Catch Report - Seaton, Devon - 15th November 2019 (12)

Date From: 15/11/2019 17:00:00

Date To: 15/11/2019 22:00:00

Time of day: Evening

Location: Seaton, Devon

Mark: Main Beach

Low Tide:

Moon Phase:

Weather: Cloudy and some light rain with wind from behind and rain at the end of the session

Sunrise/Sunset:

Sea: Fairly clear with waves around 2 feet high.

Method: Ledger (shop bought 2 hook flapper) | Ledger (shop bought up and over rig) | Ledger (Shop bought pulley pennel)

Bait: Dead ragworm, frozen black lugworm | frozen whole Launce | frozen Mackerel segments

Caught:

The Session:

This session was another meet-up, this time on Seaton Beach in Cornwall. This time with Bob, John, Paul and Matt. I arrived in time to get set up for about 5pm and I had some ragworm from last week, which didn't quite survive the full week but I hoped it would get me a few small fish at the start of the session.

So I set up a rod with a flapper rig and cast it around 60 yards with a gentle cast which was aided by the wind behind me. The others had already had bites and John had a nice Whiting already so hopes were high. Sure enough, even before I threaded my line through the eyes of my other rod I had a bite on the ragworm, and I missed three by the time I cast my other bait out. I went to chat to the others for a bit before getting into the fishing properly.

Once back fishing I soon hooked the first fish, a small Pouting and it was the beginning of a session with quite a lot of bites. I had a few fish as I used up the ragworm and then I switched the rig on that rod to a pulley pennel rig, before popping to chat to the others again and fairly early on Paul had a small ray which was one of the species we'd hoped to catch. We were joined by another angler, Matt and then I got back to fishing and after catching a second small Whiting the rod with the Launce on showed a good bite. The rod tip bent down several times and I figured the fish must have just hooked itself so I just lifted the rod, pulled until the spikes of the grip lead collapsed and I felt the fish on the end. It pulled back a few times so I knew it wasn't a dogfish. I slowly but smoothly kept reeling in and there were a couple of moments where the fish pulled quite hard and I hoped I had a Bass or Ray. Not that I was disappointed when a Conger Eel, larger that the common sized ones I have been catching a lot but still small, appeared at the waters edge and I waited for a large rush of water up the shingle to push the fish up a bit and then I could see it was hooked well and I could lift it to where my tackle was.

When I went to hold the fish steady it began to spin like they often do and one of the hooks went into my finger and I was lucky that the fish stopped spinning and as its momentum slowed the hook came out. It was bleeding quite a lot though and after putting the fish back I fetched my First Aid kit from my car to plaster my finger up. It was difficlut to cast from then on because it was the finger I hold the line back with so from then on I was miscasting a bit and only getting 50 yards or so. It didn't matter though as the Whiting were out there at any distance it seemed and they were keen to take the whole Launce which was almost as long as the Whiting were.

At some point, John shouted over to me that Matt had caught a small cod which neither me, nor Paul, who has fished this beach for years had heard of them being caught here before. I think Matt was very please with this catch and it was the best fish of he night, later I weighed it and it went 2lb 4oz. Not huge but good enough.

By now we all had plenty of fish, but I think I had the least overall. Paul had two Whiting at a time on a Pennel rig, bob was getting Whiting and Pouting just as I was and John even had 3 Conger Eel in quick succession.

Back at my own tackle after anothe chat with everyone I found the bites coming less often but the ones I had and managed to hook were larger than earlier with the largest possibly being 6 or 8 oz. They were all very thin fish though.

Soon it began raining and as I looked behind I could make out the sky behind us was just dark cloud, Bob and John were packing up anyway and I decided as I was out of Launce and had just used the last of a Mackerel I would pack up too, and we all left within half an hour of each other, I think we all considered the session to be a good one overall even though the expected species, Ray never showed in numbers.

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