After being incapacitated over the last couple of weeks, I had fishing to catch up on.
Reg came down for the weekend and we went deep sea fishing on the Midnight Express out of Ilfracombe for half a day. After my last experiences, I decided to try fishing with braid to see if it was as good as I had been led to believe. Being a little tight, I asked Reg to bring his spare reel down for me to try, and was struck immediately by the feel you get. Not only is it thinner so drags less in the tides (and todays was 9.1m) requiring less weight, you can feel every knock and touch on the bottom.
The first take was a strong tug from a gurnard, a different start to the day, then a dogfish followed by an edible crab. Then it went downhill as Reg and I hauled up dogfish after dogfish. I tried fish heads and even caught them hanging on to the bait without the hook in their mouths. I even tried a complete joey but again, this was quickly snaffled by a dogfish.
The skipper then moved our mark to one a couple of miles further out, and we were quickly into.....dogfish again. What a frustrating day. The last time I went out we managed to avoid them, but they certainly made up for it this time!!!