Tarrant Wotton has invested many hours in the pursuit of a shore caught tope and his efforts paid off when this fine specimen of just over 38lb seized his bait.
Whilst numbers of shore caught tope are low the season for catching them seems to have extended with the occasional fish showing from May right through until February.
Autumn time sees a dedicated few target the elusive hard fighting tope that haunt the waters of North Devon. A tope from the shore is perhaps the greatest challenge for the dedicated shore angler unless of course you include the remote chance of hooking and beaching a porbeagle shark!
Martin Pearce has struck gold in mid October first beating a fine tope of 31lb 4oz and then following it up a few days later with a fine specimen of 42lb 8oz. Landing a tope is seldom a solitaire event and Martin was very appreciative of a help in hand from his mate Darren Bell who tailed both fish. The fish were tempted using whole mackerel on Varivas big mouth extra 8/0 hooks. Both fish were tempted from undisclosed North Devon Rock Marks.
