We left Whitby on the Sunday afternoon and headed for the middle of the north sea and started our fishing early on the Monday morning 104 miles from Whitby and 104 miles from Amsterdam. The weather was good but the early fishing was a little slow with steady catches of cod to 18lb. This changed dramatically on the last wreck of the day when it got manic with doubles and trebles been pulled in at every drop and every one was glad to call it a day and move on up the east side of the dogger bank heading north towards the Norwegian sector.
The second day did not produce the same fine weather we had on the first day but this was made up for by the fishing we were into fish on the first wreck before you could reach the bottom and there were some fine cod to 27lb and some fine trebles with a total weight of over 30lbs for the three fish again every one ready for bed at the end of the day as we continued north.
The third day was a bit wet and we seemed to have a black cloud hanging over the boat no matter were we moved to luckily the fish seemed to be sheltering under the boat out the rain and apart form been a bit damp the fishing remained steady.
The wind got up a bit in the evening and the overnight move was a bit lumpy it eased off at dawn and we managed to carry on fishing for the rest of the day not as good fishing as the first three days but steady and some nice sized fish to 15lb.
All in all a good trip plenty of fish a good crowd of lads on board and every one went home with a good bag of cod with only a few ling being caught.
The second half of July carried on from the first with a 46 hour trip which produced a fantastic 34 pound cod caught by Taffy, from the same location as the big cod last year, we also had ling to 22lb all in all a good trip.
This was followed by a 70 hour trip which also produced some good fishinh with cod to 30lb and a 4 cod over 20lb.
The 36 hour trip on the 24th maintained the momentum with ling to 24lb and cod to 21lb.
July has got of to a good start with three 36 hour trips back to back which have produced some good catches and we have covered a lot of the doggar bank on these trips.
The fishing was to the east and south of Whitby some 70-90 miles from port as the seagull flies ( don't see many crow's) .
The 70 hour trip sailed east from Whitby and we started fishing at 07.00 on the Botney grounds fishing an area we have called the question mark (the wrecks we fished show up on the plotter in the shape of a question mark) As the next days fishing was only a short hop away we fished till late in the evening (10pm) and the fished continued to feed right up until we lost light.
The next day was a 5 am start as we had about 19 hours steaming to get back to Whitby. At the end of the day everyone had a reasonable catch with a few personal bests Reg celebrating his retirement from fishing at 76 with a nice 23 pounder, Bob with a 20.5 pounder and Mark with a 16 pounder. The catch was just about all cod with only 3 ling being caught a couple of gurnard and a few mackeral all in all not a bad trip to finish the month.
We finished June off with a 94hour trip (originally planned as a 120hr but shortened due to bad weather) a 36 and a 70hour. All the trips produce3d some good fishing and reasonable catches. The 94 hour trip fished the west side of the dogger, the 36 fished an area to the east of whitby and the 70 hour the south west of the dogger.
