Anglers are enjoying good boat sport off Ilfracombe with tope. Paul Lorrimore and Troy Laing were amongst anglers on Reel Deal to enjoy a day with these hard fighting members of the shark family.
Tope on Reel Deal
Pack tope giving good boat sport
Stefan Jones enjoyed a great days sport boating over twenty pack tope in a day afloat in his own private boat.
Sea Angling Sport – Exceptionally good!
Sea angling sport really seems to be taking off at the moment with a wide range of species being caught by anglers along the coast from both boat and shore. Shore anglers are enjoying some exceptional sport with smoothound and even a few early tope. Float-fishing is producing garfish and the occasional mackerel from marks in the Ilfracombe area along with some quality pollock. Several bass have been tempted by lure anglers who are relishing the clear water opportunities. Thin Lipped grey mullet are present in the estuary’s.
(Above)Cameron Atkinson enjoyed a great day afloat on a Private boat catching plenty of small bass and some decent pollock with the best one falling to Cameron weighing 7lb to set a new personal best for the species.
(above) 5lb 14oz bass tempted by Ross Stanway
More big hounds and more to come
Cameron Atkinson and his boat partners caught around 30 hounds between them with the biggest falling to Cameron a new personal best weighing 16lb 12oz. I have also recieved a report of a huge shore caught hound that I hope to report on later this evening.
Great Boat Sport Off Ilfracombe
Dan Welch enjoyed a Cracking day out on his private boat catching loads of fish, pollack, Huss, smoothies, and ray. Had a couple crackers as well a Blonde ray 15lb 6oz and a smoothie of 14lb 3oz.
Jack Pike Boats 18lb hound
Jack Pike boated this stunning smoothound of 18lb. Its been a great start to the smoothound season so far with plenty of double figure fish from both boat and shore.
Boat Fishing Sport Round Up!
Thomas Atkinson won Appledore Shipbuilders Boat Competition with a fine smoothound of 17lb 10oz. Andrew Atkinson was second with a hound of 13lb 4oz and third Michael Hammett with a hound of 12lb 6oz.
Appledore Shipbuilders enjoyed a great good day on the hounds with the average size around 9lb they also had a couple of tope around the 20-25lb mark along with a few small pollack and a few small huss.
Anglers are also finding goof sport off Ilfracombe aboard Dan Hawkins boat Reel Deal with beautiful weather and flat calm seas hard fishing at times but some good early sport The Tope are starting to show more often now along with Huss, dogs and bass.
Young Ollie Boats best of the day
Ian Laird and Ali Laird organized a four hour trip off Minehead with Michael Webber Griffiths skipper of Teddie Boy Charters. They enjoyed sport with ray, smoothound and the inevitable dogfish.The best specimen of the trip was a small eyed ray of 9lb 5oz and was boated by young Ollie Laird. The ray gives Ollie an excellent chance to retain the specimen trophy for the best fish caught by a Junior in CMSAC.
These short four trips are excellent for young anglers who might find a full eight hour trip too much.
Migrants are highlight of Spring day afloat
Keith Armishaw from Angling Book Specialists River Reads booked a days fishing off Ilfracombe on Bluefin skippered by John Barbeary. and sent me a brief report on an interesting day.
Keith tells me that The fishing wasn’t great a is often the case in Spring when the winter spurdog shoals have migrated away and the summer species have not arrived in any numbers. As they moved from mark to mark dogfish snaffled the bait in plague proportions.
But as is often the case the day was saved when John managed to locate a should of pollock that put a bend in the rods along with a few bull huss.
Days afloat are about more than just fish and Keith relays an interesting aspect of the day in that several birds landed on the boat.
Keith guessed that these were on migration to South Wales. They had 4 warblers (one actually settled on Lee’s rod whilst he was holding it), a blackcap and another ( caught a fleeting glimpse of was a redstart I think). Keith commented that it all added to the joy of the day. Great to be outdoors.
Bluefin – Trip Extra
Steve Dawe is on a mission to catch 52 species in 52 weeks and is doing it to raise money for The Stroke Association following a massive stroke that impacted upon a close angling friend of Steve’s. Steve has agreed to write about his aims on NDAN in a feature that will follow soon. In the mean time above is a picture of the huge 19lb spurdog Steve boated on Tuesday January 30th whilst fishing on John Barbeary’s boat Bluefin.
A link to Steves blog follows :- https://stevedawe189.wixsite.com/fishtytwochallenge
Pete Gregory was also on the trip and enjoyed sport with spurdog and bull huss. ( Below)
http://www.bluefincharters.co.uk