Catch Report - Ilfracombe - 23rd August 2020 (16)

Date From: 23/08/2020 10:40:00

Date To: 23/08/2020 14:30:00

Time of day: Morning - Afternoon

Location: Ilfracombe

Mark: The Pier

Low Tide:

Moon Phase:

Weather: Cloudy with some sunshine but some wind from behind

Sunrise/Sunset:

Sea: Fairly murky and choppy with a swell of around 3 feet

Method: float

Bait: Frozen mackerel strips

Caught:

The Session:

I visited my local pier for some float fishing to try out some floats I had made and to meet a friend who was on holiday in the area.

When I arrived there was some space on the upper pier and so I set up and dropped the float down by the edge set at around 15 feet deep. Immediately the float began showing signs of the bait being taken by small fish. It was convenient that this float, which I had 3D printed, set in a position I prefer when I float fish. The weights I had bought caused the float to sit not quite fully upright, and almost flat if there is some wind. This means that there is a very fine balance between the weight pulling the float don and the float holding the weight up, so in rougher sea, the float will rise and fall staying on the surface nearly all the time and if it ever goes under it is almost certain to be a bite. I have found other float and weight combinations to make the float siut upright and each time the sea rises and falls the float submerges for a moment which makes spotting gentle bite difficult.

The very quick and short pull from the fish were causing the float to quickly straighten which was an easily noticeable indication and so it wasn't long before I discovered what species was responsible when I hooked a Pollock, a tiny thing just a couple of inches long, and despite it's size, still attracted the attention of several visitors to the pier.

When I rebaited and dropped the float down again the fish began taking the bait straight away, but being so small, were able to take almost all of the bait without taking the hook and it was a few minutes of seeing the pulls on the float and lifting it to check the bait before I had another Pollock around the same size.

This continued for a while but I discovered the float was not watertight and began to sink a bit further each cast so I changed it to another one which did better for the rest of the session. I then continued to catch fish of similar size for an hour until I moved to the lower pier.

It took a while to get any bites on the lower pier but my firend arrived and I set up a rod for him and we both chatted to pass the time. It seemed like as the water level dropped the smaller fish moved around to where we were and I started getting bites again and caught several more Pollock and a single Pouting before trying a ragworm from some that another angler gave to me when they packed up and catching a Pollock on that. My friend didn't catch anything and the only decent bite on his rod came when he went to put more time on the car parking. His float shot under but before I could grab his rod, it came back to the surface with most of the bait gone. I had also just used up the last of the mackerel bait and so we packed up.

Although there were no large fish caught it was good to see plenty of the smaller ones that would hopefully be around still when they grow bigger.

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