About Our Turbot Fishing Trips from Poole, Dorset
Turbot & Brill are magnificent species of flatfish and delicious to eat. We are fortunate to be able to catch them off the Shambles near Portland Bill (Weymouth). They also caught off Poole and mid-channel, but you cannot target them like you can at the Shambles. If you get a bite fishing the Shambles then it’s 95% certain that it’s either a Turbot or a Brill. You do catch the other odd species including Bass, Rays, Dogfish, Weavers and Tope.
The Shambles is approximately 1 hour cruise from Poole Harbour as Silver Gannet cruised at 20+ knots. If the tides are favourable we sometimes break up the trip and have a go for bass on the way down or way back. There is also an opportunity to fish for Plaice at slack tide on the mussel beds.
We use running ledger with pennel 2 hook rig.
Silver Gannet drifts from the south end of the Shambles when the tide is flooding and visa versa when the tide is ebbing.
The fishing method is similar to Plaice fishing, when you get a bite let some line out so that the bait stays where it is as this allows the Turbot to grab the static bait.
We typically fish strips of Mackerel, Launce and Garfish strips.
It’s a very relaxing days fishing, and you rarely lose any tackle as we are drifting over large banks of shell.
We have had a number of Turbot over 10lbs, which to many is a fish of a lifetime.
The SIFCA retention sizes to keep are as follows:
Turbot 30cms
Brill 30 cms
But on Silver Gannet we return all fish smaller than the following sizes
Turbot 41 cms
Brill 35 cms
