Date: 06-05-2018
Time of day: Evening - Night
Location: Ilfracombe
Mark: The pier
Low Tide: 04:02(2.34m) 16:13(2.68m)
High Tide: 10:28(7.44m) 22:50(7.35m)
Time fished from: 18:30
Time fished to: 03:00
Weather: Sunny but a cold wind from the direction of the town.
Sea: Clear and very calm
Method: Ledger (homemade pulley rig) | Ledger (homemade 2 hook flapper) | float
Bait: live ragworm, frozen small sandeel, frozen loligo squid | live ragworm | live ragworm.
Caught (weight): 4 Pollock (0lbs 4oz, Guessed), 1 Pollock (0lbs 12oz, Guessed), 2 Pouting (0lbs 3oz, Guessed), 1 Dogfish (1lbs 6oz, Guessed)
The Session: I left a decision to fish Capstone Rocks or the pier with a float rod until I arrived at the harbour. As I saw the pier mostly clear of anglers I decided to fish the float from the left hand side of the lower pier, over the rocky area.
I had plenty of ragworm and so I baited up with two per cast and varied casting the float to a drop straight under the rod tip to a 30 yard cast and a depth of 10-11 foot deep. I didn't have to wait too long for a bite, with the first one within 15 minutes and it was, as I expected, a small pollock. A few casts and another 15 minutes later the float slid under again and I struck into another pollock and this was noticeably bigger, and fought for a minute. As I lifted it out of the water I received a small congratulations from two tourists who were standing nearby.
It was again after 15 minutes when the next bite came and again it was a pollock, this time inbetween the sizes of the previous two. The water was now nearing the edge of the pier and I was only going to manage a few more casts before I needed to move back to the higher part. I dropped the float straight down a few times and let it drift in the tow. As the float shot under I reacted quickly, expecting a bigger fish, by the speed at which it took the bait but it was a similar size to the fisrt one. This fish was again almost 15 minutes after the previous one.
It was time to move and I also fetched the rest of my tackle from my car.
I dropped the float rod straight down, now at a depth of around 18 foot and set up my usual ledger rigs, a flapper and pulley rig. The flapper rig was baited with ragworm and cast at ranges of between 20 to 40 yards and the pulley rig I cast far towards the rocks opposite the harbour wall, around 80 yards.
Apart from one missed bite on the pulley rig nothing much happened until just after dark. I was talking to other anglers as I heard my float rod clatter as it was dragged along the chains and the butt fell from my rod rest bar and hit the floor. Surprisingly, this was managed by a pollock of the same size as the first one I caught. It was almost half past 9.
I began to have a few bites, noticeably on the flapper rig, though I couldn't get anything worth striking at, and on one cast the squid on the pulley rig was clearly chewed, though I saw no signs of a bite. The next fish I managed to hook was a pouting at nearly 11pm. Things repeated then until I moved back to the lower pier with very small bites and me attempting to hook but failing to get any of them.
On the lower pier, now with my float rod packed away, I cast the pulley rig, baited with 3 small sandeel as far as I could manage, straight out, and followed with the flapper rig cast around 60 yards, again straight out, and still baited with ragworm.
The bites now started to come steadily but still I either missed or bumped most fish. At 01:44 I reeled in a dogfish that had clearly hooked itself after taking the ragworm and what was now a magical 15 minutes later another bite produced the second small pouting. 50 minutes later and as the only remaining fisherman on the pier I decided to pack up. At least there were a few fish around.
Tackle used (price) [ time since first used ]:
Set up 1: Rod: Shakespeare Omni Mackerel 10ft 2 piece Fixed Spool (£17.95) [ > 3 years 10 months ]
Reel: Lineaffe Carp 60 Baitrunner Fixed Spool (£12.00) [ > 1 years 9 months ]
Line: Maxima Chameleon 20lb (£17.99) 600m
Hooks: Sakuma Stinger 2 (£15.00) 100
Hooklength: Maxima Clear 15lb (£4.00) 100m
Set up 2: Rod: Daiwa Crosscast 13ft 3 piece Fixed Spool (£60.00) [ > 0 years 6 months ]
Reel: Daiwa Crosscast S 5000 Fixed spool (£48.99) [ > 3 years 2 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: Daiwa seahunter Z 13ft 2 piece MFS (£42.99) [ > 0 years 5 months ]
Reel: Shakespeare Agility Surf 70FD Fixed Spool (£39.99) [ > 4 years 0 months ]
Line: Daiwa Hyper Sensor 20lb (£12.95) 635m
Hooks: Sakuma Manta 2/0 (£5.78) 30
Shockleader: Gardner Slinky 60lb (£6.99) 100M
Hooklength: Sunset Amnesia 40lb (£4.50) 100m
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