Reel Deal has once again put anglers in touch with the large porbeagle shark patrolling the North Cornish Coast. Following on from the huge fish estimated at 500lb Peter Hearn hooked a shark estimated at 250lb. The shark was beaten using sponsors Penn Tackle supplied by High Street Tackle. The shark were attached to the boat using Ammon Chum mix and Ammo frozen mackerel hook baits.
A cool Easterly breeze failed to dampen the spirits of anglers aboard Wild Frontier off Ilfracombe skipper by Mark Hutchings. Their efforts were rewarded with a fine small eyed ray coming to the net closely followed by the first Tope of the season which took off like a rocket. Both fish landed by young Daniel Smith. They also boated several conger to 18lb and huss to 10lb.
There are encouraging signs along the coast with smoothound showing from regular marks a couple of weeks earlier than expected. Ian Hooper and Nick Job fished a popular local shore mark and landed several hounds to almost 7lb and Cameron Atkinson landed a good hound in Appledore Shipbuilders Competition. ( See Results Below).
Combe Martin SAC Member Mark Jones ventured out with his lure rod and was pleased to Catch and release a pleasing bass of over 4lb.
Reel Deal Skipper Dan Hawkins took a party of anglers in search of an early shark and succeeded with Ross Needs from Bristol bringing a huge porbeagle estimated at 500lb to the side of the boat after a battle lasting 2hours and 10 minutes. The fine fish was carefully unhooked and released and swam away strongly. (Below) See video on Facebook Page).
(Above) Cameron Atkinson took the top three places in Appledore Shipbuilders Monthly Rover landing a dogfish of 2lb 71/8oz for first a smoothound of 7lb 81/4oz for runner up and a dog of 2lb 6oz for third. 19 fished the competition.
1st Paul Downing thornback Ray 10lb 6 115.277%
2nd Dick Talbot bull Huss 9lb 101/2oz 96.562%
3rd dick Talbot dog fish 2lb 9oz 85.416%
4th Paul Downing thornback Ray 6lb 5oz 70.138%
5th Jon Stevens dog fish 2lb 0 1/2oz 67.708%
6th Andrew Clements thornback Ray 5lb 11 1/4oz 63.367%
Combe Martin SAC members Mark Jones and Craig McCloughlin fished off Scotland’s West Coast and enjoyed success with some huge skate. Fishing on one and a half days ( second day was cut short due to bad weather) the four anglers boated five skate with Marks estimated at 193lb and Craig Mc Cloughlins 191lb. The other skate were between 136lb and 188lb.The fish were tempted using three whole mackerel sent to the Bottom in 500ft of water using 4lb of lead, 80lb b.s braided line and rod to match.
“These creatures totally ruin your back,arms,legs and joints. Never experience a fight like it!!!!”.
These awesome fish are all carefully returned and are now thriving in the deep waters off the Scottish Coast. It is sad to reflect that fish as big as these once swam in the waters of the Bristol Channel but were wiped out by overfishing.
Many Thanks to Sakuma for their ongoing support of North Devon Angling News.
Report from Steve Dawe :-
Holsworthy Sea Anglers trip aboard Bluefin was as usual full of banter and despite there only being 3 of us members attending plenty of fish were caught. Around 35 Spurdog boated today, several Huss and sadly not a single Dogfish. Paul Cozens proved he can still fish with bait but lacked the ability to keep his lead, rig and bait in his own part of the sea. He did have a nice Huss and plenty of Spurs, Chris Hodgson started late due to spending a lot of time untangling Paul from his line, but managed spurs to 16lb and Huss. I managed to sneak the biggest Spurdog out at 16lb 8oz, I have one hand on the Trophy now till Paul books more trips to knock me off!. As usual John Barbeary delivered a cracking days fishing sacrificing yet another T bar to Davey Jones Locker.
John Barbeary has taken Bluefin to deepwater marks off Ilfracombe where anglers have boated spurdog to 18lb and conger to 20lb. Keith Armishaw boated a 12lb thornback. The spurdog packs are now starting to disperse and summer species will soon start to show. The calm seas and blues skies have certainly boosted spirits with spring on the way and hoped for mackerel and tope.
Paul Hutchings enjoyed a short after work session at a local rock mark and landed his first smoothound of the season weighing 6lb 9oz. This is very early for the first hound to show with May generally considered to be the normal start of the smoothie season.
Combe Martin SAC member Kevin Legge enjoyed a weeks fishing from the shore in Norway where he and his companions from Veal’s Mail Order landed some notable specimens including cod to 38lb, halibut to 32lb and a fierce looking wolf-fish of 14lb 2oz to Kevin. To combat Norways hostile climate the team chose to wear clothing from North Devon based Reeds -Chillcheater.
(Above) Damien Close with a 32lb halibut
Twenty fours hours after arriving home from Norway Kevin was out on the local shoreline where he banked a stunning brace of bull huss scaling 13lb 9oz and 11lb 1oz.
Combe Martin SAC Member Mark Jones landed a stunning brace of specimen fish during his latest shore fishing session. Mark landed a personal best small eyed ray of 13lb 2oz and followed it with a huge bull huss scaling 13lb 6oz.
In addition to the big ray Mark also landed five smaller ray. He was joined by Craig McCloughlin of Braunton baits who landed a brace of small eyed ray to around 9lb and a spotted ray.