Southwest Sea Fishing Blog

To say that today’s fishing session was a peculiar one would be a complete understatement. First off, looking at the forecast yesterday I didn’t think I’d get out at all – ‘they’ said rain all day and only 7 degrees. I like my fishing, but not that much.

I awoke to a blue sky (through the window, that is - I hadn’t just passed out on a park bench after one too many shandys) and bypassed the shower in favour of a last minute muster of the fishing essentials. I thought I’d head out of Plymouth and spend such a fine day at Hopes Nose, Torbay – but by the time I jumped in the van the black clouds were already outnumbering the remaining blue bits. It didn’t look good.

Now thinking that the weathermen may have been on to something I thought it best to stay closer to home – so instead of the camel hike out to Hopes Nose I thought I’d check out a few well known sea fishing marks along the Plymouth foreshore instead.

First stop was to be the Elphinstone car park , just west of the Barbican. I heard that some lucky folks had been picking up Plaice from there quite recently (yep, Plaice!) so I may as well give it a go myself, I thought.

The only thing I came close to catching at Elphinstone was hypothermia. Within moments of unpacking my gear from the van (the beauty about Elphinstone is that you can park almost right on top of the mark) it started snowing! I gave it 20 minutes, scratching around on the bottom with a Plaice rig, but didn’t get a bite so I impatiently switched to a general paternoster scratching rig just to see if there were any Pollack or wrasse about. Still nothing, not even right down by the wall.

Anyhow, the snow got the better of me and not long after that and I retreated to the warm confines of my van, hoping that the black clouds would pass. While the sleet/snow continued to fall I decided to move on since as nothing at all was doing at Elphinstone – not even a little nibble from a baby Pollack or Wrasse that didn’t know any better.

With the weather clearing up and the fishing looking like it was gonna be back on, I stopped off at west hoe pier. Again, I scratched around for what seemed like an eternity and received absolutely no interest from my floated baits, ledgered baits, or lures at all. A put some big doggie baits out there too, only to lose each and every one of my rather shiny penel pulley rigs to a selection of underwater rocks/pipes/shopping trolleys/Ford Fiestas or whatever.
This was turning into a bit of a disaster. I’d already lost loads of gear and had absolutely nothing to show for it. Not one to give up easily though, I held out a bit longer…and lost more rigs! Pah.

Two more hours passed and not so much as one bite all day, so I thought I’d best move on and check another mark out. This time I went to my favourite mark in Plymouth: Devils Point .

Never have I walked away from Devils Point without catching at least one fish (even if it was a poor cod). It’s normally like an aquarium down there. If nothing else bites you are almost still guaranteed a dogfish if you are prepared to put the time in and risk a trace or two. Well, I put the time in, and definitely lost a trace or two but I still didn’t get into any fish (I have a shed load of rig making to do before I head out again tomorrow, that’s for sure!)

I’d fished sunshine, sleet, snow, low tide, two running tides; I’d used mackerel, squid, rag; I’d tried floats, penels, pulleys, bombers, paternosters, lures, feathers, free lines, ball weights, grippers – in fact, short of baiting up with a fresh Chihuahua's nose on an opened safety pin, you name it I tried it. But still not a single bite all day. At least the views were alright, I suppose.

Well, I guess that’s fishing for you.

Tomorrow I’m heading further afield if the weather turns out as forecast. Tomorrow I’m going to fish Hopes Nose - just like I wish I’d done today!

Today saw the start of my summer fishing season, and what better place to kick it off than the true summer fishing hotspot of Berry Head.

'But maybe I’m still too early for the summer fishing', I thought. Nevertheless, venues such as Berry Head and Hopes Nose have long had a reputation for seeing in the first of the summer species, and that coupled with the great weather of Thursday – the sunshine, the clear blue skies, the calm seas and the slightest of breezes – left me rather optimistic about a good day’s shore fishing.

My only concern was the breeze, we had an easterly. I’ve never had what I consider to be a really productive day fishing on an easterly. Still, if you don’t fish them you never know what you could miss out on.

And with that, I packed up all the shiny stuff and headed out to Torbay. Today I’d be fishing the tide up for 4 hours, fish high slack water and then fish it down for another 3 hours until sunset.

