Rather than head up to North Devon again, we night-fished closer to home at East Portlemouth, a popular fishing mark on the Salcome Estuary.
With good tides and such promising weather, things looked good. As it panned out, however, it proved to be an evening of mixed fortunes.
Last weekend I was fortunate enough to find myself part of an overnight session at East Portlemouth. Arranged at the last minute, I got my gear packed up and headed out Salcombe way for a bit of a Plaice hunt with Jay and Ivan.
With both tide and the weather in our favour, we pitched up at East Portlemouth at around 8pm. We would be fishing the last 2 hours of the ebb and then the incoming tide and slack high water throughout the rest of the session. Since we were mainly out for Plaice and (possibly) Thornies, we fished the very southern end of Ditch end. I couldn’t believe that the beach was virtually empty – just 1 other guy fishing there on a Saturday night. I reckon everybody else must have been at the Karaoke on the other side in Salcombe!
Ivan popped down and had a chat with him and reported back that although he had bagged a large Plaice from Ditch End North last week, he’d had nothing so far that evening. I couldn’t help but feel for him when Ivan chucked a Plaice rig out just a few yards up from where he had set up and, on his first cast, pulled out a Plaice! Jay and I were made up with this (but not as much as Ivan since it marked his first Plaice for the shore), it boded well for the rest of the evening. The Plaice went to Lugworm, nothing else, just Lug.
This, however, was to be the first and last Plaice of the evening. After the tide turned it went dead. Not a single bite between the three of us (not including Ivan’s gutbusting ½ lb burgers) for hours. As the tide began to rush in so did the weed. I’ve never seen so much weed come in with each cast as I did that night. Leading the way again, Ivan lost all his gear in one massive bunch of it and then, on his next cast out, pulled in another huge bunch. We couldn’t help but laugh as he began the long, arduous job of finding his rig bit by bit as he lobbed each fist full of weed back into the oggin! ...The laughing soon stopped when Jay and I started taking it in turns to do the same thing though.
Some way through the weedfest I noticed what I thought was a little nibble on my line, but with all this weed sliding up and down the braid it was much more likely that it was just that (yet again). Anyhow, I hauled in yet another mammoth chunk of vegetation which Ivan was helping me clear in the shallows.
‘Hang on a minute...’ Ivan said, leaning over the trace end. All I could see was yet more weed, but he stuck his hand in the centre of it and pulled out a Bass! What a result! To be honest, I thought the ‘bite’ was just weed and I didn’t feel the fish on whatsoever what with all the weed. I couldn’t believe I had a bass on yet didn’t even know it. The small Bass went to the huge ray bait that I had on at the time. After a quick photo I took it back to the shallows and watched it swim off. What a lovely sight and what a lucky fish.
After a little longer and still no more bites, we started to spend more time comparing our hauls of weed than we did anything else. Despite having the weather with us, the constant weeding up and the crab attacks (they were everywhere, stripping our baits time after time) proved to be quite a nuisance. In fact, after one particular cast, Jay found about 4 crabs nestled in his bunch of weed alone. Nevertheless, with such a promising sunrise ahead of us we battled on for a while longer.
At day break it was still the same story – no bites. Ivan switched to feathers and Jay went and got the sausages on. It was almost time to wrap in. Now nearing high water, the weed eased off a bit. Hoping for at least one more fish to show for the session, I switched back to a 3 hook scratching rig with peeler, rag, squid and lug mixed and matched between the 3 size 6 hooks. Again nothing. We finally wrapped in at about 7am and headed back to Plymouth.
Despite the fish being few and far between and the weed/crab situation – I loved every minute of it. This was easy fishing and in excellent company (and thanks for the photos, Jay!)
