Date: 27-05-2018
Time of day: Afternoon
Location: Minehead
Mark: Gasworks beach
Low Tide: 11:38(1.45m) 23:55(1.24m) 11:38(1.45m) 23:55(1.24m)
High Tide: 05:38(9.87m) 18:04(10.05m) 05:38(9.87m) 18:04(10.05m)
Time fished from: 16:00
Time fished to: 20:00
Weather: Sunny with very little wind
Sea: Murky and virtually flat with just a small wave breaking on the shore line.
Method: Ledger (homemade pulley rig) | Ledger (homemade pulley rig)
Bait: Frozen whole loligo squid | Double frozen small sandeel
Caught (weight): 1 Small-eyed Ray (8lbs 8oz, Weighed) | 1 Dogfish (1lbs 0oz, guessed)
The Session:
I arrived at the mark and set up more or less in front of the parking bays. I used two pulley rigs and baited one with squid and the other with sandeel. I cast both rods a fair distance in order to reach the sand, which was around 70 yards or more.
It was only 20 minutes before I had a bite and it was on the rod with the sandeel bait. The rod tip was moving just like a ray takes the bait. I gave it a few minutes before striking just as the fish made a bigger pull downwards. I wasn't certain that I had hooked the fish at first as my lead was holding bottom very well but then the fish began to move, but it didn't feel too big, in fact aside from a couple of times when either the lead caught a rock or the fish managed to grip the bottom, it came in very easily and I was expecting to see a dogfish appear. I couldn't actually tell where the fish was when I saw my rig appear from the murkey water as the pulley mechanism hadn't worked so the lead weight was hanging down and confused me.
Then as I saw the fish, left on the rocks by a small wave, I shuffled down the rocks to collect it. I put the rod and rig in my left hand and with my right scooped my arm under the fish so most of its body was supported by my arm. It was pretty calm out of the water and was hooked just on the outside of its mouth, so it was easily and quickly unhooked and photographed.
Releasing the fish was a bit difficult as I was only wearing walking boots and as the fish didn't seem to want to swim away at first I stepped into the water to encourage it to start swimming. That'll teach me to be too lazy to put my boots on before I start fishing. The last time I made a poor decision like that was failing to set my landing net up before I began fishing at a mark where I knew I couldn't read down easily to lift a big fish out. I hooked a big fish on my first cast and it fell off at the edge.
Over the rest of the session I had more bites but most were single pulls and some from possibly more ray but I struck to early, overall though it was pretty much eventless after the ray. The one surprise was upon having a bite I struck and brought in a dogfish and a load of weed and when I picked it up I saw that the dogfish was in fact hooked on someone elses lost rig and I had become tangled in it. This was because not long after high tide a lot of weed came around the bay and kept dragging all the anglers lines around.
Eventually nearly everybody packed up as the weed was not clearing. I decided to move up to White Mark to continue my plan for the day but once I began fishing there I started getting a headache so I packed up around midnight after catching 3 dogfish there, all on sandeel. Coming back I walked the exposed sand and found a rig and weight several peeler crabs and two golf balls!
Tackle used (price) [ time since first used ]:
Set up 1: 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
Set up 2: Rod: Daiwa Seahunter X 14ft 3 piece Fixed Spool (£60.00) [ 1 week ]
Reel: Daiwa BF 5500 Fixed spool (gift) [ > 0 years 1 months ]
Line: Maxima Hi-Viz 20lb (£15.42) 550m [ > 1 years 0 months ]
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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