Lady Margaret Charters

Lady Margaret Charters Skippered fishing charters operating from Poole Harbour for up to six anglers. The boat is fully licensed and insured for operation in MCA Area Category 2.

All types of fishing available but specialising in light tackle fishing.

The relatively settled weather has continued and Lady Margaret has been out making the most of it.We have been mainly co...
11/11/2024

The relatively settled weather has continued and Lady Margaret has been out making the most of it.

We have been mainly concentrating on bass and squid fishing but have also been taking advantage of the small tides to fish further offshore.

The bass fishing has been good. We haven't landed any particularly big fish but there are decent numbers of medium weight fish around to 6lb along with the odd small one. Great sport on light tackle.

The squid fishing has been steady. We haven't been landing huge numbers but the size is excellent with a big uplift in size during the last week. I have always found November to be a great month for big squid in the past. Unfortunately the last couple of years have been so wild we haven't been able to take advantage so it is nice that we have had much more favourable conditions this year.

Further out the fishing is also good. There are lots of species available and some fine individual fish. You literally do not know what the next fish will be! We landed smoothound, spurdog, tope, bull huss, dogfish, blonde rays, bream, pouting and congers. We also had a big porbeagle follow a hooked conger to boatside.

Lady Margaret has just completed three busy days of fishing. It is the first time we have been out for a while due to a ...
15/10/2024

Lady Margaret has just completed three busy days of fishing. It is the first time we have been out for a while due to a combination of other commitments and some poor weather coinciding with bookings.

In general the weather forecasting has been making life difficult lately. One trip a couple of weeks ago was cancelled due to a fresh south easterly which is a horrible direction at Poole. The day itself was windless with a flat calm sea! During the last three days the forecast proved quite inaccurate in terms of both wind direction and strength. This makes planning the trips difficult. Hopefully the weather becomes a bit more predictable soon.

We had three very enjoyable days on the water. We concentrated mainly on plaice and squid fishing and also did a trip targeting big flatfish and bream.

There are still plenty of plaice around. They are mainly smaller fish but also a few bigger ones- great fun to catch on light tackle. There are also quite a few other species around. We landed bass, black and gilthead bream, tub gurnards and pouting.

The squid fishing has dropped off a bit after the consistently good fishing recently. I think this is mainly due to the stormy weather last week . On one day there was quite a big swell and the water was quite dirty and we did ok. The next day the swell had gone and the water had cleared and we struggled with just a few landed in much better conditions! Very puzzling.

The turbot fishing was a nice change as we have done very little recently. The trip out to the fishing grounds was pretty wild with an ebb tide running against a big south westerly swell and fresh south westerly wind! It settled later giving some nice conditions. The fishing was a bit on the slow side. The last few years have seen generally slow fishing for this species compared to the phenomenal fishing previously. I think we are currently at a low point in the natural cycle before numbers increase again. We also landed some big black bream.

Just one days fishing this week for Lady Margaret due to other commitments.We had a very enjoyable day on the water in n...
16/09/2024

Just one days fishing this week for Lady Margaret due to other commitments.

We had a very enjoyable day on the water in nice conditions.

There are still good numbers of plaice around. The fishing conditions on the day were actually quite difficult with the wind directly opposing the tide giving an almost stationary drift. We still landed quite a few although the bigger ones were a bit thin on the ground.

The water is cooling slightly now but it is still very warm. Apart from plaice there are lots of other species around. The highlight were several juvenile red bream that we caught. This species was common in the English Channel in the early eighties sometimes forming in huge shoals. Big ones were caught on wrecks all along the channel. They then disappeared almost overnight and have been very scarce since although the west country has continued to produce a few. It would be great if they re-established themselves in numbers one day.

We also landed black bream, pouting, red mullet and tub gurnards.

We tried for bass briefly without any success although we did land one when we were plaice fishing!

The squid fishing continues to be good. There are decent numbers of medium sized ones around along with cuttlefish.

