Thunderpants
Well-known member
Last week we were in Cornwall on a family holiday but I had my gear with me and managed to get some fishing in. We were staying in Fowey and our cottage was just a short walk from St Catherine’s Point which is a popular local rock mark and somewhere I have fished before so know the score. Since we were staying in such close proximity to this mark I fished here all week as there was no need for me to venture anywhere else. It is a good mark which can produce a variety of species and some good fish with deep water right at your feet. Last year (same week) I caught quite a few pollack and mackerel so was hoping for a canny week again.
St Catherine’s Point, the rock mark is at the left of the picture.
The point is a typically steep rocky cliff with the remains of St Catherine's Castle on the top. The mark is cut off from mid tide up to high tide and there are two ways to get on to it. The first is a precarious climb over the castle wall and down the cliff. There is only one route down and it is not something you should attempt on your own without a local to show you the way. There is a rope permanently attached hanging down for the vertical parts. Not so much mountain goat territory but more mountain monkey! Not being keen on heights and rock climbing I opted for the second way of access which is to wait until the tide drops then clamber along the rocks from the beach to the point along the edge of the bay. This week's tides gave me about two and a half hours either side of low water to do this.
Access from the beach to the point is along the rocks when the tide drops.
Once on the point there are lots of different rocks to fish from and a small bay around to the right all of which were good. All are into deep water right at your feet. Even at low tide there was still about twenty feet of water only inches in front of me so I did my best not to fall in
I thought the whole area looked seriously good for wrasse fishing and I was not wrong. My plan was to fish using minimal gear for safety climbing along the rocks so I just took one rod (my Century 9ft lure rod) and a small bag of spinners, lures and bits and bobs along with a packet of ragworm for the wrasse which I had brought with me from Dorset. Sadly there are no nearby tackle shops so once the rag ran out after a couple of days it was lure fishing only. There is a tackle shop in Mevagissy but they only get rag delivered on a Friday in time for the weekend which was no good to me on a Monday! Anyway, here are some pics from the point and I will stop waffling on and tell you about the fishing....
View of the point taken from just past my "bass spot" (all will be revealed below, read on...)
View from the point across the Fowey estuary showing the village of Polruan on the other side.
The small bay to the right of the point.
There were low tides this week in the early mornings which was perfect for me so I could get a few hours fishing in each day before breakfast then still have the full day to go and do holiday stuff with Mrs Thunderpants and the little lad Thundernappy. Over the course of the week these few hours each day probably added up to about two normal sessions. For my first session though , Saturday 18th, I managed my one and only afternoon shot. Young Thundernappy had wanted to go and play on the beach so I took my rod and had a short session on the rocks while Mrs T supervised his stone plopping.
There were two lads already set up on the point so I started a bit further down from them fishing into the bay from about 4pm. It was a lovely still afternoon with no sign of the horrendous winds we had been having the previous week and the sea was calm giving me very safe rock fishing conditions and it was pretty hot and sunny too so t-shirt fishing was the order of the day. The water was crystal clear. After half an hour or so of spinning something caught my eye. First a flash of silver then the shiny flanks and spikey top of a good sized bass came into view swimming very slowly right in front of me only about six feet out. If I'd had a net I might have been able to just scoop it up I quickly unclipped my spinner and spent the next few minutes flinging bass lures in front of it's path trying to get its attention. I tried shallow divers and soft plastics all to no luck and after a short while I had to admit it had probably swum away by now and went back to spinning. I moved around the point to the small bay on the other side and caught my first fish of the week a pollack 34cm. The two lads fishing on the point didn't pull anything in while I was there except for one of them who caught a small wrasse about four or five inches long.
First pollack on a Fladen Stinger 30g spinner.
The following morning (19th) I headed down to the cove arriving on the beach around 5am and made my way along to the point fishing until about 7.30am. I started with the bass lures first with a Maria Angels Kiss (shallow diving hard lure) then some bamboo sticks in the area I had seen the bass the day before. No luck there so I clipped on my favourite spinner the trusty Zenith 28g and after a few casts I caught another pollack about the same size as the one caught yesterday. Then I took the spinner off and rigged up a simple running ledger for wrasse fishing using a 1oz drilled ball weight and a size 6 hook. I baited it with rag and lowered it straight down the rock face in front of me lifting the weight up a little from the bottom out of the snags. Moving around the alcoves and gulleys with this method got me two nice ballan wrasse biggest one 32cm.
Next morning (20th) I fished 5.30am - 8am using the same methods as the previous day. Started off targeting bass for an hour then switched to pollack and wrasse fishing later. While trying for bass I saw a silver flash in the water which could be my friend back but once again he wasn't interested in the lures. I caught three pollack all around 33-34cm, one on a zenith and two on redgills (orange red headed ones). I only had a few ragworm left so I used them up and caught two more ballan wrasse, the biggest one at 39cm was a personal best so I was well pleased with that one. Unfortunately I had forgotten to put my scales in my bag so could not weigh it and the fish was returned but I would guess about 2lb. Also when spinning with the Zenith I foul hooked a 30cm launce which is the biggest one I have ever seen
The following morning I tried fishing for wrasse using isomes (artificial ragworms). I tried leaving them static and also tried giving them some action with light flicks of the rod tip but did not catch anything. So I put on a zenith for a bit more pollack spinning and put two hokais size 4 in front of the spinner incase there were any more launce about. I did hook one Launce on the hokais but it fell off before I could get it out of the water. I also caught five pollack all the same sort of size as previously caught and lost another three on the retrieve. I also tried using pearl white redgills but they caught nowt.
The 22nd turned out to be my last day fishing as the wind got up and it got a bit dodgy out on the point after that. Today I fished with redgills and spinners again and caught three pollack but nothing bigger than the previous days. I also enjoyed watching a porpoise swimming around in front of me for a while.
And so ends this years Cornwall trip. We will be back again next year though I think we will try a different area for a change. It has been a good week even though the fishing was cut short by the weather towards the end of it. Lots of small pollack and some good wrasse. A great mark to fish and I would recommend it to anyone fancying a trip down there.
St Catherine’s Point, the rock mark is at the left of the picture.
The point is a typically steep rocky cliff with the remains of St Catherine's Castle on the top. The mark is cut off from mid tide up to high tide and there are two ways to get on to it. The first is a precarious climb over the castle wall and down the cliff. There is only one route down and it is not something you should attempt on your own without a local to show you the way. There is a rope permanently attached hanging down for the vertical parts. Not so much mountain goat territory but more mountain monkey! Not being keen on heights and rock climbing I opted for the second way of access which is to wait until the tide drops then clamber along the rocks from the beach to the point along the edge of the bay. This week's tides gave me about two and a half hours either side of low water to do this.
Access from the beach to the point is along the rocks when the tide drops.
Once on the point there are lots of different rocks to fish from and a small bay around to the right all of which were good. All are into deep water right at your feet. Even at low tide there was still about twenty feet of water only inches in front of me so I did my best not to fall in
I thought the whole area looked seriously good for wrasse fishing and I was not wrong. My plan was to fish using minimal gear for safety climbing along the rocks so I just took one rod (my Century 9ft lure rod) and a small bag of spinners, lures and bits and bobs along with a packet of ragworm for the wrasse which I had brought with me from Dorset. Sadly there are no nearby tackle shops so once the rag ran out after a couple of days it was lure fishing only. There is a tackle shop in Mevagissy but they only get rag delivered on a Friday in time for the weekend which was no good to me on a Monday! Anyway, here are some pics from the point and I will stop waffling on and tell you about the fishing....
View of the point taken from just past my "bass spot"
(all will be revealed below, read on...)
View from the point across the Fowey estuary showing the village of Polruan on the other side.
The small bay to the right of the point.
