Southwest Sea Fishing Blog

I was looking at heading deeper into Cornwall for this session, but with the weather being so hit and miss recently - and flitting from sunshine to rain quicker than I can switch rigs - instead I decided to fish closer to home and revisit Mount Batten Breakwater, Plymstock.

A strong westerly isn’t ideal for fishing this particular breakwater since it comes right across the approaches and hits smack bang on the end of the pier, but seeing as fishing off the sides, north and south, can still be quite productive I went anyway. Today I Fished the outgoing tide from top to bottom.

Even in the time it took me to walk up to the end of the breakwater I must have counted at least 3 small Pollack being brought in by other anglers, it looked promising and I couldn’t wait to get in the water.

I fished the north side (facing Sutton Harbour) first, and dropped a big bait out onto the sand in the hope of a dog. I let that sit there whilst I set up my lighter gear for Pollack and mackerel.

Retrieving over the rocks with a small ball weight and rag took a Pollack every few casts, although they were absolutely tiny. Still, a fish is a fish! After a while I switched rigs and fished just off the bottom instead, again with rag, in the hope of a wrasse to bring my species to 2. It just wasn’t happening though – I couldn’t catch a wrasse to save my life. I guess if I was uber-keen on catching one I should have gone back down to the beginning of the breakwater on the southside where you have all the patchy rocks, kelp and sand. But instead I stuck up the top end where I could keep an eye on my doggie rig (which, incidentally, didn’t get touched all day).

Other folks kept pulling the Pollack in (mainly on rag and small lures), and I kept scratching near the rocks – but only up until I saw the first glint of a mackerel break the surface on a nother guy’s line. Yep – the mackerel were in! That was the first one I’d seen from the Plymouth shore this year, and what a sight it was.

Naturally, I quickly changed over to a float rig with mackerel strip in the hope of seeing a second greeny-white flash, but after a while I came to the conclusion that that particular mackerel’s GPS had failed him and he was a one off. Plenty of folks were now trying for the mackies – either spinning, floating or feathering – but no more were to be seen.

I kept a float out about 30 yards off the south-western tip of the pier just in case, but still no joy with the Mackerel or Gars. Surprisingly though, the float did still get a bit of attention – from a good sized Pollack this time, high in the water and on mackerel.

I started fishing closer to the rocks with larger mackerel strips in the hope that this was going to sort out the bigger Pollack from the small, but all it proved is that the horde of smaller Pollack around the edge of the breakwater would also take the float fished mackerel strip as easily as they did the ragworm!

Pollack, Pollack, and more Pollack was to be the theme for the remainder of the day, but you can hardly grumble at that!