Lady Margaret has just completed a busy three days of fishing.The weather was a bit mixed with some heavy rain around at...
09/09/2024

Lady Margaret has just completed a busy three days of fishing.

The weather was a bit mixed with some heavy rain around at times but in general the conditions were great with very welcome flat calm seas.

We had gradually decreasing tides over the three days so I had planned a variety of fishing for the three groups- bass fishing, plaice fishing and also squid fishing.

The bass fishing was a tale of two halves. The lure fishing was very disappointing. In fact, we never landed a single fish although we did drop one half way up! I can't remember the last time this happened as there is nearly always the odd fish around even if the shoals are not in the area. We did have quite a few missed "bites" but these turned out to be cuttlefish which were following the lures right to the surface. Hopefully this was just a blip as autumn normally provides consistently good fishing for this premier species.

The float fishing was much more productive. There were a few schoolies around but also quite a few nice middleweight fish.

The plaice fishing was phenomenal! We tried several different areas and they all produced quality fishing. In addition to plaice there are lots of other species around on the inshore grounds. One particularly outstanding drift produced 24 plaice, 9 tub gurnards, 6 black bream and a codling between the four anglers! This is normally a reasonable catch for the whole day! Hopefully this level of fishing continues for a while. This is relaxing fishing. The water is shallow and the tides are relatively weak so very light tackle can be used.

We also tried for squid with good results. There are decent numbers of squid around along with quite a few cuttlefish. The water is very clear at the moment which helps this type of fishing.

We also landed pouting, pollack, ballan wrasse and gilthead bream.

No fishing today due to the windy weather but Lady Margaret was out yesterday.We had a group on board who were new to fi...
25/08/2024

No fishing today due to the windy weather but Lady Margaret was out yesterday.

We had a group on board who were new to fishing and they had quite an introduction! The weather during the morning can only be described as foul. We were faced with an uncomfortable southerly chop coupled with steady rain which was torrential at times.

The anglers did a great job. They persevered through the dodgy conditions and landed plaice, dab, bass and a couple of jumbo mackerel.

The weather improved greatly around midday. The wind veered to the west and the sun appeared! We continued the steady catching landing more plaice, bream and a couple of starry smoothhounds.

Lady Margaret was fishing again this weekend. We concentrated on light tackle drifting targeting plaice and whatever els...
20/08/2024

Lady Margaret was fishing again this weekend.

We concentrated on light tackle drifting targeting plaice and whatever else was around. We also tried with feathers for mackerel.

We had a couple of very enjoyable trips. The fishing was greatly improved from the generally slow fishing of the last few weeks. We tried several different areas and they all produced steady fishing.

We caught a good number of plaice and also dabs, tub gurnards, bream, pouting, mackerel, scad, dogfish and a small undulate ray.

On Saturday the fishing was particularly good. We had a "fathers and sons" group onboard and I have to say the older, more experienced anglers were given a lesson in fish catching by the youngsters who did a great job with some nice catches.

On Sunday the conditions were more difficult and weren't helped by a fresh wind which suddenly appeared after lunch giving some lively conditions but we still had steady catching for most of the day.

It looks like we have unsettled weather coming this week but hopefully it will settle again soon.

Summer has returned and Lady Margaret has been out the last couple of days. The inshore fishing continues to be quite di...
11/08/2024

Summer has returned and Lady Margaret has been out the last couple of days.

The inshore fishing continues to be quite difficult. August can sometimes be a doldrums period for sea fishing. We weren't helped by a fresh westerly wind which restricted our choice of fishing areas on both days although the wind calmed down in the evening on both days once we were back in!

The plaice are still very thin on the ground. We only managed to land a few fish despite quite a bit of fishing time with ideal drift conditions. Hopefully the numbers will increase as we head into autumn.

There are also very few tub gurnards around which are normally a common catch on the plaice grounds particularly later in the year.

On the plus side the water is now very warm around 20C so we can expect the exotic summer species to make an appearance. We landed our first red mullet of the summer. There are a few bream around mainly small ones but the odd bigger one.

