Catch Report - Porlock-Bay - 12th September 2020 (8)

Date From: 12/09/2020 16:45:00

Date To: 12/09/2020 22:50:00

Time of day: Afternoon - evening

Location: Porlock-Bay

Mark: left hand side of weir

Low Tide:

Moon Phase:

Weather: Cloudy with sunshine. Sheltered from fairly strong wind to begin with but the wind blowing over my right hand shoulder later on.

Sunrise/Sunset:

Sea: Clear with a small swell but waves up to 3 feet high at times.

Method: Ledger (shop bought 2 hook flapper with rotten bottom) | Ledger (shop bought pulley rig with rotten bottom) | Ledger (Shop bought pulley rig with rotten bottom) | Ledger (shop bought pulley pennel rig with rotten bottom)

Bait: Live Ragworm | Frozen Whole Launce | Frozen whole loligo squid

Caught:

The Session:

I fished here almost the same week last year so I thought it would be good to return, both for this reason and because I had been recently and lost a very good fish so I hoped more big ones would be around.

I cast out the flapper rig first, baited with live ragworm on both hooks, it was a smooth cast which helped the weight go reasonably far, possibly around 65 yards, and then I immediately set about getting the big bait rod set up. I was looking in my box when I glanced at the tip of the rod that was out and saw it bend and rattle so I got ready and a couple more rattles later I struck and felt something on. It was a small Bass which gave me hope of a good session.

But that was all I had for over 2 hours. During that time I lost one entire rig and shock leader when I went to reel in the big bait rig and found it to be immediately snagged so I changed the rods over and kept them in front and to my right a bit. I had been considering changing the flapper rig to a bigger bait rig when I began to get bites that looked like they were from Pouting. When I managed to confirm that by hooking one I decided to give things a bit longer on that rod before changing and I had a similar behaving bite but that turned out to be a small Conger Eel and around the same amount of time aftterwards another similar bite from another Conger Eel. A quarter of an hour of no activity followed before that rod showed another bite and although I couldn't feel anything hooked I had a small Poorcod.

Again, that was it for a while and on the big bait rod I had begun to notice that when I was reeling in to check my bait, which I always did as fast as I could, part way in I could feel resistance which appeared to be weed, as some was always caugth around the weight each time. It seemed that I felt the resistance for 3 or 4 turns of the reel which implied that there was a patch of a few metres of weed that I was fishing beyond. this could be a problem if I hooked some larger fish so I needed to make sure I was ready to not let up if I hooked any. I had a bit of a scout around for lost tackle and found an old rig with the weight just about useable for a Conger rig. It was much heavier than mine. I have thought before that people go over-gunned here as I have collected plenty of 6-7 oz grip weights but I was using 4 and 5 oz plain weights today. One was a diamond shaped 'Finn' weight which I felt gave me some success at Brixham a few weeks ago the other a Pyramid weight. Neither appeared to ever get pulled around by the tide so I may stop using grip weights here to reduce my tackle losses. The only problem I was having was my rotten bottom links were not releasing the weight. Maybe I need swivels with larger eyes for this.

I even had the opportunity to test myself here as I eventually had a bite that was quite determined. I first noticed my line had gone slack and I picked the rod up and wound up the slack line and felt a small pull before it went slack again and then the fish began to pull away from me aswell. I figured it must be a dogfish trying anything it could to free that bait so I struck but felt nothing and when I got the bait back I saw it was now chewed into a ball. I rebaited and recast. It went around the same distance and wasn't long before the line went a bit slack again, I did the same and gave this bite more time as the fish swam into me and then away what felt like a couple of metres at a time. When I decided to strike I could feel something on the end so I just 'pumped' the rod and reeled as quickly as I could as I pushed the rod forward again and I continued this, feeling a brief moment of more resistance I figured was that weed but the fish came in quite easily. I was delighted whan I saw the eyes of a Rayat the shoreline and I thought the previous bit could have been one too so I should get the fish photographed and back quickly.

2 more bites followed, again both similar but I missed one completely and briefly felt the other one. I felt I was messing up a bit and felt lucky when I had a 3rd bite and so I gave this plenty of time again before striking. I could feel this fish was on and just like the last one I never let on when reeling in. Thankfully this fish came to the surface quickly and skimmed across the last few yards without giving me any problems so I was able to collect it quickly and have it back within a couple of minutes.

I was aware that the tide had been coming in for some time and I had moved back a couple of times and would soon be back far enough that I would be casting into that patch of weed. I decided on one more cast. I only had one more Launce anyway so rather than push my luck with getting snagged I'd rather throw that last Launce in. I gave this cast a lot of power and surprisingly it felt like the best cast of the night. It wasn't long before I had another bite, again similar to the rest and this came in easier. It turned out to be a Dogfish which was even more of a surprise than the Ray given their absence this year.

I packed up very pleased that I had finally managed to catch some Ray here and my tackle loss was minimal so I considered it a very successful session at a mark like this.

Tackle used (price) [ time since first used ]: