Jack Pike fished from a Private Boat to land this fine specimen tope of 54lb.
Good tope fishing can be enjoyed off Ilfracombe from the Charter Boats below click on the advert too view their websites.
Tope sport off Ilfracombe
Tope and bass are providing sport of Ilfracombe with Wild Frontier delivering for this angler.
Tope on Wild Frontier
Tope are showing out of Ilfracombe with these two fine specimens boated on Wild Frontier during calm conditions.
Big tope wins Lynmouth Open Competition
Twenty anglers competed in Combe Martin Sea Angling Clubs week long competition to catch the best mixed brace of specimens. The event was held in conjunction with the Lyn Sailing Club with proceeds split between Combe Martin SAC and the 1st Lyn Scout Group. Several anglers invested a degree of effort into seeking out specimens from both boat and shore.
The presentation was held at the Ancient Mariner at Lynmouth as part of the Lynmouth Maritime Festival. The winner of the event was James Fradgley Gubb who boated a fine specimen tope of 50lb and a blonde ray of 12lb 12oz a combined rating of 210%.
James was also presented with a special prize from Ardosia Slate for the best specimen fish caught during the week.
Results –
1st James Gubb Fradgley – tope 50lb & blonde ray 12lb 12oz 210%
2nd – Dan Welch – smoothound 10lb 2oz & blonde ray 11lb 14oz 200.208%
3rd – Rob Scoines – rockling 1lb 10oz & small eyed ray 8lb 6oz
Tope on Wild Frontier
A cool Easterly breeze failed to dampen the spirits of anglers aboard Wild Frontier off Ilfracombe skipper by Mark Hutchings. Their efforts were rewarded with a fine small eyed ray coming to the net closely followed by the first Tope of the season which took off like a rocket. Both fish landed by young Daniel Smith. They also boated several conger to 18lb and huss to 10lb.
Shore Caught tope rewards investment in time and effort.
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.
Shore Caught tope 39lb 12oz
Combe Martin SAC member Ian laird landed this stunning 39lb 12oz from a North Devon rock mark. This is the second tope caught this week and bodes well for the coming weeks with more anglers hitting the shoreline over the festive period. I will take this opportunity to remind anglers of the dangers of shore fishing with cold water, surging waves and big fish a dangerous cocktail.
Sea Angling News Update – Tope tops weekend catches!
Dave Brooke landed a fine tope of 34lb 1oz to secure first prize in CMSAC’s Autumn Rover. Matt Jeffery was runner up with a flounder scaling 1lb 145/8oz. Equal third were Rob Scoines with a bass of 7lb and Wayne Thomas with a rockling of 1lb 81/2oz.
(Below) Matt Jeffery with his flounder scaling 1lb 145/8oz
(Below) Rob Scoines caught this personal best bass of 7lb from a North Devon mark along with two other bass, a codling and two pouting.
I was fortunate to be fishing with Dave and Kevin Legge when the tope was hooked. Always good to share in the excitement of such a moment. The fish gave a hard fight running over my lines in the process which caused a few anxious moments before Kevin could lift the fish from the water. Always a good idea to get all lines out of the water when someone hooks a tope. Fortunately neither of my rigs snagged the bottom as the fish was encouraged towards the shoreline. We also landed dogfish, small conger, huss, pouting,pollock and rockling. The best rockling weighed 1lb 9oz and fell to my whole squid bait fished close in hoping for bass or huss.
The next few months are amongst the best in the Sea Anglers year with a wide range of species to target. Tope, spurdog, huss and conger are all to be expected with large fish baits and wire traces advised. Top baits for tope are flounder. fresh rockling, Launce or whole mackerel.
(Below)Mark Jones fished a North Devon Beach to land a personal best small eyed ray off 11lb 10oz.
(Above) Still time to catch bass on lures. This fish was tempted by local lure enthusiast Mark Jones.
Bideford & District Angling Club – 24hour Rover Result
1st Andrew Clements flounder 2 lb 1oz
2nd Rob Harris bull huss 7 lb 10oz
3rd Andrew Clements dogfish 1 lb 14 1/2oz
Tope sport on Bluefin
Paul Lorrimore and a party of anglers enjoyed a great days sport on Blue-Fin out of Ilfracombe.
Thanks to Paul for his account of the day.
Initially after seeing the water clarity (which was pretty good) we headed for the Horse-Shoe Rocks for a crack at some Bass action.
We chucked everything at it from Skerries Eels to Live Sand Eels – but only small 2lb to 3lb Bass were coming aboard.
A big change to the last visit from the skipper.
After a good go and more Pollack, small Bass and a chunky Pouting to Andy Smiff ,we anchored up and got the big gear down.
From the get go, the Tope came out to play.
Myself and Troy Laing boating fish of around 35-40lb.
Paul’s tope total for the day was 5.
All on the boat landing good fish, and plenty of them -I think we counted 17.
Species today – Huss, Dogs, Pollack, Pouting, Conger, Smoothhound, Tope, Bass.
Sea Angling Round Up
Prospects are excellent for the next few weeks with a wide variety of species to target. Bass, grey mullet and flounder should provide sport on lighter tackle with conger, tope and ray for those using heavier beach rods. I welcome your news and pictures for North Devon Angling News and Sea Angling News.
Ali Laird caught this hard fighting 24lb 8oz tope from a North Devon Rock mark it is his second of the year. Ali lost another tope that picked up a spider-crab and squid cocktail chomping through 80lb mono!
(Below)Dan MIles Redmore enjoyed a successful session on one of North Devon’s local beaches catching six small eyed ray to just over 7lb & a blonde 11lb 10oz.
(Below) Ian Hooper and Nick Job set out in search of spotted ray and enjoyed success with Nick landing this pleasing ray of 2lb 8oz.
