Q: What type of fishing do you do?
A: We fish mainly do Wreck or Rough Ground Fishing targetting Cod, Pollock and Ling.
Luckly for Scarborough there are many places to fish, most of these places we fish are natural scars of rock, kelp beads and generally really rough ground ideal for Cod and Pollock fishing.
There are many marks we fish, some are only a few minutes away from the harbour and others can span upto Filey Brigg or Ravenscar again two very good cod grounds.
Wreck Fishing
Also close to Scarborough are many old ship wrecks, mainly ships that were sunk in the war, and some old trawlers. These wrecks can produce good Cod, Ling, Pollock, and many other fish. We have 24 Wreck within 5nm of Scarborough, some we can even use on our 3 hour trips when weather and tides are correct. We also have 80 wrecks within 10 nm of Scarborough, we use these on our longer trips when tides are suitible (from these wrecks we have had some very good bags of fish with several anglers taking over 100lb of fish in 8 hours). Scarborough also has 116 wrecks within 15 nm but we have never needed to used these wrecks with passengers as the distances between wrecks can be a good steam away.
We use many different techniques to catch fish depending on the conditions, clarity and the time of year.
Uptiding
This is where the baits are cast uptide of the boat towards the anchor.
the idea is to anchor the bait in this position by using a fixed lead. we advise anglers use a light rod with either a small casting muiltiplier or large fixed spool reel.
we advise rigs are kept simple, with either a single hook flowing trace, a pully rig, or a self hooking trace. These can be made into a pennel rig if need to help secure the bait. the sinkers we use are grip leads around 5oz to 8oz depending on the tideand can be abreakaway type or a fixed wire type. The baited trace is casted lightly uptide and once the lead has settled on the bottom, the line is let off the reel to create a bow of line between the rod tip and the rig. The tide will then set the grip lead into the sea bed, then all you have to do is wait for the bite.
bites can be quite erratic of most of the time they just leave a slacker line. this is beacuse the fish swims with the tide then picks the bait up and swims away with it downtide. at this point the angler has to wind the slack in and when the fish can be felt just carry on winding normally. some angler prefere to strike the fish at this point but i feel this is unnessery as the fish is normally deeply hooked at this point.
Downtiding
Another pomeathod of fishing at anchor is down tiding. this technique is much simpler and bigger baits can be used. light tackle can also be used but a casting muiltiplier is not needed, so you can also use lever drag reels with this meathod. The rigs we prefere anglers to use are simple, either a flowing trace which can be made into a pennel rig if needed, or a two hook flapper can be effective. sinkers have to maintain contact with the seabad with out paying excessive line out, plain bombs, aquapedos or bell weights work well for this as they have a streamlined shape that offers little resistance. we recommend anglers to bring a selection of different size weights varying from 6oz upto 16oz. We do carry weights onboard if you run out. the amount of weight angler have on also depends on thier position on the boat, the angler at the stern of the boat will need a lighter lead than the persons fishing the bow of the boat. also line thickness changes this so it may take a few moments to sort this out but if done correctly this eliminates tangles. For downtiding all the angler has to do is lower the tackle and bait to the bottom and just let the tackle lay there untill a bite is felt. once a bite is felt all you have to do is strike the fish and slowly reel in.
We have alot more information about the areas and types of fishing on our website: https://www.skylarkfishingtrips.co.uk/the-fishing