Date: 07-05-2016
Time of day: Night
Location: Woolacombe
Mark: Right hand side of beach
Low Tide: 13:08(0.21m) 01:31(0.25m)
High Tide: 19:25(9.84m) 07:51(9.88m)
Time fished from: 23:30
Time fished to: 04:15
Weather: A strong wind from behind. Some rain, but fairly warm.
Sea: Rolling waves up to 80 yards, clear.
Method: Ledger (pulley rig)
Bait: Frozen large sandeel, frozen squid halves, frozen mackerel segments, frozen peeler crab
Caught (weight): 1 Bull Huss (3lbs 0oz, Guessed), 2 Dogfish (1lbs 8oz, Guessed)
The Session: I set up in the middle of the rocks to the right of the beach but as there was a lot of water in large pools around there I moved across to the main beach a bit before casting out. I set up a single rod and first baited with a whole sandeel. I waded in a little and cast around 80 yards to get far enough past the breaker to give about 15 minutes before I needed to recast. The first fish came just as I went to lift the rod to reel in, and the tip bounced sharply. I reeled in what looked like a larger than normal dogfish, but saw it was a bull huss going by the spots and nostrils. It was at this moment I realised I had forgotton to bring my camera. After a couple more tries with sandeel I began rotating the baits and landed a couple of dogfish on squid. At just after low tide, and when I tried sandeel again I had a small bite which I feel I hit too early. The fish was probably a big ray and it made off to the right for a few seconds before stopping and I tried to make gains on it, managing what felt like a few inches at a time before it took them back from me. I wasn't comfortable feeling my grip lead drag the sand as I had this tug of war for a few minutes minutes or more and suddenly the fish gave one more pull and it came off the hook. I feel that next time I will try heavier leads but not with grippers as I felt the grippers hampered my control of the fish. I used up my last couple of sandeel and had no more bites. It was a while before anything else did, which was when I tried squid again. I bumped off a couple more fish, with one feeling fairly solid again as I struck. I didn't manage any more fish and the tide was making few but large advances now which was making it difficult to judge where to stop. Maybe an even lighter approach is needed where I don't have any tackle to pick up at all when I need to move back, so I can always be stood right at the shoreline.
Tackle used (price) [ time since first used ]:
Set up 1: Rod: Daiwa Seahunter X 14ft (£66.00) [ > 1 year 11 months ] Reel: Daiwa Crosscast S 5000 fixed spool (£48.95) [ > 1 year 1 month ] Mainline: Maxima High-viz 20lb (£14.00 per 550m) Hooklength: Shakespeare Omni-X Connect Clear 15lb ( £5.49 per 100m) Hooks: Sakuma 440 size 2/0 circle hooks ( £7.30 for 30 ) Rig: homemade pulley rig