Catch report - Ilfracombe - 20th January 2018 (6)

Date: 20-01-2018

Time of day: Afternoon - evening

Location: Ilfracombe

Mark: The Pier

Low Tide: 01:27(1.40m) 13:48(1.37m)

High Tide: 07:51(8.82m) 20:06(8.59m)

Time fished from: 16:45

Time fished to: 22:30

Weather: Windy, from behind, to begin with but dying down to become very calm later. A few drops of light rain throughout.

Sea: Very choppy and murky with a swell of up to 6 foot until high tide.

Method: Ledger (homemade pulley rig) | Ledger (homemade 2 hook flapper) | float

Bait: Whole frozen loligo squid, Frozen mackerel segments | frozen lugworm | frozen lugworm, frozen mackerel strips

Caught (weight): 1 Whiting (1lbs 5oz, Weighed), 1 conger eel (0lbs 2oz, guessed) | 3 pollock (0lbs 4oz, guessed), 1 pollock (1lbs 4oz, guessed)

The Session: I fished from the upper pier and began with the two ledger rods, the one baited with squid was cast into the middle of the harbour and the flapper rig about 20 yards or so. I set the float up too and set the depth at around 15ft and dropped it a few yards out baited with half a lugworm. It was very slow on the ledger rods with just occasional bites and nothing that shook the rod tip long enough to strike at. An hour into the session I managed to grab the flapper rod quickly and was pleased to feel a fair weight on the end. I couldn't tell, until I lifted it out of the water, what it was and I thought bass, cod or pollock, but when I saw the size of the fish and it was a whiting I was pleased to have caught my biggest one to date, not many weeks after I had previously caught my biggest. Two more hours passed or occasional rattles of the rod tip on the flapper rod. The pulley rod was mostly completely still. One bite, still gentle but this time lasting long enough to strike at, produced another surprise which was teh smallest Conger Eel I've caught, at just a couple of ounces on a small piece of lugworm. I find tiny fish just as interesting to see as large fish and so was as happy as if I'd caught something a few pounds in weight. That was the last fish I caught on the ledger rods though and the continuing bites were to quick to even bother striking at, the bait sometimes gone after the bite had occurred and sometimes still on the hook. The float rod began to produce fish when I decided to switch to mackerel strips and go very shallow (5ft or so) when I spotted a shoal of fish on the surface very close in. Before long the float dipped and moved away from the pier much like a perch making for a bush after taking a lobworm. I reeled in a smaller than recently caught pollock and followed it with two more within 25 minutes. Not much then happened for an hour. Sometimes I reeled the float in and the bait was gone and I was fishing so close to the wooden struts the hook was sometimes catching on them so I couldn't be sure it was being taken by fish. I was lucky to look over the pier after recasting a ledger rod in time to see the float slide quickly underwater and I lifted in to a larger pollock that I estimated to be around the same weight as the whiting. Half an hour later, without another bite I decided to pack up earlier than I had planned, as I didn't feel things would pick up, as other anglers were not even doing as well as me.

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

Set up 1:

Rod: Daiwa seahunter Z 13ft 2 piece MFS (£42.99) [ > 0 years 1 months ]

Reel: Shakespeare Agility Surf 70FD Fixed Spool (£39.99) [ > 3 years 8 months ]

Line: Maxima Hi-Viz 20lb (£15.42) 550m

Hooks: Unbranded Baitholder 4/0 (£3.99) 50

Shockleader: Gardner Slinky 60lb (£6.99) 100M

Hooklength: Ultima Memorex 40lb (£5.95) 50m

Set up 2:

Rod: Daiwa Crosscast 13ft 3 piece Fixed Spool (£60.00) [ > 0 years 2 months ]

Reel: Daiwa Crosscast S 5000 Fixed spool (£48.99) [ > 2 years 10 months ]

Line: Maxima Chameleon 20lb (£17.99) 600m

Hooks: Sakuma Stinger 2 (£15.00) 100

Shockleader: Gardner Slinky 60lb (£6.99) 100M

Hooklength: Maxima Clear 15lb (£4.00) 100m

Set up 3:

Rod: Shakespeare Omni Mackerel 10ft 2 piece Fixed Spool (£17.95) [ > 3 years 6 months ]

Reel: Lineaffe Carp 60 Baitrunner Fixed Spool (£12.00) [ > 1 years 5 months ]

Line: Maxima Chameleon 20lb (£17.99) 600m

Hooks: Sakuma Stinger 2 (£15.00) 100

Hooklength: Maxima Clear 15lb (£4.00) 100m