Date: 28/08/2015
Time of day: Night
Location: Ilfracombe
Mark: The Pier
Low Tide: 11:31(1.30m) 23:56(0.90m)
High Tide: 05:26(8.60m) 17:51(9.10m)
Time fished from: 20:45
Time fished to: 01:30
Weather: Cloudy with just a little wind but getting stronger over the night. A bright moon.
Sea: Fairly flat and murky to start, but a swell of up to 4ft developing later.
Method: Running Ledgerwith rotton bottom, pulley rig with rotton bottom | prawn trap x 2
Bait: Frozen mackerel segments, frozen calimari squid pieces, frozen black lugworm | frozen mackerel head, frozen calimari squid pieces, frozen peeler crab pieces
Caught (weight): 2 Shore Rockling (0lbs 3oz, Guessed), 1 3 Bearded Rockling (1lbs 0oz, Guessed)
The Session: A session with a friend. Arriving just as the lower pier cleared I set up both ledger rods and baited the running ledger with a small piece of squid and the pulley rig with a large mackerel segment. I cast both straight out about 40 yards. Bites were very few, 3 in all. Two good pulls on the mackerel and a small one on the squid. I added a lugworm to the squid (just to use some old lugworm up) on a few casts but still nothing. It was the prawn traps that produced fish and one surprise and disappointment was a retrive where I suspected something was in the net. Upon pulling the net to the surface I struggled to get it any higher. It felt heavy, or held back by something. Suspecting it was somehow caught on a step below I gave 2 tugs and finally a 3rd bigger tug and realised, just as it fell, a large fish had been stuck in the net. It gave a large splash as it fell into the remaining water on the steps and another angler commented "that made a bit of a noise" as I realised I had just miised the opportunity to land what could have been a nice conger eel in a prawn trap. A lesson has been learned. Don't force the trap up, check it and risk getting a bit wet if it feels stuck in future. In all, the traps did produce 5 prawns, 2 velvet swimming crabs and the 3 rockling. It was a session that could have been better.
Tackle used (price) [ time since first used ]:
Set up 1: Ron Thompson Evo Surf 15ft 3 piece Fixed Spool ( £30.00 ) [ 2 years ] Mitchell 667FG Fixed spool ( £23.90 ) [ 2 years ] Maxima Chameleon 20lbs ( £17.99 ) Sakuma Circle 440 1 ( £6.05 ) Maxima Clear 15lb ( £5.00 )
Set up 2: Daiwa Seahunter X 14ft 3 piece Fixed spool ( £64.07 ) [ 1 year 3 months ] Daiwa Crosscast S 5000 Fixed spool ( £48.99 ) [ 2 years 5 months ] Maxima Hi-Viz 20lb ( £13.29 ) Sakuma Circle 440 1/0 ( £7.05 ) Maxima Clear 15lb ( £5.00 )
Set up 3: Tackle: Prawn trap £5.95 Tackle: cord 50m £3.99
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