Date: 24-03-2018
Time of day: Evening - night
Location: Ilfracombe
Mark: The pier
Low Tide: 03:52(2.09m) 16:23(2.36m) 03:52(2.09m) 16:23(2.36m)
High Tide: 10:31(7.78m) 22:56(7.54m) 10:31(7.78m) 22:56(7.54m)
Time fished from: 18:45
Time fished to: 00:30
Weather: Cloudy and just a little wind at around 11pm
Sea: Murky with a swell of around 3ft
Method: Ledger (homemade pulley rig) | Ledger (homemade 2 hook flapper) | float | Ledger (fixed ledger)
Bait: Frozen large sandeel, frozen whole loligo squid | frozen black lugworm | frozen black lugworm, frozen mackerel strips | frozen pollock, frozen mackerel head
Caught (weight): 2 Dogfish (1lbs 5oz, Guessed), 1 Dogfish (2lbs 0oz, Guessed), 1 Dogfish (2lbs 15oz, Weighed)
The Session: I set up on the upper part of the pier and as I hadn't fished for a while I decided to set up four rods and use a prawn trap to see what was around. The pulley rig baited with sandeel was cast as far as I could manage, around 70-80 yards and the flapper baited with worm was cast around 50 to 60 yards. I then set up the float rod, set the depth ro 15 foot and dropped the bait between two wooden pillars.
I had a few bites on the wom bait but nothing was big or long enough to strike at and the bait was coming back with just half the worm missing. After missing a few I just left it for a while ad set up a rod with a whole pollock as bait and dropped that between two other wooden pillars. I then put lots of old squid and sandeel bait in the prawn trap and put that out right in front of me.
After reeling in the flapper rig and this time seeing the bait gone I rebaited and recast but then had a long spell of no activity. Then the rod baited with sandell showed some movement and it looked like a ray bite, slowly bending down with the odd tiny judder. I left it doing that for a few minutes and as it looked like it was going to swim off with the bait I struck but only felt the fish briefly, too briefly to take a guess if it was a ray.
Not long after recasting this rod showed another bite, this time a telltale dogfish bite. The fish was hooked but fell off under the rod tip. Another bite a bit later I missed, and then decided to check the prawn trap. The trap contained a small Pouting.
It was an hour before I had another bite worth striking at and when I did it turned out to be another dogfish and this time I managed to land it. I noticed it was quite a dark coloured fish. The next cast produced another bite quite quickly, and so did the next. Both were dogfish. The second fish fought a bit harder and I noticed the extra weight when I went to lift it out. It was bigger than any dogfish I'd landed before and when I weighed it it showed 2.93lb on digital scales.
More retrieves of the prawn trap came back empty and the whole pollock had gone when I checked it and so I rebaited that with a mackerel head. The float rod showed no bites all evening and in the next hour I tried adjusting the depth from 25ft to 8ft and switched between mackerel and lugworm.
Finally just after midnight I had another bite on sandeel and caught one more dogfish and then I began packing up the least productive tackle and finally the two main rods at 00:30.
This session was a typical march session and matched previous years, with dogfish being the reliable species. I had hoped that the session might produce and early ray after the first bite I had on the sandeel but it was probably wishful thinking and a cautious dogfish was probably the taker. Still, it was good to be back out after 5 weeks of no fishing.
Tackle used (price) [ time since first used ]:
Set up 1:
Rod: Daiwa seahunter Z 13ft 2 piece MFS (£42.99) [ > 0 years 3 months ]
Reel: Daiwa Crosscast S 5000 Fixed spool (£48.99) [ > 3 years 0 months ]
Line: Maxima Chameleon 20lb (£17.99) 600m
Hooks: Sakuma Manta 2/0 (£5.78) 30
Shockleader: Gardner Slinky 60lb (£6.99) 100M
Hooklength: Sunset Amnesia 40lb (£4.50) 100m
Set up 2:
Rod: Daiwa Crosscast 13ft 3 piece Fixed Spool (£60.00) [ > 0 years 4 months ]
Reel: Shakespeare Agility Surf 70FD Fixed Spool (£39.99) [ > 3 years 10 months ]
Line: Maxima Hi-Viz 20lb (£15.42) 550m
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 8 months ]
Reel: Lineaffe Carp 60 Baitrunner Fixed Spool (£12.00) [ > 1 years 7 months ]
Line: Maxima Chameleon 20lb (£17.99) 600m
Hooks: Sakuma Stinger 2 (£15.00) 100
Hooklength: Maxima Clear 15lb (£4.00) 100m
Set up 4:
Rod: Daiwa Seahunter X 14ft 3 piece Fixed spool (£64.07) [ > 3 years 10 months ]
Reel: Leeda Quicksilver Fixed Spool (£19.95) [ > 0 years 10 months ]
Line: Maxima Hi-Viz 20lb (£15.42) 550m
Hooks: Sakuma Manta Extra 8/0 (£6.75) 10
Hooklength: Gardner Slinky 100lb (£7.95) 100m
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)