Date: 29-09-2018
Time of day: Evening - night
Location: Ilfracombe
Mark: The pier
Low Tide: 02:51(1.20m) 15:03(1.44m) 03:24(1.54m) 15:38(1.83m)
High Tide: 09:12(8.91m) 21:33(8.80m) 09:48(8.56m) 22:13(8.35m)
Time fished from: 16:45
Time fished to: 00:30
Weather: Cloudy with just a small breeze.
Sea: Fairly clear and flat with just a small swell and small waves.
Method: Ledger (homemade pulley rig) | Ledger (homemade pulley rig) | float | Ledger (running ledger)
Bait: Large frozen sandeel, frozen whole loligo squid, frozen peeler crab | frozen squid pieces, frozen black lugworm, frozen mackerel pieces | frozen mackerel strips | frozen mackerel head
Caught (weight): 1 Pollock (0lbs 2oz, Guessed), 2 Pollock (0lbs 12oz, Guessed), 1 Pollock (1lbs 0oz, Guessed), 1 Conger Eel (0lbs 12oz, Guessed)
The Session: I had another trip to my local pier with a very open ended plan to fish up past high tide and then move to the lower pier when it was clear and trying for conger eel after midnight after I lost a possible large fish last week.
I set up my usual two ledger rods and cast them both distances between 20 and 70 yards and tried various baits on each one, I also set up a float rod and used lugworm on that and had the depth set to 10 feet while regularly increasing the depth as the sea level rose until I was at around 25 feet deep.
Once I had begun fishing I had a chat with other anglers who I knew and they told me of a Conger Eel that was showing itself in the inner pool of the pier. I wondered if it could have been the one I lost. By the description of the thickness of the fish it that one could have been up to 20lb in weight and so this prompted me to put out a conger rod earlier than I had planned as I could put the bait near the gap under the pier where it had been seen.
The float rod was showing bites and I suspected they were from the countless small pouting or whiting that have been around most of the year. Eventually I hooked a fish and it turned out to be a small Pollock. This was shortly followed by another one but then they seemed to move on as the bites stopped for a long time. I began to try mackerel strips on the float to try and tempt bites again and I continued to switch baits on the ledger rods but I had no bites to speak of for the first several hours.
As it looked like the session was going to be tough going I fetched a prawn trap from my car and put a load of old bait in it. Over the session I would get a few prawns each lift and also a very small crab of a type I have not seen before.
About 4 hours after the small pollock I caught the float rod made a noise as it was pulled along the chains and I jumped up to grab it. A quick but spirited fight resulted in a better Pollock. 45 minutes later I had another one of similar size and then 10 minutes later one slightly bigger. Then I had no more on the float. One of my ledger rods showed a few shakes at around 10pm and I had a go at striking for it but I missed it. The squid was slightly chewed and I cast it straight back out. Not long after the rod tip showed another bite, again teh tip shook like a bite from a Pouting or Whiting but again I missed it. I changed the bait this time and sent it back out again but it went a shorter distance by around 10 yards. I left it and another 10 minutes or so the tip again shook. I struck quickly and could feel something on the end. It was a small Conger Eel.
That was about it for the night. I had no more bites and due to the poor session I decided to quit after midnight instead of continuing for larger Conger Eel. We were due some rain anyway and the sky looked like it had clouded over a lot. Other anglers were packing up at around the same time with almost equally poor sessions, except for a 10lb Conger Eel taken very close in.
Tackle used (price) [ time since first used ]:
Set up 1: Rod: Daiwa Seahunter X 14ft 3 piece Fixed Spool (£60.00) [ > 0 years 5 months ]
Reel: Shakespeare Agility Surf 70FD Fixed Spool (£39.99) [ > 4 years 5 months ]
Line: Maxima Hi-Viz 20lb (£15.42) 550m
Hooks: Sakuma Manta 2/0 (£13.05) 100
Shockleader: Gardner Slinky 60lb (£6.99) 100M
Hooklength: Sunset Amnesia 40lb (£4.50) 100m
Set up 2: Rod: Daiwa Crosscast 13ft 3 piece Fixed Spool (£60.00) [ > 0 years 11 months ]
Reel: Daiwa Crosscast S 5000 Fixed spool (£48.99) [ > 3 years 7 months ]
Line: Maxima Chameleon 20lb (£17.99) 600m
Hooks: Sakuma Manta 2/0 (£13.05) 100
Shockleader: Gardner Slinky 60lb (£6.99) 100M
Hooklength: Sunset Amnesia 40lb (£4.50) 100m
Set up 3: Rod: Shakespeare Omni Mackerel 10ft 2 piece Fixed Spool (£17.95) [ > 4 years 3 months ]
Reel: Lineaffe Carp 60 Baitrunner Fixed Spool (£12.00) [ > 2 years 2 months ]
Line: Maxima Chameleon 20lb (£17.99) 600m
Hooks: Sakuma Circle 440 2 (£5.55) 30
Hooklength: Maxima Clear 15lb (£4.00) 100m
Set up 4: Rod: Daiwa seahunter Z 13ft 2 piece MFS (£42.99) [ > 0 years 10 months ]
Reel: Leeda Quicksilver Fixed Spool (£19.95) [ > 1 years 5 months ]
Line: Daiwa Sensor 50lb (£6.99) 230m
Hooks: Sakuma Circle Extra 6/0 (£7.29) 10
Hooklength: Gardner Slinky 100lb (£7.95) 100m
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