Blue skies, calm seas and clear water the lure fishers paradise. Daniel Welch has been enjoying some superb sport off North Devon’s spectacular coastline.
Awesome light gear fishing for pollack on a 16g Nomura rod. Loads of pollack around 4-5lb and got smashed up by a couple big ones. So moved to a slightly heavier setup and had a 10lb 3oz beauty caught on a size 4 fiiish candy green lure supplied by High Street Tackle
Combe Martin SAC member Dan Welch enjoyed a cracking session out on his boat landing numerous pollack over 5lb the biggest 7lb 8oz even managed a couple codling to 5lb 12oz all caught on lures.
Chris Bonds has been taking advantage of mirror calm seas to venture out of Ilfracombe on his own boat to land good numbers of pollock on Sidewinder lures. The best of the fish have between 5lb 7lb and offer excellent sport on light tackle.
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
Mark Frith landed this stunning shore caught pollock scaling 8lb 4oz whilst fishing from a North Devon Rock Mark. The fish was tempted using a squid bait presented on a pennel rig.
Autumn is a prime time for the sea angler with a wide variety of species to target. The past week has seen local anglers enjoy success along North Devon’s rocky coast. Dan Spearman (Below) was among these anglers landing a bull huss of 9lb 3oz and a conger of 18lb.
Fellow Combe Martin SAC member James Thomas landed good pollock of 2lb 13oz along with numerous conger whilst fishing a rock mark near Ilfracombe. (Below)
Kody Chugg landed a small eyed ray (Below)
I targetted grey mullet that are one of my favourite sea fish and tempted a specimen of 4lb 13oz using quiver-tipped bread flake.
(Above)James Gubb-Fradgley took his own boat out Of Lynmouth to land this fine pollock of 12lb using a light spinning rod and Savage Gear Lure.
Dan Spearman secured Combe Martin SAC’s Fish of the month for August with a bass of 10lb 9oz. Graham Snow took second and third places with a thick-lipped grey mullet of 5lb 21/2oz and thin-lipped mullet of 4lb 51/2oz.
Graham Snow won Bideford Angling Clubs Monthly Rover with a thick lipped grey mullet scaling 4lb 2 1/8oz. In runner up spot was Dick Talbot with a thornback ray of 6lb 14oz and in third Graham Snow with a thick-lipped mullet of 2lb 143/8oz.
Keith Bullard landed this stunning double figure pollock from his own boat off the North Devon Coast. Pollock of this size are now quite rare from marks along the North Devon Coast with the grounds off North Cornwall generally more productive. Twenty years ago big pollock were a regular feature of catches off Ilfracombe, Combe Martin and Lynmouth.
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……
