Available Trips
the area that we fish from mersea has a very good fishery for thornback rays (locally known as 'roker') and so this makes for a great target species due to their size they fight well and are available all year round.
although we may catch them all year round the best times of year (if you wish to specifically target them) are march-may and around september-october.
we regularly catch double figure skate and the biggest we have had on the razorbill is 18lbs.an average day would see around 12 roker aswell as other species mixed in and a good day can see 25-30 our best being 49 between 3 of us.this gets a little hectic when all three have fish on.
for more info and to find out what days are available for a roker trip please contact us.
mersea has a very good fishery for cod and is one of the best places in the country to get numbers of them.they move in around late september and stay with us untill late march-mid april.
we uptide fish for them due to the relativly shollow ground we fish over.the average day i would expect to see 20-35 codling and the size can be from 2lbs-4/5lbs but we catch them well into double figures and the day often sees a roker or two aswell as whiting and pouting ect.
to book a day cod fishing and maybe a specialist day for big cod (where experience is needed) call us for further information.
the tope that move into our area come here for the same reason as most of the other fish that migrate here.they come here to breed and this has a lot to do with the fact that the tope record has so often come from this area (they are usually big pregnant females).
the tope usually move in around mid-late may and stay with us untill late july.although the tope do come right inshore we usually have to go a little further offshore to catch them in greater numbers.many of the tope we get are well into doubles and the current record if reports are to be belived is over 100lbs wich is a great fish to catch.
due to the relativly shollow ground we often fish we use uptide gear for them and this shows the sporting qualities of the fish off well as they often jump and thrash around on the surface.
we use eel section or mackerel for bait and the tope grounds can often throw up a big bass or two.for further info and bookings.
the smoothhounds move into our area around mid april to late may and then stay with us untill september or even october!the average day would be 15-20 hounds mixed in with other species such as roker,bass dogies ect.we fish in a variety of depths from 20-25meters and as shollow as 1meter in this depth the fish fight really hard as smoothhounds tend to any way.there is a very good chance that you will catch a double figure fish as we often see them and last year we saw the most doubles for a long time.we use uptide tactics and a choice of hermit crab,hardback shore crabs and squid for bait.
the bass fishing is quite a specialist trip as the fishing requires experience.we can bait fish or lure fish for them.i personnelly enjoy using realy light gear and drifting with redgills but bait fishing can be very affective aswell.we can drift wrecks for them or just banks when we are using redgills.alternativly we can uptide fish for them either over ground or wrecks.however this fishing can prove to be hard to predict as the weather needs to be right aswell as the tides and the fish need to play along aswell.this siad as long as the party books knowing that they may have to resort to a day general fishing rather than specifying in bass and keeps an open eye then the day will go well.it is also worth remebering to listen to the skippers advice as he is only trying to help you catch more and enjoy your day.remeber this fishing has given us some great days that we hope to share with you.