Catch Report - Putsborough - 1st August 2020 (1)

Date From: 01/08/2020 20:45:00

Date To: 02/08/2020 01:30:00

Time of day: Evening - night

Location: Putsborough

Mark: Main beach

Low Tide:

Moon Phase:

Weather: Cloudy with some light rain

Sunrise/Sunset:

Sea: Clear with waves up to 3 feet high and rolling for 60 yards.

Method: Ledger (shop bought up and over rig) | Ledger (shop bought pulley rig)

Bait: Whole frozen large sandeel | whole frozen peeler crab

Caught:

The Session:

I fished a local beach hoping for some Smoothound and Ray. Originally I had planned to fish the Woolacombe end but changed my mind at the last minute when I saw on the Woolacombe webcam quite a few people still on the beach at the time I was leaving the house.

When I got there I walked as far as I could be bothered to over to the right and set up my two rods and cast both baits around 70 yards after wading out around 80 yards. The waves were a little higher than I'd hoped and beginning to break quite far back so my casts weren't going behind the breakers. I expected to not do well until after low tide when I would be able to walk back as the tide came in, leaving the baits out in deeper and less messy water.

I gave the first casts around half an hour before I checked the bait and I thought I had a big lump of weed caught on the sandeel rig as it was just a dead weight coming in, but something didn't seem right as I could just see the rig on the edge of the water and as I walked forward I could just see a Ray lifting its wings. This gave me immediate hope for a good session and I decided to weigh it because I'm not very good at judging the weight of Rays.

I recast that rod and checked the other rod. The crab bait was still quite intact so there were no other crabs out there at that time. I recast that rod and moved down with the tide.

There were no more bites at all over the rest of the session and judging by what I saw of the other few anglers there no-one else was getting any. After low tide I tried leaving the baits out longer and walking back with the rods but a strong tow began to build which pulled my line over to the right and when I checked the bait the hook was tangled around the rig. Even when I cast one rod well over to the left the line was soon pulled over to the direction the other bait was cast in and I gave it a couple of hours before giving up and packing up.

When I got back to my car another two anglers were also packing up and informed me they had no bites and also experienced the problem with the strong tow and rigs tangling so I suppose I did well enough to get one fish.

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