Ian Laird landed this fine smoothound of 9lb 10oz during an evening session on the coast. ( Above)
Brad Munden landed this pleasing 4lb 10oz bass from a North Devon Beach.
Learning the way to tempt more bass
When the rivers are low and salmon and sea trout are hard to find many fly fishers are turning to the the estuary where the silver flanked bass can provide exciting sport on both lure and fly. Nick Hart provides tuition in Fly Fishing in both fresh and saltwater, in rivers and still waters. His latest pictures show some happy anglers making the best of ideal conditions where the estuary meets the sea. Investing in guided fishing can make a huge difference to your catch rates boosting success over many years into the future.
Shore Sport – For dedicated pair!
Combe Martin Sea Angling Club Members Kevin Legge and Derek Ferret have a knack of finding quality fish from the North Devon shoreline throughout the year. their latest catches include a 9lb 10oz bull huss to Kev and a 7lb 4oz bass for Derek!
News from the coast
Daniel Welch fished a local rock mark to land a specimen conger eel scaling 20lb 12oz. The eel was one of several and was significant in that it had a bite mark that had partially severed its tail. Likely candidates are seals, tope or shark?
While most sea anglers are targetting big fish from the coast with baits Jeremy Johnson and Antony Jestin followed a hunch and set out with their lure rods and enjoyed some fine sport landing nine bass between 2lb and 2lb 8oz. Nothing big but a great catch at this time of the year when most anglers have put such tackle away. In these times of changing climate it is vital that anglers experiment and try to think outside of the conventional. Fish according to the prevailing conditions, challenge normality and experiment.
SAVE OUR SEA BASS
Tuesday, November 29th, 2016
An appeal to all anglers from the Angling Trust
Readers of North Devon sea Angling News
Please act now to to stop bass netting and get a fairer deal for sea anglers. Sign the petition and share on your Facebook page.
The Angling Trust is pressing hard to secure a better outcome for threatened bass stocks at the crucial forthcoming meeting of EU fisheries ministers on December 12th.
Across Northern Europe, sea bass stocks are in deep trouble because of commercial overfishing and the repeated failure of politicians and fishery managers to follow scientific advice and introduce the necessary conservation measures. The Angling Trust and Bass Anglers’ Sportfishing Society (B.A.S.S.) have pressed hard for a ban on bass netting and we fully support the EU Commission’s proposals for 2017 for a sustainable and well managed recreational and commercial hook and line only bass fishery.
Last year’s disproportionate restrictions on anglers and increased commercial catch limits were bad for bass, bad for coastal businesses, bad for the tackle trade and damaging to our sport. The Commission’s proposals would not only see the removal of the damaging bass nets, which also kill sea birds, porpoises, dolphins and seals, but the introduction of a more flexible monthly bag limit for anglers. This would be good news for the struggling charter boat fleet and for the fishing tackle trade as more anglers would once again go bass fishing.
But there’s a real danger that the proposals will be watered down in the face of political pressure from commercial fishermen and so we need to stand up and be counted as anglers.
The campaign seems to be going well and we already have over 6,000 signatures on our national petition. Lots of people have gone on to the campaign page to either sign or to send an email to their MP. However, we need to keep the pressure up and this is where YOU can help.
It would be great if you could sign the petition and share on YOUR Facebook and Twitter. And don’t forget to send on to friends and family, too!
Click here to sign the petition
If you use Facebook and/or Twitter, then please post a message along these lines (you can use the image at the top of this email):
“Let’s support our fellow anglers by signing the national petition to get rid of the damaging bass nets and give these wonderful fish a future. The decision will be made on December 12th so we’ve not got long. Click here to sign. It only takes a minute so…PLEASE SIGN AND SHARE NOW.”
Should you wish to know any further information, click here for our full briefing.
We have a wonderful opportunity to save our bass and move to a net free fishery as, for once, the EU Commission have adopted what we anglers have been demanding for years. Your help in making this happen would be greatly appreciated.
