Catch Report - Ilfracombe - 17th October 2020 (4)

Date From: 17/10/2020 15:15:00

Date To: 17/10/2020 20:05:00

Time of day: Afternoon - evening

Location: Ilfracombe

Mark: The pier

Tide Times:

Moon Phase:

Weather: Cloudy with variable strength easterly wind and feeling fairly cold.

Sunrise/Sunset:

Sea: Murky and choppy with a swell of around 3 feet.

Method: Ledger (shop bought 2 hook flapper) | Ledger (shop bought pulley rig) | Ledger (running ledger with rotten bottom) | Float | LRF | Prawn trap

Bait: Frozen large sandeel, frozen squid | frozen black lugworm | frozen mackerel head, frozen mackerel tail | frozen mackerel strip, frozen black lugworm | frozen black lugworm piece | frozen sandeel, frozen squid pieces, frozen mackerel pieces

Caught:

Session and Lifetime Statistics:

The Session:

I fished my local pier over high tide and decided to try several methods to see which one produced the most fish. It turned out to be a very poor session though and I ended it to help out a couple of people.

When I arrived there were a few anglers already there. I set up on the upper pier and began with my two main ledger rods one with a flapper rig and the other a pulley rig and due to the boats being around I cast them just a short distance, around 30 yards at most. I then set up a float rod and set that at around 6 feet deep to begin with and went deeper as the sea level rose. I also set up an LRF rod and tried it for most of the session with a tony piece of lugworm on and occasionally a bit of mackerel. I also put out a prawn trap with plenty of old bait in the main compartment and as it got dark, a half mackerel intended to Conger eels

It was a very slow session, I had barely any bites on the ledger rods for the first few hours. The float rod kept showing bites from what I suspected was the small Smelt and Pollock that had been around in abundance over the summer. I did eventually hook one which could have proved I was correct. The LRF rod had a bit of interest but it seemed that every bite was a very gentle tremble which was not followed by any more every time.

Sometime after dark I noticed my rods on my tripod moving around enough to have been caused by a fish. I watched the tips closely and saw one begin to move as if a dogfish or Conger Eel was taking the bait. I gave it a while and struck but felt nothing and when I checked the bait I saw the hook had pulled into the middle of it. I cursed myself for missing what was looking to be the one chance to get something on the ledger rods but got a bait straight back out hoping the fish might not have been spooked as I didn't bump it off the hook. Another bite never happened though and I went back to watching five motionless rods for a bit longer before packing up the LRF rod.

I have learned that when fishing from this pier at night, it can pay to just look down along the edge from time to time with my headtorch on very low and this session proved it. I was looking down at the side of one of the struts when I saw the outline of a fish swimming around not far under the surface. my float was near but by now I had it set at around 20 feet deep so I reeled it in to go very shallow and dropped it back down again when I set it to around 5 feet. Just as I did so the fish appeared from so close in I didn't see it and began to swim off but then turned around and swam towards my Mackerel bait and appeared to touch it with its nose before turning again and swimming off. The Mackerel wasn't old or refrozen so I'm not sure why it didn't bother taking the bait. The fish looked like it could have been a couple of pounds in weight at least and either a pollock or a bass, but maybe it had already eaten a lot and could afford to be fussy, or maybe it knew something was wrong.

So that was about all the action for the night. I sat around for a bit longer before I was approached by a young lady enquiring about a lost car key. It turned out she and her boyfriend were staying local and had visited Ilfracombe for the day but lost their key. They were staying in Swimbridge so I said I could give them a lift back at least and as they went to retrace their steps around Ilfracombe I packed up, brought in the prawn trap to find 3 small fish inside then and loaded the car ready. I had intended to fish just until high tide anyway, so had overstayed about an hour longer than I intended.

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