6 Apr 2017

Bluefin – Spurdog season lingers on!

by Wayne Thomas | posted in: Sea Angling, Sidebar | 0

Holsworthy Sea Anglers enjoyed a great day on Bluefin with skipper John Barbeary out of Ilfracombe. This was the clubs last session on the spurdog this season. With Club Members Steve Dawe, Steven McDonald,Brian Hopcraft,Stuart Lockyer ,Graham Verral, Paul Smith, soon to be member John Doswell, and Paul Cozens. The boat went straight out to the spurdog mark this time as we picked a lot better tide and could stay there all day. The spurs started coming in thick and fast right away with John kicking it off with a cracking 19lber on mackerel. Everyone caught steady all day on squid and mackerel baits with equal amounts of spurs and doggies, a token conger to Graham Verral and a lonely bull huss to Paul Cozens.Graham Verral had the biggest club spur at 19lb and second highest bag of them with 20 in total, most spurs went to Steven McDonald who ended up with 25 on mackerel baits and a total between us of 115. The club thank John Barbeary for another good day at sea.

22 Mar 2017

Specimen Spurdog and big conger on Bluefin

by Wayne Thomas | posted in: Sea Angling, Sidebar | 0

*(Above)Rob Scoines & josh Atkinson with a fine brace of eels Robs weighing 38lb and Josh’s 33lb 8oz*

A party of local anglers enjoyed some hectic sport off Ilfracombe aboard John Barbeary’s ‘Bluefin’. Spurdog provided the bulk of fish caught with upwards of 50 brought to the boat. Several quality conger to almost 40lb were also boated putting a serious curve into the anglers rods.

The biggest spurdog of the day was a fine specimen of 16lb 8oz to the rod of Bill Caasar. (Below)

It is likely that the spurdog sport will continue for some while yet with bull huss also likely to increase in numbers.

Josh Atkinson with a specimen spurdog on of several double figure specimens he landed to 14lb 4oz

19 Mar 2017

Spurdogs still showing off Ilfracombe

by Wayne Thomas | posted in: Sea Angling, Sidebar | 0

Pete Gregory enjoyed a good days sport on Bluefin with spurdog still showing with bull huss numbers increasing probably because they can now get to the bait before the ravenous pack of spurdog.

A brilliant days fishing out from ilfracombe with john barbery on board his boat the ” Bluefin ” . About twenty spurdogs landed as we are coming to the end of the season , so not as many as in previous trips , but the shortage of bull huss in previous trips was reversed with lots on this trip as the waters are beginning to warm up . Lots of dogfish as usual and a few congers to twenty pounds . It was suggested that if all six of us put in a fiver for the biggest fish caught this trip , something i tend not to get involved with on most trips which would give the winner a thirty pound pay out . Just as well as it ended with me winning which made the trip extremely cheap .

9 Mar 2017

Spurdog on Bluefin

by Wayne Thomas | posted in: Sea Angling, Sidebar | 0

(Above)17lb 14oz spurdog for Andrew Atkinson

Boat anglers are continuing to enjoy spurdog sport off Ilfracombe aboard John Barbeary’s Bluefin with fish of 19lb and 18lb picture below for local anglers including Appledore Shipbuilders Andrew Atkinson.It is likely that sport with spurdog will continue right through into April with every chance of a fish breaking through the 20lb barrier.

(Above)Andrew Atkinson with a fine specimen spurdog of 18lb.

5 Feb 2017

Holsworthy Sea Anglers- Enjoy top sport on “Bluefin”.

by Wayne Thomas | posted in: Sea Angling, Sidebar | 0

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.

29 Jan 2017

SPURDOG PACKS OFF ILFRACOMBE

by Wayne Thomas | posted in: Sea Angling, Sidebar | 0

16265800_10158071521095858_6330988807051345493_n — *Toby Bassett – Double figure spurdog*

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.

31 Dec 2016

Holsworthy Sea Anglers _ Enjoy fine Ilfracombe boat sport.

by Wayne Thomas | posted in: Sea Angling, Sidebar | 0

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!

30 Nov 2016

Winter Boat sport off Ilfracombe

by Wayne Thomas | posted in: Sea Angling, Sidebar | 0

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.

16 Oct 2016

Holsworthy Anglers – Off Ilfracombe

by Wayne Thomas | posted in: Sea Angling, Sidebar, Uncategorised | 0

(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

5 Oct 2016

NICK SMITH REPORTS FROM ILFRACOMBE

by Wayne Thomas | posted in: Sea Angling, Sidebar | 0

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……