WE have had a real mix of weather recently with strong south westerlies last week and calm this week.

However, fishing has been excellent this last week with a good mix of fish showing up.

There are some cracking hounds showing up with several fish around 18lb and a lot more double figure fish everywhere.

These big females are here to mate and spawn and must be returned alive, best baits are hermit crab, peeler and ragworm.

There have been some cracking bass this week with several fish around the 7-8lb mark and quite a few smaller ones.

The best baits are squid and mackerel for the bigger fish with worm baits for the smaller ones.

There has been an influx of thornback rays in most areas offshore with plenty of fish up to 10lb, best baits are squid and mackerel but most fishy baits will catch, there are also lots of small ones around which is great for future stocks.

Inshore has been hard but there are signs of the thornbacks starting to push back in, certainly we can expect to start catching them along the shoreline this month along with a few whiting and odd cod which have not left the inshore grounds.

Indeed we had four cod on Sunday with the biggest at 4lb and there were reports from other skippers of cod coming up.

These fish have probably been in the Estuary all summer but are starting to push back inshore.

The rivers have been hard with small school bass and the odd better one.

However, things will improve towards the Autumn as the weed dies off and some whiting and thornbacks start pushing back in.

Prospects are excellent with the next 3-4 weeks the prime time for a really big smoothound.