There are also a few rod bending congers around.

After the hot weather last week we had a couple of breezy days but the wind dropped yesterday and Lady Margaret was back...
05/08/2024

After the hot weather last week we had a couple of breezy days but the wind dropped yesterday and Lady Margaret was back out.

The tides are building again now so we tried for bass. We have found the bass fishing during the last few weeks to be a bit subdued so I was hoping for an improvement in both numbers and size of fish.

We had a good trip. There are still quite a few schoolies around but the numbers of fish had increased significantly since our last trip. There are also some medium weight fish amongst the smaller ones. Great fun to catch on light tackle.

There are also some dolphins out in the bay at the moment. We had our second view of some in as many weeks.

We are in a period of nice weather at the moment and Lady Margaret has been out making the most of it. We have just had ...
29/07/2024

We are in a period of nice weather at the moment and Lady Margaret has been out making the most of it. We have just had three very pleasant days out on the water.

The tides have been gradually reducing in size which has given the opportunity to target different species with varied fishing methods.

The inshore fishing has been a bit subdued but we have still had some nice fish in the boat. The mackerel remain elusive. There are a few bass around but not in great numbers. The plaice are also quite thin on the ground. On the plus side the plaice are generally nice sized fish along with a few smaller ones and quite a few bait shredding bream. An anchored session produced congers, bream and pouting.

Further out there is a bit more happening. The tope numbers were down a bit on the excellent fishing a couple of weeks ago but the general size remains high. We also landed some lovely bream to over 3lb, congers and pouting.

Lady Margaret was out fishing again at the weekend.We had a reasonable forecast combined with a big tide so we decided t...
22/07/2024

Lady Margaret was out fishing again at the weekend.

We had a reasonable forecast combined with a big tide so we decided to concentrate on bass fishing for the day.

We had a very enjoyable trip. The fishing was a bit subdued which was a surprise as the tides were building strongly after a series of small tides which can often produce great fishing.

We tried several different areas and most of them produced but we never managed to dial in on a big shoal.

We also landed pouting, whiting, scad, and some jumbo mackerel well over 1lb in weight.

After a breezy couple of days the weather settled and Lady Margaret was back out fishing.We had another small tide for t...
18/07/2024

After a breezy couple of days the weather settled and Lady Margaret was back out fishing.

We had another small tide for the trip so we took advantage of the great weather to fish further offshore again.

We were targeting tope and whatever else was around. The tope fishing continues to be good. There are plenty of fish around from low double figures into the 20lb+ range. Great sport on medium weight tackle!

We also landed congers, bream and pouting.

Lady Margaret was out again this weekend. We had a rare combination of small tides and light winds so we took the opport...
15/07/2024

Lady Margaret was out again this weekend. We had a rare combination of small tides and light winds so we took the opportunity to fish further offshore. I wasn't quite sure what to expect as the last few trips had seen a bit of a dip in catches although we still had some very enjoyable days out on the water.

The fishing offshore was excellent. We were targeting line stripping tope and whatever else was around. We tried several different spots during the weekend and they all produced quality fishing.

The tope fishing was the best we have had so far this year. The general size of the fish was high particularly on Saturday when we only landed a couple of fish under 20lb and landed fish to well over 30lb.

On Sunday the fish were a bit smaller but the numbers were even higher! The action was fast and furious as packs of fish moved through with multiple fish on together and some spectacular tangles!

We also had an anchored session on a wreck which produced congers...and more tope! We lost a few eels in the wreck but did manage to get a couple out including one real bruiser six feet long which weighed exactly 40lb the biggest eel we have had on board for a while. A great effort by the angler on medium weight tackle as the tide was running at the time.

We also landed bull huss, dogfish, pouting, bream, bass, spotted ray and cuckoo wrasse.

Inshore the fishing was quieter but we did land tope, bream and plaice.

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Poole
BH151HD

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