South Coast Unusual sea monsters

[Flipper]

Got out early to try and beat the wind, but, failed, unfortunately resulting in not being able to cast far enough and losing 5 traces in the reef. My boys were bagging up on micro fish including blennies, pollack, wrasse and gar on the lrf gear. In the end my patience was rewarded with a couple of half decent whiting over a pound.

However, the most interesting part of the session was the weird bites, pulls and knocks whilst fishing into the reef, which I assumed to be crab or lobster. Eventually I hooked one and dragged ashore an octopus! I have never caught an octopus and it was so cool to see and touch, but the highlight was upon release it squirted the cloud of ink and did the whole jet propulsion dive back to the bottom. Just fabulous to see and absolutely the coolest thing I have seen for ages.

Later on as the wind and rain made us question our sanity, I had another whiting knock which I left as I baited up another trace. Out of nowhere the whiting bite developed into a proper pull over. When reeling in I was left with a 1 1/4lb whiting with a significant chunk removed. There was no clean cut to be seen so I discounted tope or spurdog and assumed it was a conger, however, happy to be guided by anyone with more exerience.

 

[Flipper]

 

[Flipper]

 

[bananas]

Octopus is still on my to catch list, well done on him

 

[Had1]

Nice one ...my guess would be another octopus had a go at the whiting ?

 

[cap'nhaddock]

It could have been a big squid attacking the fish there are still some about.
I've caught an octopus from Ilfracombe Harbour and have seen a few others caught there too.

 

[Stoker]

Impressive unusual catch. I would agree that it looks to be like a conger bite. If it was squid it would seem to be considerable. ??

 

[Cfish]

Nice one!!!! Octopus are being more common over the years! Amazing how fast they can change colour!!!!

 

[Flipper]

To give some idea of scale, I reckon the bite was too big to be a squid, unless it was a kraken?

 

[Mr Fish]

View attachment 20054View attachment 20054 To give some idea of scale, I reckon the bite was too big to be a squid, unless it was a kraken?

Eel would be my guess although I suppose a spur could have grabbed it at an awkward angle.
Although the few times I’ve had a spur bite one they usually snip the whole thing in half.

 

[squidword]

Years ago, I was fishing the deep end of chesil, whilst retrieving a codling around the 3lb mark it was grabbed in the gutter. On inspection it had similar wounds to yours, except it had attacked the top of the fish and cut through the backbone. I threw the codling back and we illuminated the water as it was calm and clear and were amazed as the biggest squid any of us had ever seen smashed the codling in full view and disappeared with a huge squirt of water. I will only put the size of the squid as "substantial"! But reckon he would of nearly filled my bath tub ??

 

[Wolf]

Nice catch mate well done,it is looks like a eel bite to me, great report and piçcys ??????

 

[flappy]

Talking about sea monsters have you seen my Mrs in a bikini..?

 

[CKB]

I'd love an Octopus.

 

[flappy]

Talking about sea monsters have you seen my Mrs in a bikini..?

I'd love an Octopus.

Exactly.

 

[DJDBazzer]

So cool!

 

[Trampster]

Nice report & pics Flipper! Fair old bite taken out of Mr Whiting - my guess would also be that a Conger had taken a fancy to it as you started to reel it in.

 

[Bluemicky]

It could have been a big squid attacking the fish there are still some about.
I've caught an octopus from Ilfracombe Harbour and have seen a few others caught there too.

Iv had Octopus off the pier as well in the past and seen others landed. Does seem to be a spot for them.

Found one marooned in a rock pool behind flat rock at capstone in the pools as well.

Given the price of squid these days I don't know if i would be so kind as then but you can see the intelligence in its eyes..