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  • 12/2013 Fishing Report by Adam Shaw on Warrior (Chichester, West Sussex)

    Dec 2013 by Adam Shaw

    Report on-board Warrior

    Well we have had the majority of our winter fishing and i have to say it was probably the worst year for cod we’ve had in the last 10 seasons. The only good thing was the size of the fish with half of them being over 20lb the best fish being caught by Bex, The Skipper of Shaw Thing II, weighing 32lb. Warriors best fish was 25lb caught by Richard Clarke who is a regular with us, his fish was massive but a bit on the skinny side, another month it would have been a potential boat record.

    Even though the cod were shy the Channel Whiting were phenomenal with many days over a hundred fish landed between 11/2-2lb .The best whiting of the season was just over 4lb, this beat last years record by almost 1lb.

    There is a school of thought that the abundance of whiting was the reason for the lack of cod, being that the whiting are fast ferocious feeders, they may of been hovering up the food sources leaving the cod short of feed. There did not seem to be the amount of sprat shoals around for the time of year which are a regular winter food source. One large cod we gutted was full of pissers, a hard poll-op type growth that attaches to the sea bed, certainly not a regular food source for cod, I can only assume that the fish was struggling to find its normal quarry so it ate what it could to survive.

    All in all it was a strange year with the late start to the bream season, then the abnormally hot calm weather, the fishing never seemed to really settle down in to its regular pattern so its not a surprise that by the end of the year things were difficult.

    We are going to carry on with cod trips in to January to see what comes up, there are some special offers on Shaw Thing II. This time of year you can pick up spur dog, big blonde ray, conger and the elusive 30lb plus cod.

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