The Fishing
Fishing Around Scarborough, the techneques we use, the grounds we fish and the fish we have caught
Rough Ground Fishing around Scarborough
Renowned worldwide for it's quality sea fishing heritage, Scarborough on the beautiful Yorkshire coast is the ideal port to charter a boat for an angling trip.
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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.
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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.
Grounds can be Tackle Hungry
Unfortunately both these grounds are very tackle hungry so be prepared to lose a couple of leads and rigs.
We also fish sand banks and dumping grounds for the whiting and flat fish if customers are happy with doing this.
We can also do specialized thorn-back fishing trips if we can get enough anglers who would like to target them.
We have more information available on the relevent pages.
As the water temperature drops towards the end September and into October, the Cod start to migrate inshore to feed and eventually spawn before moving off to alternative feeding grounds in early spring.
The rough ground marks along the North Yorkshire Coastline, all draw and hold Big Cod in the Winter months.
Thier are two Techniques we use when bait fishing at anchor in the winter.
these are uptiding and downtiding. on this page we will try to explain the techniques we use.
both techniques require the use of bait.
Ultimately, Squid, Lug, Crab Cart, peeler crab, Razor and mussel seam to be the best baits to use other baits can work on thier day.
also some anglers prefer big baits some prefer a couple of smaller baits. this is all down to preference and confidence.
Winter Inshore Fishing
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.
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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.
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the sinkers we use are grip leads around 5oz to 8oz depending on the tideand can be a breakaway type or a fixed wire type.
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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.
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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.
Ideal Rigs for Winter Fishing, Uptiding and Downtiding
Shads, sandeels and Jellies
Fishing with
Fishing with Shads
Over the last few years more and more anglers are chosing to fish with shads.
We have found them to work effectivly on the rough ground inshore as well as the Wrecks.
When the water clears they can be absolutly deadly for cod and pollock.
Using Shads to catch fish involves using relatively light tackle.
we normally use between an 8oz to a 12oz lead to get the shad to the bottom.
We normally recommend anglers bring a good selection of colours and brands of shads with them. the most popular colours anglers use are orange, blue, yellow, white and black. but this doesnt mean other colour dont work.
How to use Shads
Shads can be weighted or unweighted,There is no need to use a boom style set up, we have found if you keep things simple it works as well or if not better. so this is what we recommend
"you simply tie a snap swivel to your main line and attach your weight into the snap. Then you need to tie a 30 pound snood of around four to six foot in length from the eye of your shad to a second snap swivel.
The second snap is also fastened into the top eye of the mainline swivel".
how you fish the shads is quite simple to, some anglers prefer to lower the shad to the bottom and slowly retreve the shad 20 turns or so and then lower the shad back down again. If you get a bite as your retreving just keep the same speed of retreve and the fish will eventually take the hook. some anglers like to jig the shad just above the wreck. both techniques seam to work well.
Easy Clean ground fishing
Rays and fishing Clean Ground
While fishing clean ground other species of flat fish can be caught aswel as whitings, the now rare Haddock and the dreaded weaver fish.
Weaver fish have venomous spines along its dorsal fin and if your stung by The Weaver Fish its sting can be extremely painful.
The techniques for cathcing these other fish is similar to thornback fishing but using 2 or 3 hook flappers with smaller size hooks.
beads and spoons can be effective for flatfish. even flatfish will take artifical jellyworms when the water is clear enough.
Baits like mackerel, squid, lugworm, prawns, sandeel, andragworm can be effective.
Trips to target thornback rays need to be over 6 hours as they are a good 7 to 8 mile steam from scarborough.
Thornback Ray Fishing
All rays are slow moving bottom species, reserving energy and taking time to glide over the sea bed with a gentle flap of their wings, seeking live or dead food. Rays are a cartilaginous fish, which in normal speak means they have a skeleton consisting mostly of cartilage, not bone, and this is what relates them to their relatives the sharks.
From about April to August thornback rays move closer in, and we can target them close in.
