Well I went bottom fishing again last night down on Torquay pier but it was much more quiet than the night before. I was trying a different set-up and went with: line - weight - swivel - line - hooks I was using whole squid and had 2x 6/0 hooks on each squid. The fish on Wednesday were stupid but the fish last night must have gone to Yale because they were very smart fishies :) I had 2 hooks in the squids and they still managed to take the bait without getting hooked.

I caught a few tiddlers and it was getting late so I started packing up and threw away the remainder of my squid and that's when my rod bent right over and the bait feed went mad. I reeled in a nice Whiting. I put the float next to it only to give you an idea of the size. I wasn't float fishing when I caught it.

Last night was freezing cold and the penn flotation suit was still keeping me really, really warm. Best investment I've made in a while :)

I've also added a huge
Torbay fishing section to the site with local news, photos, shops etc.

Well I've already put my new 2 piece Penn flotation suit to the test. I went out on New Years Eve for a couple of hours and today I've spent from 1pm to 8pm fishing.

The Penn flotation suit is totally amazing!. I was on Torquay pier and it was gale force winds and cold. I started off with a tee-shirt, jumper and Penn suit but after a short time I was down to tee-shirt and penn suit. I could hear the gale force winds but couldn't feel a thing. I took it off to see how cold it was and I was shivering. The Penn flotation suit really is 100% windproof and waterproof. I've never had anything like this before and I know now that the cold and rain will no longer stop me fishing and I'm going to be doing a lot more night fishing now.

I also love that the knees have extra padding and it makes a huge difference when you kneel down to set your line up.

It was too windy to float fish so I went bottom fishing instead. This afternoon was a bit quiet but tonight was outstanding. I lost count after a while but I know I had 3 Cod over 1lb and one reaching 2lb. Dozens of 1/2 and 1lb Pollock, wrasse and whiting. I would cast, get a tug 20 seconds later and reel it in. It was a great night and I like that I have already caught my first Cod for 2004. They can be real hard to find and catch here in Torbay.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!!!

Well as I sit here after waking up at the ungodly hour of 7.30am I started to think about what's going to happen in 2004 with regards to web sites and search engines.

A number of mainstream sites are going to switch from using google as its search engine so although 2003 was quite hard for some 2004 is going to get a lot harder. Getting a top 5 placement on Google is fairly easy but time consuming. The problem is the new engines will probably not like or use the same methods to rank a site as google which then brings up the problem of optimising a site for multiple engines which is never an easy feat to achieve. I already have plans in motion to try and combat what I suspect will happen but one thing is for sure; I'm going to be keeping a very close eye on sites/forums and newsgroups to see what's happening as it happens.

2004 is also going to be a wakeup call for tens of thousands of web sites which will become illegal in October 2004. My estimates are that as much as 90% of the web sites in the UK will still be illegal in by then.

Web design has seen a complete turn around this year with many people finally understanding that complex and graphic heavy sites do not fair well with the surfing public. There has been quite a shift in the way people design web sites and I forsee a larger move towards css in 2004.

Although many professional and non-professional web designers do not cater for older broswers such as NS4 I forsee that the mainstream professionals will also start dropping support for these old browsers as CSS really starts taking off. I personally stopped catering for NS4 in the summer of this year because I wanted to use the power the CSS much more.

2004 is going to see some fairly big changes in web design and promotion and those not keeping tabs on the changes are going to be in for a big shock.

Well it didn't arrive today so I sent Marsh tackle an email to say if they thought it would be delivered tomorrow. I got a phone call later from them (they tried 3 times while I was out) saying that the delivery firm had said the driver had put a card through the door at 11.16am because no-one was there. Here's a message to the delivery driver "Just because an address doesn't have a shop name on it doesn't mean it isn't one". The muppet is trying to say to say he put a card through a shop WHICH WAS OPEN lol

Dave at March tackle said that the delivery firm had been trying to get hold of the driver all afternoon and couldn't. It sounds like he wanted an afternoon off so didn't deliver the parcels and just said he carded them. Tut tut, that will teach him to think he was delivering to a house where he had a better chance of getting away with it :)

Anyway, they have promised to deliver it tomorrow which is news years eve so that will teach him to take some crafty time off :)

The only annoying thing is I paid £4.95 for first class delivery and the driver slacked off instead of delivering it so I am kinda gutted about that.

While I was waiting for my new fishing gear to arrive I went down to Torquay harbour and picked up a Shakespear 2 rod tripod because I want to do more beach fishing.

It doesn't look like my penn flotation suit is going to arrive today (still not here at 2.40pm). I know it was sent yesterday so the hold up is the delivery firm. Does suck when you pay first class and it doesn't get delivered the following day :(

I really need to join a sea fishing club in Torquay, anyone got any recommendations for me?

Just found a better image of the Penn flotation suit I'm getting delivered... can't wait for the wind and rain now hehe :)

Marsh Tackle are amazing!

I ordered it yesterday and I got a phone call today just to say I'm very lucky because they only had 1 left and they are going to send it out today. This company has got to be one of the best fishing suppliers in the whole of the UK!

People are always wary of giving credit card details out to online stores but I can 100% recommend Marsh Tackle for your fishing supplies!

I did a bit of fishing yesterday at Torquay pier. I tried float fishing but the wind was so fierce down there that the float was half way to France in a few minutes :) I ended up bottom fishing and only had a few bites. The bait I had was rubbish so I wasn't expecting much. I forgot to take my camera down with me yesterday but it's in my bag ready now for the next time, I promise :)

I am quite excited today because I've ordered a Penn Bluewater flotation suit. I still enjoy fishing in the depths of winter but none of my clothes are either waterproof or windproof so I always end up freezing cold and soaking wet. I read up on a few reviews via Google Groups and it was a choice between the shakespear flotation suit or the Penn and it seemed that most people preferred the Penn suits. I'm hoping it gets delivered quickly so I can try it out before work bogs me down again.