(Above)Andrew Atkinson with a fine specimen spurdog of 18lb.
Spurdog on Bluefin
Holsworthy Sea Anglers- Enjoy top sport on “Bluefin”.
Many thanks to Paul Cozens for the report he posted on their club trip off Ilfracombe. A stunning conger and plenty of spurdog.
Holsworthy Sea Anglers enjoyed a great day afloat with skipper John Barbeary and crewman Paul on the Bluefin out of Ilfracombe. The ten anglers; Andrew Braunton, Robert Gould, Steve Dawe, Adrian Pett, James Pett, Brian Hopcraft, Stuart Lockyer, Graham Verral, Steven McDonald and Paul Cozens. After an hours stop close in for some doggies and a bonus 25lb conger for Adrian Pett they pushed out to the spurdog mark. Over went the mackerel and squid baits and it wasn’t long before they were hauling the spurs aboard along with a few bull huss to 12lb and a very welcome 45lb to 50lb conger for club eel specialist Steve Dawe. The spurdog fishing was frantic with the party losing track of the numbers caught with many of them over 15lb and best one going 17lb to Steve Dawe a new personal best. Steven McDonald had the most spurdog ending up with 14 of them!!
Paul Cozens stated that it was once again a great days fishing aboard Bluefin.
SPURDOG PACKS OFF ILFRACOMBE
John Barbeary’s Bluefin visited some of Johns proven local favourite marks to catch plenty of spurdog with the biggest 3 at 16lb all fish were double figure fish. Several hard fighting conger to 29lb wee also boated along with bull huss.
The cold grey and damp conditions were a stark contrast to the far off climes John had returned from after a well earned break from Ilfracombe chartering. The next few months should see offshore sport continue with spurdog, huss and conger dominating catches.
Holsworthy Sea Anglers _ Enjoy fine Ilfracombe boat sport.
Holsworthy Sea Anglers had a great day out with John Barbeary on Bluefin off Ilfracombe. They started off with the obligatory lesser spotted dogfish with plenty of them showing their faces throughout the day, a quick move and Andrew Braunton and Tom Marshall started to find the spurdog and a lonely smoothound for Paul Cozens. Another move further out and bingo plenty of spurdogs from high singles to mid doubles along with bullhuss for a bit of variety and also a solitary tope which released itself at the surface. Steve did manage a conger at the end for a 6 species total.
Many thanks to Paul Cozens for the write up and images. Great to sea smiling faces out at sea!
Winter Boat sport off Ilfracombe
Many thanks to Toby Bassett who sent me this report and pictures of a very enjoyable day on John Barbeary’s Bluefin off Ilfracombe .
I am sure the bigger spurdog will start to show soon and there is every chance as the winter progresses that someone will hook that elusive big cod or fifty pound plus conger.
Fishing aboard the bluefin..with john Barbeary, Dave Clements. Pete Gregory, Troy Laing .loads of huss..and small female spurs…cracking weather with the sun shining all day long….also caught were. Eels. Dogfish, a thornback ray…Good fun had by all with plenty of banter and early Christmas cheer.
Holsworthy Anglers – Off Ilfracombe
(Above) Paul Cozens
Holsworthy Sea Anglers had a Club trip out of Ilfracombe with John Barbeary on the Bluefin.
Morning started off well with quite a few bass to 4lb and pollock whilst in drifting inshore. Anchored up later produced the inevitable doggies followed by some quality bull huss, tope to 26lb and smoothound.
(Above) Steve McDonald
(Above) Andrew Braunton
(Above) Graham Verrall
(Above) Paul Cozens
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……
SOUTH MOLTON ANGLERS BOAT TRIP
South Molton anglers enjoyed a session off Ilfracombe on Bluefin skippered by John Barbeary. They landed 20 bass to 8lb keeping one each for the table in accordance with present regulations and returning the rest in the hope conserving the species.Three tope to 30lb were boated, six pollock to 5lb over twenty huss to 10lb, conger to 15lb, horse mackerel, pouting and the inevitable dogfish.
