Catch Report - Ilfracombe - 19th August 2017 (7)

Date: 19-08-2017

Time of day: Evening - Night

Location: Ilfracombe

Mark: The Pier

Low Tide: 10:39(1.86m) 23:14(1.55m) 11:37(1.32m)

High Tide: 04:29(8.08m) 16:59(8.43m) 05:31(8.63m) 17:55(9.00m)

Time fished from: 19:50

Time fished to: 01:55

Weather: Cloudy but sunny with a gentle wind

Sea: Very clear with just a small swell.

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

Bait: Frozen large sandeel | frozen squid pieces, frozen lugworm | frozen mackerel strips

Caught (weight): 4 Pollock (0lbs 12oz, Guessed), 2 Pollock (0lbs 7oz, Guessed), 1 Spotted Ray (3lbs 0oz, Guessed)

The Session: I began on the lower part of the pier and set up two ledger rods, one with a pulley rig and teh other with a two hook flapper. I fished the pulley rig with sandeel all night and the flapper with squid and lugworm. I cast both rods around 70-80 yards. While I waited for bites I set up my float rod.

It wasn''t long before I had a bite on the float rod and because I had set the rod so the butt was resting on my tripod and the first eye just behind the top bar of the railings the middle of the rod was resting on the sound of the rod sliding along the railings alerted me and I grabbed the rod and reeled in a nice sized pollock, a bit bigger than I had been catching in previous years.

This signalled the beginning of an hour of fish on the float. Around each 10-15 minutes the rod was pulld again as another pollock took the mackerel. I couldn''t decide whether they were less suspicious which meant they took the bait so hard, or if they were quickly swimming for cover. whatever the reason for the seemingly ferocious takes they suddenly stopped after 6 fish and I had no more bites on the float this evening.

The ledger rods were not producing much and I set up a prawn trap and put it down the edge of the pier with some old mackerel and squid in along with a mackerel head. I lifted this every 30 minutes or so and added a bit more bait, the first lift felt quite heavy and it was because a Lobster had decided to enter the trap. The only other things I had in there was a Velvet Swimming crab and later on a single Prawn.

Attending to the prawn trap gave me something to do on this slow session and later on I also took a venture into the area behind the pier wall that drains out every low tide because I could see small silver things by the outlet. They were dead tiny baitfish, possibly smelt and there must have been a few hundred of them all in between the stones. I retunred to my rods just in time to see the sandeel rod tip gently bowing down in the typical way it does when a Ray take the bait. A few minutes later I struck and began a short fight with a Spotted Ray which was probably an average size for here.

That was all the action for the session. I gave it another hour or so after having the single prawn in the trap and then packed up. Although pleased that some fish were around I wondered what it could be that caused the Pollock to just ''switch off'' like they did, whether it was a shoal that passed slowly, or several solitary fish just happening to be hunting the area until the tide had dropped to a level that causes them to venture elsewhere.