Date: 12-06-2018
Time of day: Afternoon - Night
Location: Seaton
Mark: Main Beach
Low Tide: 11:38(0.78m) 00:04(0.85m) 12:24(0.57m)
High Tide: 06:07(3.69m) 18:35(3.98m) 06:59(3.92m) 19:21(4.23m)
Time fished from: 17:00
Time fished to: 02:15
Weather: Sunny with some wind to begin with but dying down later on.
Sea: Fairly clear with small waves breaking on the shoreline
Method: Ledger (homemade pulley rig) | Ledger (homemade pulley rig) | Ledger (running ledger)
Bait: Frozen whole peeler crab, frozen whole loligo squid | frozen medium sandeel, frozen whole loligo squid frozen mackerel segments | frozen half mackerel
Caught (weight): 1 Smoothound (3lbs 10oz, Weighed) | 1 Small-eyed Ray (2lbs 5oz, Guessed) | 2 Dogfish (1lbs 6oz, Guessed)
The Session: The beach was relatively busy with anglers and so I went to the nearest big space between two other anglers. I wanted to fish 3 rods all with big baits, and fish a fairly long session well into darkness.
Once the beach shelter was up, which was a difficult task as it broke on my last session here when the leg snapped in the block at the top of the shelter. It had split right through the screw whole which held it in. I'm not that disappointed about this as this Waterline Nerus shelter was heavy, unbalanced in its holdall and had poor stitching and the press studs didn't all 'click' into place meaning the side flaps couldn't close over fully. It is time to order a different one.
As usual I put both of my main legder rods a good distance straight out, reaching 80 yards or more as the wind was behind me. I began with crab on one and sandeel on the other, occasionally over the session I switched to other baits, until I began to get bites on one bait. It was clear that crabs were around, with my hooks sometimes coming back bare and once my hook was snipped off.
Light was fading quickly and I began to expect bites now and as if working to a timer I had the first bite. It was a small sharp pull on the rod baited with crab. After a pause of several seconds it went again and I struck immediately. The fish was definitely hooked and I was fairly sure it was a smoothound, although it didn't pull much at first. Once it came close to the shore it began fighing back but the surf managed to help me keep it close and before long I was able to scoop it once a wave had helped me beach the fish. It was hooked on the outside of its mouth and so was easy to unhook. I photographed it and weighed it and it small straight back out to sea when I returned it.
I recast and expected more fish soon. I had been told they appeared to be 'switching on' at night so I was keen to get a bait back out there. Also from a couple of conversations I had with passers-by there was not a lot being caught during the day as both people told me they had heard of no reports from anglers all week as they asked around when they walked their dogs. So I had hoped that they would 'switch on' around now, and the lack of bites during daylight were just normal for this beach at the moment.
But it wasn't to be. An hour passed before I had another bite. It came on the rod baited with sandeel and I was sure it was a dogfish. I struck and missed it. Twice I recast and after a few minutes each time the rod tip went again. On the second recast it gave three pulls it gave before I struck and much like the Smoothound this fish didn't really fight until it came in close and then I knew it was a ray. It wasn't huge but very welcome and I again recast this rod quickly in the hope there were more around. After 15 minutes passed I was sure the ray was responsible for all 3 bites. I went to reel in to check my bait and ended up pulling in one of the spider crabs that had been taking the bait.
With a large amount of mackerel bait left I decided to put half a mackerel out around 50 yards weighted with just a 2oz lead weight. Over an hour later I reeled in to check the bait and found a dogfish to be hooked. I guessed that the dogfish was too small to fit the whole bait in its mouth so I reckoned that crabs had eaten most which made it smaller and then the dogfish took the rest. I put out another half of mackerel and oddly an hour later when I went to check the bait the same thing happened.
Most of my bait was now used up. I agve one last cast on each rod and left them for 20 minutes before packing up. I would be out again later this day so I'd be getting some sleep, then preparing to go out again.
Tackle used (price) [ time since first used ]:
Set up 1: Rod: Daiwa Seahunter X 14ft 3 piece Fixed Spool (£60.00) [ 2 weeks ]
Reel: Daiwa Crosscast S 5000 Fixed spool (£48.99) [ > 3 years 3 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 2: Rod: Vercelli Outlander KW 13.5ft 3 Fixed Spool (£33.75) [ > 0 years 2 months ]
Reel: Shakespeare Agility Surf 70FD Fixed Spool (£39.99) [ > 4 years 1 months ]
Line: Daiwa Hyper Sensor 20lb (£12.95) 635m
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: Daiwa seahunter Z 13ft 2 piece MFS (£42.99) [ > 0 years 6 months ]
Reel: Leeda Quicksilver Fixed Spool (£19.95) [ > 1 years 1 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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