There were low tides this week in the early mornings which was perfect for me so I could get a few hours fishing in each day before breakfast then still have the full day to go and do holiday stuff with Mrs Thunderpants and the little lad Thundernappy. Over the course of the week these few hours each day probably added up to about two normal sessions. For my first session though , Saturday 18th, I managed my one and only afternoon shot. Young Thundernappy had wanted to go and play on the beach so I took my rod and had a short session on the rocks while Mrs T supervised his stone plopping.
There were two lads already set up on the point so I started a bit further down from them fishing into the bay from about 4pm. It was a lovely still afternoon with no sign of the horrendous winds we had been having the previous week and the sea was calm giving me very safe rock fishing conditions and it was pretty hot and sunny too so t-shirt fishing was the order of the day. The water was crystal clear. After half an hour or so of spinning something caught my eye. First a flash of silver then the shiny flanks and spikey top of a good sized bass came into view swimming very slowly right in front of me only about six feet out. If I'd had a net I might have been able to just scoop it up
I quickly unclipped my spinner and spent the next few minutes flinging bass lures in front of it's path trying to get its attention. I tried shallow divers and soft plastics all to no luck and after a short while I had to admit it had probably swum away by now and went back to spinning. I moved around the point to the small bay on the other side and caught my first fish of the week a pollack 34cm. The two lads fishing on the point didn't pull anything in while I was there except for one of them who caught a small wrasse about four or five inches long.
First pollack on a Fladen Stinger 30g spinner.
The following morning (19th) I headed down to the cove arriving on the beach around 5am and made my way along to the point fishing until about 7.30am. I started with the bass lures first with a Maria Angels Kiss (shallow diving hard lure) then some bamboo sticks in the area I had seen the bass the day before. No luck there so I clipped on my favourite spinner the trusty Zenith 28g and after a few casts I caught another pollack about the same size as the one caught yesterday. Then I took the spinner off and rigged up a simple running ledger for wrasse fishing using a 1oz drilled ball weight and a size 6 hook. I baited it with rag and lowered it straight down the rock face in front of me lifting the weight up a little from the bottom out of the snags. Moving around the alcoves and gulleys with this method got me two nice ballan wrasse biggest one 32cm.
Next morning (20th) I fished 5.30am - 8am using the same methods as the previous day. Started off targeting bass for an hour then switched to pollack and wrasse fishing later. While trying for bass I saw a silver flash in the water which could be my friend back but once again he wasn't interested in the lures. I caught three pollack all around 33-34cm, one on a zenith and two on redgills (orange red headed ones). I only had a few ragworm left so I used them up and caught two more ballan wrasse, the biggest one at 39cm was a personal best so I was well pleased with that one. Unfortunately I had forgotten to put my scales in my bag so could not weigh it and the fish was returned but I would guess about 2lb. Also when spinning with the Zenith I foul hooked a 30cm launce which is the biggest one I have ever seen
The following morning I tried fishing for wrasse using isomes (artificial ragworms). I tried leaving them static and also tried giving them some action with light flicks of the rod tip but did not catch anything. So I put on a zenith for a bit more pollack spinning and put two hokais size 4 in front of the spinner incase there were any more launce about. I did hook one Launce on the hokais but it fell off before I could get it out of the water. I also caught five pollack all the same sort of size as previously caught and lost another three on the retrieve. I also tried using pearl white redgills but they caught nowt.
The 22nd turned out to be my last day fishing as the wind got up and it got a bit dodgy out on the point after that. Today I fished with redgills and spinners again and caught three pollack but nothing bigger than the previous days. I also enjoyed watching a porpoise swimming around in front of me for a while.
And so ends this years Cornwall trip. We will be back again next year though I think we will try a different area for a change. It has been a good week even though the fishing was cut short by the weather towards the end of it. Lots of small pollack and some good wrasse. A great mark to fish and I would recommend it to anyone fancying a trip down there.
