Southwest Sea Fishing Blog

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!