End of the Red Era

If you use petrol in your boat you won't care about this, but us smug diesel-buyers have finally come to the end of our run of luck. Instead of paying 9.69p a litre to the tax man, we'll have to pay a whacking 40.66p from 1st November. Most boat owners are queueing at the pump to squeeze every last drop of red diesel into their tanks before the end of October. There are a couple of odd anomolies though - red will still be sold and used but you will have to declare (usually by signing a form at the pump) that you have paid duty on it if you are using it to fuel the propulsion of a pleasure craft. This is because the same pump is used to fill the next boat which could be a commercial craft and not liable for the new rate of tax. If you have a heater on board powered by diesel (and most boats use the same fuel tank as the engine fuel), you don't have to pay the new duty on the fuel used for heating. The powers that be have decided that heating fuel can be up to 40% of the total fuel used by a pleasure craft, but that claim will have to stand investigation should they decide to have a close look.

You may think this is all daft and the rules have so many holes in you could use it to trawl for sandeels. Who am I to say? All I can suggest is that you are very honest about the tiny amount of diesel used in the heater alongside the massive turbo-diesel engine you have in the back, and that the idea of sneaking a few cans of low tax diesel into your tank at dead of night where it can't be identified among the same red diesel which you have paid tax on, absolutely never occurred to you. If you want the full HMR&C pitch on it, have a read of Brief No 4098.

Mixed Bag

I thought Summer was over but suddenly it is calm, blue skies and 23deg C. Despite that, the cod have arrived in exceptionally good numbers, with loads of reports of double figure numbers in the boat. What a change from the last few years where a catch of one or two was more common. Many of the fish are in the 6-8lb bracket like Wayne's on the left, but Arron had a 20 pounder which he made a point of phoning me about while I was under Salar painting on antifouling!

Before I forget, I came across a good tip for unhooking mackerel when spinning. As with feathering, you'll be in a hurry to get the lure back in the water but a thrashing fish and treble hooks doesn't make that easy. You can grip the fish by putting it tail-first into a cool box and gripping the head by holding the lid down on it. This makes it very steady for unhooking and when you are done it just drops back into the cooler. No mess either.

Finally, there is a new section on http://www.boat-angling.co.uk/ for Fishing Boats For sale. You get a full page, photos and all, and there is no charge although a donation to the RNLI would be nice. There is a tidy Orkney on there at the moment. If you have a boat for sale, just email me for details via the site .

Rescue

Salar is now out of the water for the annual antifouling, so no fishing stories today. Here's one that I saved from the Summer, sorry I mean July, that was both a mistake and a lesson. I always think it is very handy to learn from other's mistakes, it saves the pain of having to make them yourself. Here's what I learned, maybe it will help others.

Anyone familiar with Langstone Harbour entrance will know that the area from the Ferry Boat pub to about 200 yards out to sea is where the jet-skis play, and they usually go out, make a noise for a while then go back to the pub. I was coming in from a fishing trip and I found one with two passengers on and a donut bobbing about with a third person in it. They had managed to get the tow line sucked into the jet drive. How? Beats me, these things are supposed to be idiot proof. Perhaps not all idiots are equal, as you will see.

Anyway, they needed a tow so I hooked a line through the tow-hole and pulled them in to the Hayling slip. Here is the mistake. I assumed these fellows had at least one grey cell between them but I should have told them exactly what to do and what not to do. I was towing, I was supposed to be in control. They asked me to get them as close to the slip as possible (they had no engine remember) so I nosed in carefully, then ran back to the stern to slip the rope and reverse out allowing them to drift in to the shore. Suddenly it was an "Oh S..." moment, those three muppets had jumped into the water and were happily splashing about...right by a contra-rotating prop driven by 164 galloping horses. What to do? I couldn't go back without making a large quantity of people-burgers, and forwards was into a hard thing, the slipway. With a lot of shouting and some very delicate maneuvering I managed to get clear of them, the rapidly shallowing bottom and the concrete slipway by mere inches.

Lesson - even if you are the good guy and helping people, things don't always go right by themselves. Make sure everyone knows what to do even if it is blindingly obvious. If it goes wrong it is still your fault. And what happened to the three jet-skiers? They were last seen heading into the pub.