Best wishes and many thanks for your support on this and other issues.
Mark Lloyd, Chief Executive
Angling Trust & Fish Legal
BASS BENEATH A SUPER MOON!
My general experience has been that full moons are not good for catching fish. They are often however pleasing nights to be out beside the water fishing. Liam Stevens description of success on the beach is particularly inspiring and tells why we anglers visit the shoreline at unearthly hours.
Liam Stevens caught this fine 7lb 12oz bass with a running ledger rig at 2.30am with a bluey for bait! Liam describes, “I Was wading in the surf just watching my glow tip. The super-moon lit up the whole beach for 10 or 15 minutes due to the clouds clearing. I shortly caught the bass as further clouds darkened the area again! Plenty of anticipation! Perhaps it was waiting for the cover of darkness??”
The fish was returned alive to the water. There is much speculation that next year will see a total ban on keeping bass; for the sake of the tackle trade I hope that all anglers embrace catch and release.
A Stunning bass!
George Stavrakopoulos fished a beach near Minehead to land this fine bass of 8lb 9oz. Its not North Devon I know but James Wigglesworth of the Sea Angling News editorial team posted it and I asked if I could use it. Such a stunning image on a cold bleak November day; its enough to make you want to go fishing!!!!
Late season bass catch
Jeremy Johnson sent me a report of a cracking day on his friend Robert Hurst’s rib on Sunday October 30th targeting bass on the lure. Not sure of conditions so they decided at the last minute to change their minds from an early cod session up channel, to a bass session off Clovelly. Proved to be a good shout. As they landed 10 bass including a personal b on lure for Jeremy – (weight unconfirmed as the fish was released and had no scales but was certainly larger than an 8lb fish Jeremy had a couple of months back) They also had a perfect conditioned 6lb and 4lb bass and several round the 2-3lb mark.
FIRST BASS IS A GOOD ONE!
Dan Spearman took Tom Emillie Ridler Raimbault out for his first rock session and Tom managed his first bass a fine fish of 7lb 9oz. Caught on size 2 match hooks and a tiny piece of mackerel intended for rockling.
NICK SMITH REPORTS FROM ILFRACOMBE
Many thanks to Nick Smith for allowing me to use his excellent account of a day aboard Ilfracombe based Charter boat ‘Bluefin’ skippered by John Barbeary.
Well what a great day out with John Barbeary and his boat Blue Fin, arrived in Ilfracombe this morning just after 7, to find Craig Crafty Mcloughlin of The Braunton Bait shop delivering 200 live sand eels to the boat, thanks to Craig for a great service and the eels certainly did the job….
Steamed out of the harbour in glorious sunshine with the horseshoe are first mark, but this proved uneventful so after a couple of drifts we decided to head on down channel to baggy in hope of some bass.
the water wasn’t very clear and this obviously hindered our attempts with just a few pollock and a nice scad coming over the gunnels. With fishing slow John told us to pull the lines in he’d had enough and we were going to Lundy……
When we arrived the water was much clearer and it wasn’t long before we started pulling in the pollock, I even managed to snag a rare fish it seems nowadays with a nice fat mackerel and Paul Lorrimore had his first cuckoo wrasse.
We dropped the anchor to see if there was any tope about but to no avail, with big Al landing a nice huss and young Toby Bassett managing a few doggies…..🙂
John then got a call on the radio to say they were getting bass on the horseshoe, so we steamed back and finished off the day there drifting for the bass. It wasn’t long before the first silver bar was over the gunnels falling to Tom Collingridge, with Scott Shepherd, closely behind before we all started catching them…..
Scott managed the best fish of the day with a whopping scad of 1lb 12oz, which is not only a PB but a new bristol channel record also, so well done bud.
But as always all good things must come to an end so with a bucket full of bass and pollock to clean and a rather messy boat to wash down we headed back to Ilfracombe……