Pollack

With the tide running hard it wasn’t long before I picked up a small Pollack – my first Pollack of the year. It might have only been about 6 inches long and probably weighed the same as the head hooked rag that it fell to, but at least they were in. For the Pollack, I was using my ‘Trago Special’ spinning rod (one of those telescopic jobbies which, incidentally, I think are marvellous for a bit of kit for some light lining fun) a fixed spool reel loaded with 10lb braid onto which I put and inline 1oz ball weight with a 5ft flowing trace (6lb amnesia/vanish, usually) ending with a size six Aberdeen with a head hooked rag for decoration. I dropped it right under the rod tip up against the sea wall, let the weight hit the bottom and then reeled in about 6-7 turns and just let the worm do its dance. This transpired to be enough to entice the first catch of the day.

Wrasse

Anyhow, I scratched around a bit longer right on the waters edge with that set up but nothing else seemed interested, so I checked out a little area to the far right of the alcove that absolutely screamed Wrasse.

As I would be bottom fishing over rocks I used my Conolon beachcaster with Abu 7000 loaded with 20lb braid. It’s still probably a bit light for the rocks, but only adds to the excitement! If I’m scratching around a bit further out on a rocky bottom I always prefer braid since you can still feel everything that’s going on. You know exactly what you’re fishing on – almost down to the size of each rock – and detect every little bit of interest in your bait. Of course, it can be a little more costly as braid will be damaged quicker than mono when rubbing over rocks, but I maintain that it weighs up favourable for the extra sensitivity it affords. Just check your braid near the business end every few casts to make sure there’s no significant damage – after all, you don’t want to snap off when you’re bringing in that 7lb Ballan!

As for terminal gear, I went for a 3oz lead attached to the bottom of a 1 up, 1 down trace. Snoods gain were kept light at about 10lb mono (again, amnesia or vanish seem to be successful) and about 6 inches long ending in size 6, long-shanked Aberdeens.

I prefer long shanks for wrasse fishing as I feel they are much easier to remove when you have a fish, and subsequently to less damage to the wrasse which in almost every instance you are going to release. Incidentally, I always use bronze hooks in case the hook is gobbled down deep and you have no choice but to cut the line and leave the hook. Bronze hooks corrode to nothing in a very short time, stainless ones don’t. I’m not preaching here though, as we all have our favourites.

Single, head hooked ragworms were my choice for bait – so one about a foot from the bottom, the other at about 3 foot. And by god did it work. No sooner had I dropped down tight to the rock wall did I start getting enquiries. Almost every wrasse picked up was from the bottom hook. Again, they were only small, but it proved conclusively that the wrasse were in and I was a happy chap!

Mackerel/Garfish

While I was having fun close to the rock wall I left a float rig bobbing further out with an 8ft trace ending in with a thin belly strip of mackerel. Surely, with Berry Head’s reputation, I’d be on for my 3^rd and 4^th species: Mackerel and possibly a Garfish (although for the garfish I think I’d have more luck with a shorter trace, possibly 4-6ft since they hang out a bit higher.)

Anyhow, it wasn’t to be. No mackerel, no garfish. None all day. I even tossed some feathers out to see if they were about, but still nothing. I couldn’t believe it.

Dogfish

With the lack of mackerel and garfish I decided to turn to the doggies. Now just the other side of high slack water, I set up my beach caster with a 4oz gripper and a pennell pulley rig (we’re still over the rocks here) loaded with the ultimate dogfish banquet: a ragworm and mackerel cocktail. It wasn’t long before the rod started rhythmically dipping and doing the doggy dance! Result!

Concerned about getting snagged in the rocks at the start of the retrieve, I gave the rod a steady but firm pull upwards (when I’d given the potential doggy enough time to yaffle enough of the bait) to set the hook and clear the rocks.

We were free, so all that was left was to conduct the steady retrieve. Sure enough, it was a Lesser Spotted Dogfish. Marvellous.

I quickly baited up again, same rig, same bait, and pumped it out approximately 75-100 yards in the hope of a second dog. This time though the bait didn’t get touched and I’d just have to settle for the first rogue doggie.

Although still in disbelief that I couldn’t pick up a Berry Head mackerel or garfish on this outing, with the whole summer still to look forward to I’m sure it won’t be long before we’re once again enjoying a fresh salad and that pan fried taste of summer. Still, the 3 species that I did see meant the trek back up hamstring hill was a happy one, and went a long way to confirming that summer is officially here!