Weymouth Harbour

I will be in Weymouth on Friday and fancy sneaking a few hours in after work for some mullet in the harbour.Any one had any experience of the mulleting down there at all?

Hahaha! you don't miss a trick do you Nigel, every port a call every call a mullet opportunity. Have a read of this mate,

Graham,

It's very funny but I have had some very good fish from these little drop in sessions over the years.Maybe you fish a little bit more intensely if you only have a few hours or maybe its just luck..?

Thanks for the link.Its a very good site.I will give the tackle shop a ring.I'll need to step up my normal gear given all the anchor chains etc.

Nigel when i was in Weymouth a few week ago, the mullet in the Harour were massive. Good luck i hope you catch some of them!

Wendy, knowing you , I'm surprised you were not straight in there for few!;-)No fish is safe!Whereabouts were you?

We went out from ~Weymouth harbour to fish a wreck out in the channel, i was on the Lady godiva charter trip. I caught my first bass of 9lb 11oz, but then last Wed i beat that and caught a 12lb 2oz.

When i saw the fish in the harbour thats where i thought we were fishing hahah.

I managed to get after the Mullet yesterday.

I arrived at low tide.Weymoyth Angling Centre pointd me in the direction of an area known as the "tanks" where the road parallel to the harbour abuts an old gas tank.You fish from the pavement.There were some good fish about but at low tide the drop to the water was too high for me to net anything so I carried on walking to the other side of the harbour by the marina office adjacent to the car park opposite debenhams.The drop here was less but there was very little water.The mullet were all in the deeper water by the pontoons so I laid on with no luck for a couple of hours to pin the bait in position.

I returned later after work was finished and fished in the same area on the rising tide.Again there were lots of fsh in the area.The average size looked about 3lbs but there were several in the 5/6 lb range and one fish which came by looked 7lb +.

I managed a couple on bread flake.One of about 2 and another of about 3/4lb!When the tide was stood I began to get a lot of bites but in true mullet fashion they were simply unhittable.I fished closer in to cut down the distance between rod and float to aid hitting them and I could see the bait.The mullet would approach the bait push it with there snouts quite agressively to knock the bait off the hook and only then would they take it!Unbeleivable and obvioulsy source of the missed bites.I gave up in the end for fear I would have no hair left.Fascinating fish and a worthy challenge for anyone after something a bit different.

Top marks to Weymouth Angling Centre who were very helpful even though I did not buy anything.They even let me store my rods there whilst I was working so i did not have to store them in the car.

PS Does anyone know who controls the fishing in the boating lake up from the harbour?There were some good carp noseing around by the bridge which would be well worth a go.

Now thats the sort of mullet fishing I could like Nigel, no three day camel hikes and no paddling, just the job. Oh! and such pleasant surroundings I spent six months on a training carrier in Portland harbour and got to know Weymouth quite well though sadly not from a fishing angle.

Well done Nigel for enterprise but is it worth a special visit thats the question?

"Top marks to Weymouth Angling Centre who were very helpful even though I did not buy anything."

And there's another bunch of people who now know what Yorkshiremen are like!

When they are hard to hit on flake, I find that a hard rolled up piece of bread about the size of a match head often works wonders.

Float fish it impaled on the point of a size 10 or 12 - I use gold finished roundbends, which may or may not be a factor.

Cheers

Well done Nigel. I live in Dorchester and have a few very short evening sessions after those elusive mullet most years. I blank more often than not. Small piece of flake set about 18" under a chubber float (for weight of casting that's sometimes required)has worked best for me. If anyone knows of a better method I'd love to know. It's one of the most frustrating things to do in fishing, but really rewarding when it works. not had a go yet this summer. Time I got down there.

Forgot to mention the lake you mentioned. It's called Radipole lake, a large part of it is a wildlife reserve for the huge bird population. I think it might be owned by the council and there are day tickets available. The bloke who runs or ran Top Floor Tackle in Dorchester (not sure of the number) knows a fair bit about the carp fishing there. I believe it also holds roach or/and rudd and pike. There are quite a few mullet in the lake. Not sure how they got there though!