Catch Report - Ilfracombe - 11th October 2020 (16)

Date From: 11/10/2020 15:40:00

Date To: 11/10/2020 21:45:00

Time of day: Afternoon - evening

Location: Ilfracombe

Mark: The pier

Low Tide:

Moon Phase:

Weather: Some sunshine and steady gentle wind to begin with but increasing in strength over the session

Sunrise/Sunset:

Sea: Fairly clear and a little choppy with a swell or around 2 feet.

Method: Ledger (shop bought pulley rig) | Ledger (running ledger with rotten bottom) | Float | Prawn trap | LRF

Bait: Frozen large and medium sandeel, frozen black lugworm | Frozen whole Scad | Frozen mackerel strips | frozen mackerel pieces, frozen squid pieces, frozen medium sandeel | frozen black lugworm pieces

Caught:

The Session:

Due to not getting out the previous week and the weather not being too great this weekend I decided to get out at the last opportunity when the weather improved a little. I had decided to try severel methods to try for anything that was around.

A familiar face was already there so I set up near them and first put out a pulley rig with a refrozen sandeel on the hook. The cast went further than I expected probably because it was blowing from behind and although if felt fairly sheltered on the ground the bait and weight in the air would have had a bit of help from the wind.

Then I set up a conger rod and put on a whole Scad which I had had in the freezer for a couple of years, from the session at Chesil where I had 102 of them.

I dropped the bait and weight around 5 yards from the edge of the pier. I followed with the float rod and began with it set at around 6 feet deep before putting down a prawn trap with plenty of old mackerel, squid and sandeel in the main compartment.

The float rod had bites al most immediately. They were short sharp pulls that barely took the float under with the occasional harder pull but I struggled to hook anything. Each time I checked the bait it had been almost completely stripped from the hook. I have found though that one benefit of this kind of thing happening is that eventually I am left with the tougher skin building up around the hook eye and shank, meaning eventually I don't have to rebait because the fish can't pull the bait off anymore. This was a bit like that and so I continued dropping the float out a few yards and striking at any movement until I finally hooked one. It was a Sand Smelt and now I was happy knowing what they were. I decided to change the depth to a few feet deeper and the bites continued and soon after I had a small Pollock. The prawn trap had been out around 45 minutes so I decided to check it and found two small Pollock inside, then I had a few more on the float rod.

I decided to set up the LRF rod and give it a go before it began to get dark. It took a few minutes before something decided to try and take the tiny piece of lugworm and it took a few attempts to hook one. This may have been because I put the hook on the line so the point went downwards instead of upwards because I thought I'd see if the bait would stay on better by the sinking weight causing the bait to be pulled around the shank of the hook. A Rock Goby did the job of hooking itself though and this gave me some hope I might catch a Leopard Spotted Goby. Apart from a surprise Ballan Wrasse the fish I had until just before 6pm were more Pollock on the float snd more Common Gobies on the LRF rod.

Upon checking my Conger rod I found it was snagged and I lost the rig and shock leader. The sandeel on the distance ledger ro was always stripped to the bone when I checked that and the time I tried two lugworm resulted in them being taken completely. I assumed this was always by crabs but I did have one time when the hooklength was twisted so much a small Conger could have been the reason.

Because the bites had slowed over the last half an hour I tried by the pier steps that go down into the water. After a couple of small rattles that I missed I put the bait back down and the rod tip almost immediately began moving very slightly up and down, almost like a Ray bite or as if the rise and fall of the sea was cauing my line to tighten as the weight was caught on a snag. I decided to lift the rod and see why it was doing that and felt something wriggle so I reeled in as fast as I could, with my effort briefly halted as the fish appeared to make a lunge downwards. When the shape of a flatfish appeared below me I thought it would be a dab but as I swung the rod over the pier so I could put the fish on my box I recognised it was a Topknot. I have never caught one of these so of course I was delighted to get one and I had no idea how big they grew so I just thought it was a juvenile one but some other anglers said it was a good size for them so I weighed it and it went to 6oz. Unsure if Lawrence needed any for the aquarium I contacted him but he replied they had a couple already so back it went after I decided to grab a few more photographs which was a good decision as when I checked them the first ones were quite poor with the fish barely visible. My Panasonic TZ90 camera is not very good at taking shots at night. It is very inconsistent. I would not recommend it at all.

That was about it for the action. It aeemed to get dark very quickly and aside from a couple of quick shakes of the LRF rod tip I had no more bites in the next 15 minutes so packed that rod away. None of the other rods had produced anything else so I packed up the float rod, then the distance ledger and after leaving the Conger rod out for a further 15 minutes I brought that in for the thrid and final time, to find the fish was not on the end anymore.

I packed up happy with the first of a new species but dissapointed the other methods hadn't done as well as I had hoped and a little concerned over the lack of crabs and prawns in the prawn trap.

Tackle used (price) [ time since first used ]: