It was great to get out for a full days fishing with friends Graham, Mike and Clive out of Clovelly thanks to my son, Ross, looking after Sandy.
We set out with the tide nearly at its highest level so we stopped a few yards out of Clovelly to try for mackerel to use as bait which seem in short supply this year, and caught a solitary gurnard. We then moved to another spot which yielded a couple of small joey mackerel, and decided that with the forzen bait we had taken, plus squid and black lugworms, we had enough bait to go through the race at Hartland and head for welcome.
It was totally unexpected to watch a couple of sunfish in the fasy flow there as we headed off to our sand mark on the way to Welcombe where we have had success with ray. We tried feathers with and without bait, legered bait using squid worm and mackerel, but alas, we managed a couple of Lesser Spotted Dogfish and saw another dogfish and a few porpoise.
Realising the mark wasn't going to produce much, we moved out onto another reef with some bladderwrack over it now the tide was not at its most ferocious.
We had nothing ... for over an hour, then suddenly Mike had 5 pollack to around 8-9 lbs, Clive had a pollack and a bass of around 4 lbs, Graham and I had a pollack each then shared 6 bull huss between 7 and 12 lbs, the best going to Graham, then I had a tope of around 35 lbs all in a couple of hours, at which point the sport slowed and all we managed a few poor cod and a pouting.
Really strange how these marks just switch on and off, presumably tide dependant, but a good days fishing with 90% of the fish being of good size, such a change to the norm. It was great to share a good days fishing in shirt sleeve weather with friends, a little libation at the pub on the quayside to rehydrate, but then - oh the walk up the hill, truly lungbursting!!!