Date: 06-03-2016
Time of day: Evening - night
Location: Ilfracombe
Mark: The Pier
Low Tide: 09:47(1.94m) 22:14(1.70m)
High Tide: 03:40(7.87m) 16:07(8.09m)
Time fished from: 17:45
Time fished to: 22:55
Weather: No wind increasing to a fairly strong wind. Showery and cloudy. Feeling cold later on in the session.
Sea: Just a small swell of around 2ft to start with, but becoming more rough. Murky.
Method: Pulley rig with rotten bottom | running ledger with rotten bottom | prawn trap
Bait: Frozen squid, frozen mackerel segments, frozen lugworm, frozen black lugworm | frozen squid pieces, frozen black lugworm
Caught (weight): 1 Dogfish (0lbs 8oz, Guessed), 1 Pouting (0lbs 3oz, Guessed) | 1 3 Bearded Rockling (0lbs 8oz, Guessed)
The Session: I arrived to see a couple of anglers packing up and neither had caught so my expectations were low. I began fishing on the steps and cast the pulley rig around 60 yards straight out. The running ledger was cast across the front of the pier about 40 yards out. A bite came almost immediately on the running ledger, which was baited with a small piece of squid. I reeled in and found a small pouting to be on the end. After I put the fish back I cast out the prawn trap filled with a mackerel head and several squid pieces and mackerel strips. After about an hour I was able to move to the lower part of the pier to make casting easier. I retreieved the prawn trap and found a rockling inside. The rest of the rest of the session consisted of bites mainly coming to the running ledger baited with a small piece of squid and I took the dogfish on this rod. The other rod failed to produce a fish but had some 'bolder' bites. The prawn trap had a single prawn in after several more retrieves.
Tackle used (price) [ time since first used ]:
Set up 1: Rod: Daiwa Seahunter X 14ft (£66.00) [ > 9 months ] Reel: Daiwa Crosscast S 5000 fixed spool (£48.95) [ > 3 months ] Mainline: Maxima High-viz 20lb (£14.00 per 550m) Hooklength: Maxima Clear 15lb (£4.00 per 100m) Hooks: Sakuma 440 size 2 circle hooks ( £5.55 for 30 ) Rig: running ledger
Set up 2: Rod: Ron Thompson Evo Surf 15ft 3 Fixed Spool ( £30.00 ) [ > 1 Year 9 months ] Reel: Mitchell 667FG Fixed spool ( £18.00 ) [ > 1 year 9 months ] Mainline: Maxima Chameleon 20lbs ( £18.00 per 600m ) Hooklength: Maxima Clear 15lb ( £4.00 per 100m ) Hooks: Sakuma 440 Size 2/0 circle hooks ( £7.30 for 30 ) Rig: homemade pulley rig
Set up 3: Tackle: Prawn trap £5.95 Tackle: cord 50m £3.99