Another Target Achieved

Hello again, following on from last months success this month has been just as good. I have managed to complete another of my targets for the year this month as well as make some really good progress on the species front.

The Loni's tackle shop species hunt has officially started back up again so I've been focusing a fair bit of my time into trying to catch up on that this month, which has also obviously helped in pushing me forward in species towards my year goal. I was only on six species when the lock down started but I've made it up to 11 now after heading down again to target another Thin Lipped Mullet. Seems to be a bit of an recurring theme in my fishing these days.

There were a few species I've been out to catch that I'd already caught since setting the targets due to the hunt not being on until now, such as Sole, Black Bream and Plaice. I have now managed to enter all three of these, I did manage to enter the Sole in style too.

I have also been able to add some species to both, one of which also completed another target, I set my first personal best for Smooth Hound, not massive at 3lb 11oz but I was extremely excited either way. I realise the blog is about my pursuit of specimen fish but it's a starting point.

Over the last few weeks I've had a couple of guys with me that are learning to fish the sea as well, I'm doing my best to pass on any of what little I do know to them and help them achieve their own targets. One of the guys Lee was wanting to target a Smooth Hound himself, I was very happy to have helped him in so far managing to get two out for him.

Neither of us have manged anything of any size but we were both very happy to have achieved something we had set out to do, next up for us now is to get out and see how many of the Ray species we can check off, the other guy that has been coming with us is Jordan and its the Rays hes had his sights on, unfortunately for him we haven't really been fishing many known Ray marks lately due to tides locally and weather not playing ball.

This is something we are set to remedy as of now! The Spotted Ray Shimano mission badge is what I am trying to get next as well as bettering my Small-Eyed Ray personal best of 7lb 11oz. Jordan has his mind set on an Undulate Ray and Lee the Stingray so fingers crossed for a good report coming next month and us having done all 4 of these.

I also had a very proud dad moment this month when my son Kieran asked me to help him catch a Sole of his own and he managed one on his last cast of a short evening session we had. This was taken on a loop rig he sat with me and tied himself baited with Ragworm.

His new Sole personal best is 9oz and he was one very happy boy, so much so he hasn't stopped asking about going out to beat it since so that is also something we will be arranging soon.

As of last night I have made it up to 15 species for the year now, these are:

Thin Lipped Mullet
Whiting
Flounder
Ballan Wrasse
Corkwing Wrasse
Goldsinny Wrasse
Dogfish
Conger Eel
Pouting
Dover Sole
Plaice
Bass
Black Bream
Starry Smooth Hound
Silver Eel

I am extremely happy with my progress this month and I'm hoping to add a few more this coming month! Thank you all for reading I hope you enjoyed the post and are looking forward to next months update.