Catch Report - Seaton - 21st April 2018 (8)

Date: 21-04-2018

Time of day: Afternoon - night

Location: Seaton

Mark: Main beach

Low Tide: 04:20(0.97m) 16:42(1.10m) 04:20(0.97m) 16:42(1.10m)

High Tide: 11:04(3.79m) 23:22(3.90m) 11:04(3.79m) 23:22(3.90m)

Time fished from: 15:00

Time fished to: 06:30

Weather: Variable from still, clear and no wind to rain, wind thunder and lightning

Sea: Fairly clear with a small swell and waves of a couple of feet and getting smaller over the session

Method: Ledger (homemade pulley rig) | Ledger (homemade 2 hook flapper)

Bait: Frozen whole loligo squid, frozen mackerel segments, frozen large sandeel | frozen black lugworm, live ragworm, frozen squid pieces.

Caught (weight): 3 Dogfish (1lbs 5oz, Guessed) | 1 Dogfish (1lbs 5oz, Guessed), 1 Bull Huss (0lbs 8oz, Guessed), 1 Pouting (0lbs 3oz, Guessed), 1 5 Bearded Rockling (0lbs 3oz, Guessed), 1 Plaice (1lbs 15oz, Weighed)

The Session: I fished Seaton with 3 other keen anglers, Robert, Amanda and Johnno. I hoped to show them a few of the species that can be caught from Seaton that we don't usually see in North Devon.

The forecast was nothing like the real conditions and from the start wthe wind posed problems with casting and causing line to 'bow' a lot during the cast. We were all not managing to cast far, 60 yards at the most while it was windy, but I didn't see it as a problem because you do catch close in here.

We had a near hour long period of thunder, lightning and rain at around 8pm and up until then none of us had bites to speak of and our spirits were down a bit because of the lack of bites. There appeared to be two competitions being held on the beach this evening and we chatted to a couple of anglers who had nothing much to report, so I was comforted by the fact we couldn't do any more than we were doing. At one time it looked like the winds were going to keep increasing in strength and a lot of anglers packed up but we decided to stick it out at least until high tide. Typically, once those anglers had gone we experienced a period of virtually no wind and ideal conditions for fishing as the sea still had swell and the waves were still stirring things up a bit. While taking an opportunity to eat a sandwich I noticed a small bite and left it to develop, but it didn't. Once I'd finished my sandwich I went to reel the rod in to find a dogfish on the end. It had taken the ragworm on my flapper rig.

I was taking my time to cast out again and once I did and had some tea I reeled in my other rod and found that to have a dogfish on too. I hoped this would be a sign of things improving from now on. We all began to get bites now, especially myself and Amanda, who, I think, had three Bull Huss as well as a dogfish in the end. I caught a bull huss aswell and Robert had also began catching dogfish. Strangely Johnno, who was sat between myself and Amanda, and as far as I could tell was casting the same distances (and using the same baits) was getting very few bites.

After high tide I had a different bite and found a pouting to have taken my lugworm on my flapper rig and an hour later another dogfish on ragworm. I had a few missed bites over this time too, most of them were quick and sharp pulls but about half an hour after the dogfish I had a 'rattling' bite and hit it quickly. I didn't realise, until the weight appears on the beach that I had a fish. It turned out to be a 5 bearded rockling, which is the first I've caught of this species. I was now happy I had caught three species but I still wanted Jonno to catch something, and Robert and Amanda to catch more.

Unfortunately after this Rockling which was caught at around 1:50am the bites died down. We had moments where it looked like it might begin raining and thundering again but the weather stayed reasonable from now on, with us getting a view of seemingly endless lighting over to the east. Any bites I had I 'bumped' or missed and the others were getting virtually none. Johnno eventually caught some fish and Amanda and Robert had a couple of species each before the bites did die down so no-one missed out completely.

After a break from fishing I decided to have another go and cast what was now Johnno's ragworm, he had left me after he went home. My first cast showed a bit quite quickly and after a few rattles of the rod tip I struck and felt a different pattern of pulls on the end than I've gotten used to. This was a nice sized plaice that had taken my ragworm on the flapper rig which I had cast, from the now windless beach, about 80 yards, and it is the first plaice I had caught.

Shortly after that we packed up and began the drive home. I was pleased to have caught these few species mostly on ragworm, which has never been a primary bait for me, but I feel things could have gone better for everyone else. They all had two species, at least, with Jonno and Amanda managing Dogfish and Bull Huss and Robert, Dogfish and Pouting, but they were all species we catch in North Devon fairly easily. I would have liked them to have caught plaice and maybe rockling too.

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

Set up 1: Rod: Daiwa seahunter Z 13ft 2 piece MFS (£42.99) [ > 0 years 4 months ]

Reel: Daiwa Crosscast S 5000 Fixed spool (£48.99) [ > 3 years 1 months ]

Line: Maxima Chameleon 20lb (£17.99) 600m

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: Vercelli Outlander KW 13.5ft 3 Fixed Spool (£33.75) [ > 0 years 3 weeks ]

Reel: Daiwa BF 5500 Fixed spool (gift) [ > 0 years 0 months ]

Hooks: Sakuma Stinger 2 (£15.00) 100

Shockleader: Gardner Slinky 60lb (£6.99) 100M

Hooklength: Maxima Clear 15lb (£4.00) 100m