Mr Fish
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2020
- Messages
- 21,372
- Reaction score
- 74,018
- Points
- 116
- Location
- North Devon
- Favourite Fishing
- Shore
Really wanted to get out and although I won’t bang on too much about the pain I’ve been getting, there’s been quite a lot of it.
So @Christurner and I hatched a plan for Thursday evening low water at a North Devon rock mark, a very good mark on its day but relatively easy access.
The plan was to meet at 3.45 but a client emailed me at 1 with some urgent work and as I’m trying to keep them sweet, it wasn’t until about 5.30 when I could join Chris.
He’d been fishing a ledge above the proposed mark while waiting for the tide to drop and when I joined him I decided to delay setting up another hour until I could get on the mark, rather than carrying everything down piecemeal in my fecked up state.
I headed down eventually and passed the time by putting leaders on my new (secondhand) Saltist 30s.
Then I gathered everything and despite jarring my guts to feck (very painful) by jumping a gully, eventually I was on the mark, with a wary eye on the surging groundswell.
By the time I was set up Chris had joined me and after a couple of practice casts with the new reels, which seemed to be behaving themselves, I had baits in the water.
Nothing fancy, whole squid on one and half a fillet of herring on the other.
It wasn’t long before the herring rod began giving rattling feathery types of bites and tbh I thought it was a strap (Chris had already had one).
I didn’t rush to bring it in and was rather surprised to see a ray coming up through the water!
A little spottie, first of the year and only about 2lb but a welcome change from dogs and straps.
This mark does throw up rays and I had an 11lb 4 small eyed one January so definitely good potential for them.
Other possible species include blondes and spurs, even cod, once upon a time ?
Much encouraged, out went more herring and I landed a second. This was tiny and I didn’t get a picture, although Chris did, but it wasn’t much over a pound.
Chris had a strap, or maybe two ? Followed by a smallish dog.
Then disaster. One Saltist behaved perfectly all night, smooth, fast, impeccable.
The other seemed a little slower yet was okay to begin with, but on my third cast there was a clonk, a line wrap somewhere and my leader disappeared seawards.
It happens. Couldn’t quite figure if it wrapped the tip light holder or what, but tackled up again and cast out slower and smoother.
FFS! Exactly the same thing happened again! ????
Got it all together for a THIRD time and this time made sure the cast was very slow and gentle.
Noticed two things - the line was lifting off the spool in a fair loop and the anti reverse wasn’t always engaging.
A strip down and exploration will be in order there.
In the meantime, Chris was bringing in something half decent. It didn’t seem to be fighting much and I got down to the water expecting to see a ray or something.
But no, a good sized pale round fish emerged in the light and we both thought ‘cod’, but turned out it was a reasonable bass!
The really bizarre part was that it had taken the whole squid I’d cracked off half an hour earlier and he’d retrieved my gear! ??
It didn’t look that happy! We estimated it at about 3.5-4lb, a well conditioned fish.
After a little TLC in the water it swam away again readily enough.
Chris had another dog around low water, quite a chunky one, then it went completely dead.
I kept getting rattling nodding bites, we both did. On one occasion I brought in a small strap that left me with a 10 minute tangle to sort out, but nothing else was hooked.
The big baits were getting stripped to nothing and it was either the straps, and/or whiting or pout.
I would have very much liked to try a live bait rig but you don’t get the luxury of time on low water rock marks with a max four hours fishing window, so we persevered with the big baits.
In an ideal world I’d have liked to put out clipped down small baits for better whiting or dabs, but the lure of big ray or spurs won out.
That was it. Chris had at least one more strap, might have been two, but nothing else of interest was hooked.
Just before two hours into the flood and with eyes on the small gully behind us, we decided it was about time to pack up.
Not a bad little session at least and with a couple of surprises.
Once down on the rocks and not moving around too much, I found the pain was bearable although bending over to pick anything up wasn’t fun, but I managed.
So @Christurner and I hatched a plan for Thursday evening low water at a North Devon rock mark, a very good mark on its day but relatively easy access.
The plan was to meet at 3.45 but a client emailed me at 1 with some urgent work and as I’m trying to keep them sweet, it wasn’t until about 5.30 when I could join Chris.
He’d been fishing a ledge above the proposed mark while waiting for the tide to drop and when I joined him I decided to delay setting up another hour until I could get on the mark, rather than carrying everything down piecemeal in my fecked up state.
I headed down eventually and passed the time by putting leaders on my new (secondhand) Saltist 30s.
Then I gathered everything and despite jarring my guts to feck (very painful) by jumping a gully, eventually I was on the mark, with a wary eye on the surging groundswell.
By the time I was set up Chris had joined me and after a couple of practice casts with the new reels, which seemed to be behaving themselves, I had baits in the water.
Nothing fancy, whole squid on one and half a fillet of herring on the other.
It wasn’t long before the herring rod began giving rattling feathery types of bites and tbh I thought it was a strap (Chris had already had one).
I didn’t rush to bring it in and was rather surprised to see a ray coming up through the water!
A little spottie, first of the year and only about 2lb but a welcome change from dogs and straps.
This mark does throw up rays and I had an 11lb 4 small eyed one January so definitely good potential for them.
Other possible species include blondes and spurs, even cod, once upon a time ?
Much encouraged, out went more herring and I landed a second. This was tiny and I didn’t get a picture, although Chris did, but it wasn’t much over a pound.
Chris had a strap, or maybe two ? Followed by a smallish dog.
Then disaster. One Saltist behaved perfectly all night, smooth, fast, impeccable.
The other seemed a little slower yet was okay to begin with, but on my third cast there was a clonk, a line wrap somewhere and my leader disappeared seawards.
It happens. Couldn’t quite figure if it wrapped the tip light holder or what, but tackled up again and cast out slower and smoother.
FFS! Exactly the same thing happened again! ????
Got it all together for a THIRD time and this time made sure the cast was very slow and gentle.
Noticed two things - the line was lifting off the spool in a fair loop and the anti reverse wasn’t always engaging.
A strip down and exploration will be in order there.
In the meantime, Chris was bringing in something half decent. It didn’t seem to be fighting much and I got down to the water expecting to see a ray or something.
But no, a good sized pale round fish emerged in the light and we both thought ‘cod’, but turned out it was a reasonable bass!
The really bizarre part was that it had taken the whole squid I’d cracked off half an hour earlier and he’d retrieved my gear! ??
It didn’t look that happy! We estimated it at about 3.5-4lb, a well conditioned fish.
After a little TLC in the water it swam away again readily enough.
Chris had another dog around low water, quite a chunky one, then it went completely dead.
I kept getting rattling nodding bites, we both did. On one occasion I brought in a small strap that left me with a 10 minute tangle to sort out, but nothing else was hooked.
The big baits were getting stripped to nothing and it was either the straps, and/or whiting or pout.
I would have very much liked to try a live bait rig but you don’t get the luxury of time on low water rock marks with a max four hours fishing window, so we persevered with the big baits.
In an ideal world I’d have liked to put out clipped down small baits for better whiting or dabs, but the lure of big ray or spurs won out.
That was it. Chris had at least one more strap, might have been two, but nothing else of interest was hooked.
Just before two hours into the flood and with eyes on the small gully behind us, we decided it was about time to pack up.
Not a bad little session at least and with a couple of surprises.
Once down on the rocks and not moving around too much, I found the pain was bearable although bending over to pick anything up wasn’t fun, but I managed.
