Keith Armishaw from Angling Book Specialists River Reads booked a days fishing off Ilfracombe on Bluefin skippered by John Barbeary. and sent me a brief report on an interesting day.

Keith tells me that The fishing wasn’t great a is often the case in Spring when the winter spurdog shoals have migrated away and the summer species have not arrived in any numbers. As they moved from mark to mark dogfish snaffled the bait in plague proportions.

But as is often the case the day was saved when John managed to locate a should of pollock that put a bend in the rods along with a few bull huss.

Days afloat are about more than just fish and Keith relays an interesting aspect of the day in that several birds landed on the boat.
Keith guessed that these were on migration to South Wales. They had 4 warblers (one actually settled on Lee’s rod whilst he was holding it), a blackcap and another ( caught a fleeting glimpse of was a redstart I think). Keith commented that it all added to the joy of the day. Great to be outdoors.

John Barbeary took advantage of a break in the weather to take a party of anglers out of Ilfracombe where they enjoyed top rate sport with conger and spurdog. Steve Dawe (above) boated a spurdog of 19lb and Andrew Atkinson (Below) a hard fighting conger of 40lb.