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So my first holiday of the year with some fishing thrown in when I can get it. We drove down on Saturday and when we were two hours down the road I realised I had left all my bait in the house! Doh! Oh well, looks like I am on the lures then 
The forecast wasn't good either with expected 30+mph winds gusting up to 70mph and we were on an exposed peninsula (Prawle Point). It looks like the fishing gods are doing their best to thwarte this weeks fishing attempts. No worries, the winds are westerlies so I should be able to find a sheltered cove somewhere and fish on the leeward side to get out of the wind. That's the plan.
View from our cottage window - quite handy for seeing what the sea state is like. It looked a canny sea on here when we arrived.
Sunday Morning
So up early and out at first light with a bag of lures planning on doing just a couple of hours and getting back for breakfast. The walk down to the rocks from the cottage was short but extremely steep so the walk back up afterwards would be interesting. By the end of the week I will be either extremely fit or have a heart attack Anyway I got down to the bottom and started investigating the area. There was a good sea on but being westerly the bay at the bottom avoided the thick of it and the breakers close in were not too bad. It looked very bassy - nice fizzy surf. This area is known for bass (the nearby estuary is a bass nursery area) so I was hopeful. I spent the next two hours chucking various lures hard and soft at the surf but couldn't connect with anything. This became my first blank of 2014. Oh well, at least I got plenty of practice at walking the dog with my patchinko copy lol.
Monday Morning
I headed down to the rocks below the village again at first light. There was still a bit of fizzy surf on so I thought I would spend some more time chasing the elusive bass but after a couple of hours chucking lures about I gave up on the idea. The water was very coloured which may have effected it, or they just weren't there. Anyway I decided to hack a few shell fish off the rocks for bait and try for a wrasse in a nice looking gulley nearby. That proved to be a good idea and I landed a nice ballan about a pound on limpet on the first cast. A couple of casts later I had another one this time a lovely lime green colour with light blue spots caught on a winkle, one of the prettiest ballans I have ever seen. Then time ran out and I had to head back up heart attack hill for breakfast.
Before heading back I had a scout around the rocks for other possible marks and came across this shipwreck...
It looks like the local pixies had been keeping themselves busy with the shingle.
Monday Night
The nearby Kingsbridge estuary is known to produce bass, plaice and thornback ray so I thought I would head over there for a night session. I had managed to find a small local tackle shop so had bought some mackerel, ragworm and razor. I would have preferred bluey or crab for the rays but mackie was all they had. So I set myself up on the sand at East Portlemouth with a lovely view of the neighbouring town of Salcombe on the other side of the estuary. Anyone with young children will have seen East Portlemouth as it's where Mr Tumble's house is (CBeebies). I fished two rods - one with big fish baits for the rays, one with ragworm tipped with razor hoping for plaice or bass (this estuary is a nursery after all). Well I didn't blank but all I caught was one skinny looking whiting to save the blank.
Wednesday Morning
Ok back down to the rocks near the cottage again at first light. The water was still very coloured and the lures produced nothing except for one small Pollack foul hooked through the back. The sea had dropped off and the wind was gone at last. I had some leftover ragworm so baited up a size 6 hook with that and managed a wrasse then later a blenny. Another quiet session.
Thursday Morning
Back to the gulley again and three more wrasse - two ballans and a corkwing. The walk back up the hill didn't seem half as bad today, I must be getting the hang of it.
Thursday Night
I decided to give East Portlemouth another go in the middle of the night over LW. I started off about 400 yards further left from where I fished last time but was getting weeded off so I moved a bit further right which was in front of a house. There was a very loud dog that kept woofing every time I did anything. The poor owners must have been getting kept awake with him woofing all the time at 2am. Woof! ...... WOOF! ........ EFFING WOOOOF!!!! I saw their light come on once (oops). So I moved further along out of range of the dog. Both rods were cast out at different directions and I was getting no action at all so I decided to try a bait close in and dropped a ragworm bait just a rod length out straight down. Five minutes later it was rattling and I pulled in a nice little schoolie bass. Undersized but a welcome blank saver and caught in what could only have been about two feet of water. I fished on for a couple more hours but that was the only fish of the night.
Friday Evening
Today was our last day and I hadn't planned to go fishing but as things turned out we ended up back at our cottage about 5pm so there was some spare time. I had leftover bait from last night and a feeling of unfinished business with the gulley at the bottom of the hill so decided to have a last few hours down there until sunset. The sea was a lot cleaner than it had looked at the start of the week so I gave it a go with the lures for a couple of hours - bass surface lures, rubber sandeels and metal spinners but had nothing on any of them. High water arrived and as my previous wrasse had mostly been caught on the first of the ebb I switched to wrasse tactics with my leftover ragworm. It wasn't long before I felt the hit and the fight of a small wrasse. Great fighters for their size. And landed a nice caramel brown coloured one. A little while later I caught a nice spotty one a lovely emerald green with orange belly. That was it for the night but a nice couple of fish to end the week.
