Devon Lerfer
Member
Earlier in the week I had an enjoyable Autumn LRF session with fellow lerfer Jon, who'd travelled a fair way to join me, so I was feeling the pressure to find us a few fish through the day!
I'd suggested Hopes Nose as I figured it would be fairly sheltered from the SW breeze that was forecast to pick up through the day and also because I hadn't been there for a few years and was curious to see how it would fish.
I thought it might be fairly quiet down there with it being late November and a week day, but I got that wrong, the north facing, popular part of the mark was already lined with anglers, mostly feathering for mackerel, they were finding plenty too.
Jon and I focused on the gullies a bit further round and it wasn't long before Jon found a little hotspot which held a few poor cod, pout and some corkwing wrasse which all happily took isome on a dropshot rig. My first drop resulted in finding a snag and losing my freshly tied dropshot rig so I took to throwing some metal jigs around in search of mackerel.
It was pretty quiet out there but I did find a couple of micro mackerel that just about put a bend in my 7g rated Truzer.
An even smaller pollock followed but the fishing was pretty slow so I switched rods and bumped a little 2g flexhead around to see what I could find in the gullies. There was a decent stamp of corkwing wrasse loitering amonst the weed under the ledges and they provided some decent sport on the light gear.
The odd little ballan showed up too, this was one half of a double hook up as Jon found a corkwing at the same time.
We had fun targeting the wrasse but were keen to try and catch some of the better mackerel that the featherers were finding round the corner so we squeezed ourselves between them and chucked some metal around. The mackerel seemed to be just out of range for us, but we were getting loads of follows from some small garfish. A change of tactics eventually got us a few hook ups, with a few of these wriggling snakes landed.
The gars were good fun, the excitement added to by a very wily and agile seal that often made a dash for our fish as they came to the surface. We won most of these races but Jon did lose one gar to the jaws of the seal. We also watched on in awe as the seal chased an unhooked gar along the shoreline, the fish leaping clear of the water on several occasions in a failed attempt to escape.
We returned to the gullies for a short spell and enjoyed catching a few more pout, poor cod, wrasse and scorps before it began to get dark.
As darkness approached we decided to head down the hill and try Haldon pier for a couple of hours. Unfortunately it was very breezy on the pier which made fishing pretty difficult. We decided to push our luck and fish down the wall on the inside. My friend Joe had caught a Leopard-Spotted Goby here a few weeks previously and as a species that I'd ever caught before, I was hopeful that I might find one too. I focused on fishing the shadowy, dark areas of the inner wall as the leopards seem to shun the brighter areas. Jon had some fun with some lively pout, including a decent one that required netting. I was on net duty and just about reached the fish with the 4m handle at a stretch, managing to lie in pretty much the only puddle on the harbour in the process!
We bumped into bob bananas and his friend at this point and had a pleasant chat before they went on their way towards the end of the pier in search of squid.
We fished on and had more pout, one of which resulted in my dropshot falling off, resulting in me having to resort to a split shot rig, which I'm not really a fan of usually!
It turned out to be an inspired decision though, as very shortly after, as I slowly crawled a bit of isome along the wall, a rattly little hit resulted in me catching my target species, a stunning little Leopard-Spotted Goby.
The goby came just as we were about to call it a day, so it was a nice way to end a decent autumnal LRF session ?
I'd suggested Hopes Nose as I figured it would be fairly sheltered from the SW breeze that was forecast to pick up through the day and also because I hadn't been there for a few years and was curious to see how it would fish.
I thought it might be fairly quiet down there with it being late November and a week day, but I got that wrong, the north facing, popular part of the mark was already lined with anglers, mostly feathering for mackerel, they were finding plenty too.
Jon and I focused on the gullies a bit further round and it wasn't long before Jon found a little hotspot which held a few poor cod, pout and some corkwing wrasse which all happily took isome on a dropshot rig. My first drop resulted in finding a snag and losing my freshly tied dropshot rig so I took to throwing some metal jigs around in search of mackerel.
It was pretty quiet out there but I did find a couple of micro mackerel that just about put a bend in my 7g rated Truzer.
An even smaller pollock followed but the fishing was pretty slow so I switched rods and bumped a little 2g flexhead around to see what I could find in the gullies. There was a decent stamp of corkwing wrasse loitering amonst the weed under the ledges and they provided some decent sport on the light gear.
The odd little ballan showed up too, this was one half of a double hook up as Jon found a corkwing at the same time.
We had fun targeting the wrasse but were keen to try and catch some of the better mackerel that the featherers were finding round the corner so we squeezed ourselves between them and chucked some metal around. The mackerel seemed to be just out of range for us, but we were getting loads of follows from some small garfish. A change of tactics eventually got us a few hook ups, with a few of these wriggling snakes landed.
The gars were good fun, the excitement added to by a very wily and agile seal that often made a dash for our fish as they came to the surface. We won most of these races but Jon did lose one gar to the jaws of the seal. We also watched on in awe as the seal chased an unhooked gar along the shoreline, the fish leaping clear of the water on several occasions in a failed attempt to escape.
We returned to the gullies for a short spell and enjoyed catching a few more pout, poor cod, wrasse and scorps before it began to get dark.
As darkness approached we decided to head down the hill and try Haldon pier for a couple of hours. Unfortunately it was very breezy on the pier which made fishing pretty difficult. We decided to push our luck and fish down the wall on the inside. My friend Joe had caught a Leopard-Spotted Goby here a few weeks previously and as a species that I'd ever caught before, I was hopeful that I might find one too. I focused on fishing the shadowy, dark areas of the inner wall as the leopards seem to shun the brighter areas. Jon had some fun with some lively pout, including a decent one that required netting. I was on net duty and just about reached the fish with the 4m handle at a stretch, managing to lie in pretty much the only puddle on the harbour in the process!
We bumped into bob bananas and his friend at this point and had a pleasant chat before they went on their way towards the end of the pier in search of squid.
We fished on and had more pout, one of which resulted in my dropshot falling off, resulting in me having to resort to a split shot rig, which I'm not really a fan of usually!
It turned out to be an inspired decision though, as very shortly after, as I slowly crawled a bit of isome along the wall, a rattly little hit resulted in me catching my target species, a stunning little Leopard-Spotted Goby.
The goby came just as we were about to call it a day, so it was a nice way to end a decent autumnal LRF session ?
