Shambles On True Blue

Dave managed a trip to the Shambles Banks on the 10th of March, I couldn't make it but by all accounts the fishing was slow. Here is Dave's version of the day:


Following the first reports on facebook of turbot showing on the Shambles banks off Weymouth, I received an excited mid-week call from my fishing bud Brian ‘pinkboat’ Gourley who was keen a cat sh** to do some fishing! 
A few calls later and we had booked a couple of individual spaces on local Poole charter True Blue, and had hatched a plan to travel to Poole for the day.
It was an early start, around 510 pick-up and we were soon heading across the solent on the 545 red funnel ferry. Thankfully they do a pretty awesome cooked breakfast, which helped wake me up!
After a 45min drive we arrived in Poole for 745am, perfect timing for the 8am meet up on the quay.
On arrival we had the latest info that only 4 flats were caught the previous day which was not what we wanted to hear, but one of them was 18lb so that soon changed our mind-sets!
It was flat calm but very foggy to start and this stayed with us all day, which meant temps were low and no sun :-{
On arrival at the Shambles banks, we were greeted by some pretty awesome swell waves breaking over the shallows which the skipper termed Growlers :-/…thoughts of taking my 165 down there later in the year were soon forgot as these waves were huge and could easily roll a small boat..

Anyway, to the fishing – as predicted this was slow (and turboting can be slow on a good day!) so it was just a matter of fishing’ard all day and trying to sneak a bin lid out…
Later in the day with only a few flats to the boat & I noticed Mr Gourley was into something – this resulted in a small turbot of around 3lb. 
Being the professional that he is and sensing his chance, the flat was returned and he was back down again in a second…another shout soon followed and the lucky Irish Leprocahun was in again and this was a better one! I could tell this due to the trademark winding speed when a good-un is on! 
After some time and with great skill and care another tubby surfaced and this was a keeper at around 6lb – as Brian’s better half loves turbot I could see that he’d not only saved his day, but also the embarrassment of returning fishless to the Mrs!!

Apart from a few small plaice this was to be the last fish of the day & on the way in we were treated to a pod of dolphins breaching around the boats bow....
We didn’t get the specimen we were after but that’s fishing! A great day out and the skipper worked very hard for us to land a few (we shall be back!)…
Next flattie bash will be in Alderney (weather permitting) where the hunt for a bin lid will continue!