And so ended my adventure in South Devon. A quiet week on the fishing front but at least I caught something including a few bonny wrasse.
The forecast wasn't good either with expected 30+mph winds gusting up to 70mph and we were on an exposed peninsula (Prawle Point). It looks like the fishing gods are doing their best to thwarte this weeks fishing attempts. No worries, the winds are westerlies so I should be able to find a sheltered cove somewhere and fish on the leeward side to get out of the wind. That's the plan.View from our cottage window - quite handy for seeing what the sea state is like. It looked a canny sea on here when we arrived.
Sunday Morning
So up early and out at first light with a bag of lures planning on doing just a couple of hours and getting back for breakfast. The walk down to the rocks from the cottage was short but extremely steep so the walk back up afterwards would be interesting. By the end of the week I will be either extremely fit or have a heart attack
Anyway I got down to the bottom and started investigating the area. There was a good sea on but being westerly the bay at the bottom avoided the thick of it and the breakers close in were not too bad. It looked very bassy - nice fizzy surf. This area is known for bass (the nearby estuary is a bass nursery area) so I was hopeful. I spent the next two hours chucking various lures hard and soft at the surf but couldn't connect with anything. This became my first blank of 2014. Oh well, at least I got plenty of practice at walking the dog with my patchinko copy lol.Monday Morning
I headed down to the rocks below the village again at first light. There was still a bit of fizzy surf on so I thought I would spend some more time chasing the elusive bass but after a couple of hours chucking lures about I gave up on the idea. The water was very coloured which may have effected it, or they just weren't there. Anyway I decided to hack a few shell fish off the rocks for bait and try for a wrasse in a nice looking gulley nearby. That proved to be a good idea and I landed a nice ballan about a pound on limpet on the first cast. A couple of casts later I had another one this time a lovely lime green colour with light blue spots caught on a winkle, one of the prettiest ballans I have ever seen. Then time ran out and I had to head back up heart attack hill for breakfast.
Before heading back I had a scout around the rocks for other possible marks and came across this shipwreck...
It looks like the local pixies had been keeping themselves busy with the shingle.
Monday Night
The nearby Kingsbridge estuary is known to produce bass, plaice and thornback ray so I thought I would head over there for a night session. I had managed to find a small local tackle shop so had bought some mackerel, ragworm and razor. I would have preferred bluey or crab for the rays but mackie was all they had. So I set myself up on the sand at East Portlemouth with a lovely view of the neighbouring town of Salcombe on the other side of the estuary. Anyone with young children will have seen East Portlemouth as it's where Mr Tumble's house is (CBeebies). I fished two rods - one with big fish baits for the rays, one with ragworm tipped with razor hoping for plaice or bass (this estuary is a nursery after all). Well I didn't blank but all I caught was one skinny looking whiting to save the blank.
Wednesday Morning
Ok back down to the rocks near the cottage again at first light. The water was still very coloured and the lures produced nothing except for one small Pollack foul hooked through the back. The sea had dropped off and the wind was gone at last. I had some leftover ragworm so baited up a size 6 hook with that and managed a wrasse then later a blenny. Another quiet session.
Thursday Morning
Back to the gulley again and three more wrasse - two ballans and a corkwing. The walk back up the hill didn't seem half as bad today, I must be getting the hang of it.
Thursday Night
I decided to give East Portlemouth another go in the middle of the night over LW. I started off about 400 yards further left from where I fished last time but was getting weeded off so I moved a bit further right which was in front of a house. There was a very loud dog that kept woofing every time I did anything. The poor owners must have been getting kept awake with him woofing all the time at 2am. Woof! ...... WOOF! ........ EFFING WOOOOF!!!! I saw their light come on once (oops). So I moved further along out of range of the dog. Both rods were cast out at different directions and I was getting no action at all so I decided to try a bait close in and dropped a ragworm bait just a rod length out straight down. Five minutes later it was rattling and I pulled in a nice little schoolie bass. Undersized but a welcome blank saver and caught in what could only have been about two feet of water. I fished on for a couple more hours but that was the only fish of the night.
Friday Evening
Today was our last day and I hadn't planned to go fishing but as things turned out we ended up back at our cottage about 5pm so there was some spare time. I had leftover bait from last night and a feeling of unfinished business with the gulley at the bottom of the hill so decided to have a last few hours down there until sunset. The sea was a lot cleaner than it had looked at the start of the week so I gave it a go with the lures for a couple of hours - bass surface lures, rubber sandeels and metal spinners but had nothing on any of them. High water arrived and as my previous wrasse had mostly been caught on the first of the ebb I switched to wrasse tactics with my leftover ragworm. It wasn't long before I felt the hit and the fight of a small wrasse. Great fighters for their size. And landed a nice caramel brown coloured one. A little while later I caught a nice spotty one a lovely emerald green with orange belly. That was it for the night but a nice couple of fish to end the week.
And so ended my adventure in South Devon. A quiet week on the fishing front but at least I caught something including a few bonny wrasse.
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