Catch Report - Ilfracombe - 25th October 2017 (4)

Date: 25-10-2017

Time of day: Evening

Location: Ilfracombe

Mark: The Pier

Low Tide: 03:11(2.11m) 15:29(2.29m)

High Tide: 09:42(8.12m) 21:56(7.79m)

Time fished from: 18:15

Time fished to: 23:50

Weather: Cloudy and fairly cold with a small breeze in my face

Sea: Choppy and fairly murky with a swell of around 3 feet

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

Bait: Whole frozen loligo squid, frozen whole large sandeel | frozen black lugworm, frozen squid pieces

Caught (weight): 1 Pouting (0lbs 4oz, Guessed), 1 Poorcod (0lbs 2oz, Guessed), 1 Dogfish (1lbs 8oz, Guessed), 1 Whiting (0lbs 4oz, Guessed)

The Session: I visited my local pier for a short session up to high tide. I fished two rods, one with a pulley rig baited with squid and the other a flapper rig with black lugworm and squid pieces. I cast the pulley rig as far as I could to my left and the flapper rig about 20 yards straight out.

It took about an hour before I have a bite and so I expected things to be slow. The first fish was a pouting which hooked itself when it took the black lugworm. The next fish was almost half an hour later and gave just a small indication on the rod tip and after leaving the rod for a few minutes I reeled in to find a small poorcod on the end.

Then came a bite on the pulley rig and I guessed it was a dogfish as the tip shook first before the line went slack and as I lifted the rod and reeled in the slack line I could sense the dogfish dragging the weight towards me. It pulled quite a bit when I was reeling it in aswell and momentarily I thought it may have been something else but my first guess was correct.

I only had another couple of bites in the next couple of hours and they were too brief to strike at. The last fish was a whiting which took a sandeel that I tried just after I had moved along the pier a bit. It was larger than I usuallly catch so I was fairly pleased with it. After that fish I had no more bittes for the next hour so I decided to pack up roughly about my planned time. It was a slow session but then most of the ones I have here over high tide are.

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