Having never fished for tope before, I jumped at the chance to fish with my friends Reg Talbot and Keith Elliott even though our destination was Wells-Next-the-Sea in Norfolk, about as far from Devon as you can get. To break the journey, we stayed with Keith overnight which meant that we only had to be out by 5.45 a.m. to get to the boat, the Salford, for 7 o'clock to meet the morning tides.
The weather was really beautiful as we headed out for about 2 hours. The plan was to catch a few bait fish before moving on to the tope areas. Initially we used feathers hoping to find a shoal of mackerel, but didn't even get a knock. The consensus on board was that it was too early in the season. Fortunately, Nick and Peter, two of our party had brought some frozen mackerel which we promptly cut into slithers and started legering for dabs and whiting. The sport was slow but eventually we all caught some fish.
Nick decided to put a dead whiting out on the off chance that a tope would also be in the area. It must have been his lucky day as the bait tore off and he was into a good tope of about 30lb which gave a good fight before being unhooked and carefully returned. Needless to say we all then followed suit, but without success. After a few hours, we had just about caught enough bait fish to use at the next mark, so moved on the the banks where the tope were targetted. It is worth pointing out that, as this is very early in the season, the tope catch rate is about one a trip so we had already met our quota.
After another half hour of travelling we anchored up and all put our bait out. Mine was the first to register any interest with small tugs which didn't develop into a full run. As my patience was being exhausted, I wound down and struck into my first tope, albeit a juvenile, which really made my day.
After a short while, Reg had a strong run and caught a sizable tope, but the sport proved slow, especially as we were running out of bait. I continued to catch small fish, but these were dabs - OK for eating, but they didn't prove good for tope bait.
As time passed, we were getting near the end of the day and I finally managed to catch a small whiting. This was promptly despatched and Keith Elliott cast it out and was into another good tope right at the death.
It was a fitting end to a enjoyable days fishing in ideal weather conditions shared with convivial company, what more could one ask for.