The way we target them is either on the drift or at anchor. while at anchor anglers can downtide or uptide for them. Just don’t leave the rod unattended as they can give the rod a very good lunge when the take the bait. Once hooked, the fight from all rays is terrific. First you’ll have to move them off the bottom. When you do they will fight taking long searing runs with powerful beats of their wings. When they do tire, more often than not, they will hold mid-water in the tide, using their wings like a kite making them unmovable.
Vision
Rays fight differently to any other species and will certainly give a battle to remember!
All ray fishing is done using simple flowing traces or running ledgers with clear flowing traces. 30lb memory free mono will help with abrasion resistance from the ray’s abrasive mouth and trace lengths should be from three to five feet depending on how you want your bait presented.
Strong hooks are required as they have a strong mouths. a decent pair of pliers can be handy to unhook them quickly.
Baits should be either pinned or dragging through the bottom allowing some movement with the tide.
Uptiding will require the use of grip leads whereas when downtiding and drifting, plain leads or watch leads will be fine. Pennell rigged hooks can help with mounting larger fish baits aimed at the bigger fish.
Baits required for them we have found is mackerel, squid and crab. With the best bait been Fresh Mackerel.
on the Skylark
3 Hour Fishing Trips
These trips are ideal for children and new anglers
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Even on our 3 hour trips you can still do
Wreck fishing - targeting cod, pollock and Ling
Inshore Rock fishing - targeting Cod, Pollock
If we have alot of youngsters on the boat we can also fish the clean ground to make the trip easier for them but we do prefere to fish for the larger fish when possible
on clean ground we can target Dabs, whiting and mackerel.
3 Hour Trips
All tackle and bait provided free of charge.
We DONT charge for any sets of gear you loose or move you to cleaner ground as some boats do.
Cost
£25 for under 16s
£30 Adults
we only run these 3 hour trips between June and September when the conditions improve.
Vision
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TACKLE
Free Hire Of Rods And Reels
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On Skylark we have free hire of our rods and reels. All our rods are 6-7ft and fitted with the modern muiltiplier reels (not the traditional scarborough reels and fixed spools but we do have a few on board for those people who prefere to use them).
Terminal Tackle
We can also provide basic fishing tackle; this includes weights and rigs.
We carry some specialist tackle like pirks, sidewinders,eels shads. If you run out of the tackle you brought with you the tackle we carry aboard can be sold to you at additionl cost at the skippers discresion.
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Note, Any loss or Breakages to Skylarks Rods and Reels have to be paid for at the end of the trip. Rods cost £20 Reels £30
Skylark Tackle
We a wearhouse company who only stock a small selection of mainly boat fishing tackle so we can give our customers fantastic value on the items we have in. we manufacture rigs, leads and lures and jellies which are made to a high standard. We also service reels and have a varied selection of frozen bait.
We are mainly a online and phone service and our warehouse is opointments only. This way we can keep our prices competative with other online shops and aution sites.
We can supply tackle directly to Skylark Fishing Trips Customers, at the same cost as this website minus any postage cost with cash sales, sales using the website and pick up from the boat have a small fee to cover a handling fee
On the Skylark
Mackerel Fishing
When the Mackerel arrive in scarborough during the summer (normally late June to August) we can target them for a short while as part of your trip.
Every year is different here and the mackerel can arive earlier than expected or later and in good number or poor numbers depending on alot of factors like commercial fishing for them andthe weather.
When the Mackerel arrive this gives children an easy chance of catching something during there trip that can be taken home to cook if they like.
These best technique for catching mackerel is using feathers, hokkias or tinsel rigs and jigging them up and down at the depth they are swimming around.
We recommend anglers only use 2 to 3 hooks when mackerel fishing as they are far easier to control.
Mackerel when caught prefere to swim in circles and this can easily tangle with the person standing beside you doing the same thing.
Vision
We have no limit on how many mackerel an angler is allowed to take home as long as they are over legal size and we know they are not going to be left on the quay at the end of the trip.
Mackerel Fishing is great fun for all the family
First mackerel to be caught in
2014 - 21st June
2013 - 14th July
Heaviest Fish Caught on Skylark
Click on the fish species below and click the link to show the heaviest of each species
