offerings. We skipped across the waves as we powered out of the River Orwell passing the massive container ships that were offloading there goods at the port of Felixstowe and powering out to the towers, as we powered our way out I set up my gear for the day, I was going to be using my 9 ft leeda boat rod coupled up with a Penn mag 2 that was loaded with 25lb ASSO hardskin and a short 70lb rubbing leader, at the business end I was using the simplest of rigs the running ledger consisting of a 3ft 25lb clear amnesia snood and attached to this I was using 2x 2/0 SAKUMA stingers in a pennell arrangement as l find the 2/0 offers a better bait presentation when using the hermit crab bait.
We were soon at the mark and Pete dropped anchor putting us over a nice drop off into water roughly around 30 feet deep, the others baited up with squid to start with but as I had my hermits in my bucket I vowed to stick with them and soon had a lovely looking bait making its way down to the bottom. It didn’t take long for the dogfish to get involved in our party as the rods baited with squid were soon doing the doggie dance as I call it, bouncing away as they devoured the squid on the hooks and just in general being a bit of a menace.

After about an hour Paul was first into a better fish and after a spirited scrap a lovely starry hound of around the 7lb marker coming to a whole squid bait was boated and the smile on he’s face said it all. Next in was Damo and straight away we could tell this was no hound and as it slowly made its way up to the surface we could see it was a small thornback ray of around the 4lb size. A couple of hours had passed by now and with a few more doggies coming to squid I still hadn’t had a fish on my hermits but I was determined to get one telling the others that I was going to get a fish on them if it killed me. I had seen a couple of bites so I knew the fish were showing an interest but unfortunately I had no hook ups. Then it happened the rod tip out of the blue just slammed over followed by a nice slack line, I wound down into the fish trying to rapidly catch up on the line it had left slack as it swam towards me, the rod was soon bent nicely, I could tell a hound was on the end and in the tidal run it was putting up a great fight, taking line as it made a few last gasp efforts to evade capture and get back into the watery depths. Pete the skipper landed her and brought her onboard, she looked to be a double figure fish and a quick weigh on the scales put her at 10 and a half pounds so after a few quick photos I lowered her back into the water and watched her gracefully swim away. Damo was next in with another hound of around 8lb coming to fresh peeler crab and Paul followed suit with a hound of just over 10lb yet again on fresh peeler, just as I was thinking I hope the new guy gets a hound as well he’s squid baited rod slowly pulled over and he was soon into a hound of around 5-6lb.

At around midday the weather went against all the forecasts and the wind really started to get up making it very uncomfortable, Pete the skipper quickly made the decision to head into the local river Stour to target the local bass population drifting on light gear and using rag worm as bait. We entered the river at Harwich and made our way down to an area near Wrabness. The wind was a lot less in the shelter of the river and we were soon at our mark. Very light spinning rods were the order of the day with fixed spools loaded with 6lb line and a rolling lead set up consisting of 2 oz flat leads attached to a 1 hook flapper rig with a size 1 circle hook at the sharp end. I find the trick when doing this type of fishing is to head hook a couple of worms leaving the tail trailing enticingly so it flutters about as it rolls along the bottom hopefully drawing the bass into smashing the bait and hooking themselves.

We got the go ahead from the skipper to put the baits into the water as we started our first drift, bobbing along in the tide with no anchor makes this is exciting fishing, the rod tip will be tapping away as the lead rolls over the bottom then out of the blue your rod tip will be bent double as a bass smashes the bait and trust me you will definitely know when you have a fish as they really do hit hard . About 5 minutes into the first drift and it was Pauls rod that walloped round to start things off, the fish was only a schoolie but on this light gear it really gave a good account of itself and he soon had it onboard for pics then it was quickly released to hopefully get bigger for next year. About 5 minutes after Pauls fish my rod was gently tapping away when in the blink of an eye it was doubled round, the rod tip making jagging movements as mr bass tried to make his getaway, I could tell it was no monster but it put up a great little scrap with me feeling every lunge and little run it made on the light tackle and it was soon on-board, they may have only been school bass but they were in such great condition from being in the river feeding on the abundance of crabs and small fish fry that are found in there. As we neared the end of our first drift Damo was next into a fish and the laughing he was doing whilst he played it to the boat just goes to show what great fun this way of fishing really is, once this fish was returned we powered back up the river to the start of the drift and quickly got our tasty rag worm baits in the water.

This next drift produced nothing so we soon returned to the start again and slowly bobbed our way downstream, Jon was first into a very spirited little bass on this drift with the fish taking him under the boat and giving him quite a run around until it was netted and bought on-board for pics, a few minutes later he’s rod was bent over again as another little bass came to the net and yet again this little bar of silver was in tip top condition being both very plump and strong. With me Paul and Damo now all standing on the same side of the boat the banter started flowing with Paul ending up taking a face full of fresh slimy river Stour weed that accidentally blew in the wind as I was cleaning my hooks. That weed in the face must have been lucky for him as he’s was the rod that next decided to pull over with another little bass on the end. We were nearing the end of the day now and I was willing my rod to go just once more when it decided to wallop round with what felt like better fish on the end, with the little spinning rod absorbing every run the bass was soon at the top and being netted, yet again not a monster but still great fun all the same and after some pics I watched as it gave a quick flick of its tail and sped off to re-join the shoal with its mates.

With the time nearing 5 in the afternoon Pete said we would head back to the river mouth for a quick drift then head back to the marina, unfortunately this didn’t produce but we weren’t down heartened we had all had a brilliant day filled with banter and laughter from start to finish with the morning out on the sea catching double figure hounds and the afternoon in the river catching small bass on the drift it really had been a day of two halves.