northeast1
Well-known member
Booked a 1 day trip to Luce Bay Tope fishing again with pap’s on board Onyer Marks Two skippered by Matty. It was going to be a long day with a 4am wake up call, a 3.5hr drive followed by a day’s fishing and a 3.5hr drive back home before a 4.30am wake up alarm for work the following day but with past reports of pack tope showing and a smooth sea forecast it was worth a day of burn out ….or at least we hoped.
We arrived at 8.25am with 35mins to spare but the weather was not as forecast, sea flat as a mirror but dull and odd shower, we set up the three rods each while the boat was being lowered into the water.
We soon jumped on and on our way to try for some fresh bait on the tidal rip, after a while we managed about 31 mackerel, a herring, launce, codling and whiting to daylights so with a 40min trip to the tope mark at 22knot that had fished well the previous day we set off, by 10.10am we had our first line each in the water and it was a cracking day to be afloat.
Fishing in only 35ft of water let us use 2oz leads and the weight of half a mackerel to sink to the bottom and we never had to wait long, we had soon had runs and dropped two fish within the first 15mins due to being over excited to land the first one. With a bit more patients we let the bite/run develop more and tope on each, great to land the first one each and only small at 12-15lb still had us smiling.
Lines back down and 6 baits in the water as well as a rod for smaller stuff, then out of nowhere 4 out of 6 of the rods went wild and it was a mass panic to sort it out with only 3 pairs of hands on the boat…..we got all 4 fish in after a run around that was exciting and fun and back in the water straight away with the best one being 30lb or just shy.
Lines down again and yep 2 fish on again, after a few attempts at hitting the fishing right we had landed on what is known as “PACK TOPE” time and the tope kept coming onboard.At one point we went down to just 4 rods between us as A/ you could not run the risk of having 5-6 hook up’s at the same time and B/ could not get them baited up that quick anyway
By 12 noon we were happy with what we had caught with 11 tope landed and the skipper introduced me to a new method of tope fishing that I 100% absolutely loved…….”Tope Shading” in short you pick a small mackerel, remove its tail fin, use a 2-3oz lead and let it sink to the bottom, wind against the tide very slowly from the bottom until the top of the 35ft deep water and repeat. The fishing was unreal with tope following the mackerel right to the surface before turning away, mackerel coming back with lumps missing and after abit of fine turning and patience I got into the hang of it and soon landed 4 tope with this method and the best around 25-30lb…when they grab it they just take off like a rocket and the first few seconds you just hold onto the rod…great fun.
By 1.30pm we had a total of 18 tope in the boat and I stupidly asked the skipper what the record for the day this year was, he told me (but I won’t spoil it for others) and yep you guessed it Pack tope turned into no tope with only 1 more tope caught on a dead herring bait I had put down in the last 3hrs of fishing taken the total to 19 tope for the day between the two of us…ow and I should of added as many dog fish as you could shake a sh**y stick at when the tope went off the feed.
Ow and also should add pap’s landed two tope on a 1 hook trace J, a 20lber had taken the hook and a 12lber had taken the sliding boom that was red and had been tangled up in the rubbing leader, so 2 tope came in at once.
So we can’t complain a great day out and I was happy on the drive up with 3 each so to reach 10 was what I dreamt about and pap’s had 9 also taken the biggest one.
Grand total of fish between us on the day was…..
19 tope (12-30lb)
1 Bullhuss (5lb)
31 mackerel
6 launce
1 herring
1 codling
1 whiting
Over 30 dogfish
Great day out and fingers crossed the weather and the fishing holds for next Monday when me, Dave and Graham head up again for a bash at the “Pack Tope”
We arrived at 8.25am with 35mins to spare but the weather was not as forecast, sea flat as a mirror but dull and odd shower, we set up the three rods each while the boat was being lowered into the water.
We soon jumped on and on our way to try for some fresh bait on the tidal rip, after a while we managed about 31 mackerel, a herring, launce, codling and whiting to daylights so with a 40min trip to the tope mark at 22knot that had fished well the previous day we set off, by 10.10am we had our first line each in the water and it was a cracking day to be afloat.
Fishing in only 35ft of water let us use 2oz leads and the weight of half a mackerel to sink to the bottom and we never had to wait long, we had soon had runs and dropped two fish within the first 15mins due to being over excited to land the first one. With a bit more patients we let the bite/run develop more and tope on each, great to land the first one each and only small at 12-15lb still had us smiling.
Lines back down and 6 baits in the water as well as a rod for smaller stuff, then out of nowhere 4 out of 6 of the rods went wild and it was a mass panic to sort it out with only 3 pairs of hands on the boat…..we got all 4 fish in after a run around that was exciting and fun and back in the water straight away with the best one being 30lb or just shy.
Lines down again and yep 2 fish on again, after a few attempts at hitting the fishing right we had landed on what is known as “PACK TOPE” time and the tope kept coming onboard.At one point we went down to just 4 rods between us as A/ you could not run the risk of having 5-6 hook up’s at the same time and B/ could not get them baited up that quick anyway
By 12 noon we were happy with what we had caught with 11 tope landed and the skipper introduced me to a new method of tope fishing that I 100% absolutely loved…….”Tope Shading” in short you pick a small mackerel, remove its tail fin, use a 2-3oz lead and let it sink to the bottom, wind against the tide very slowly from the bottom until the top of the 35ft deep water and repeat. The fishing was unreal with tope following the mackerel right to the surface before turning away, mackerel coming back with lumps missing and after abit of fine turning and patience I got into the hang of it and soon landed 4 tope with this method and the best around 25-30lb…when they grab it they just take off like a rocket and the first few seconds you just hold onto the rod…great fun.
By 1.30pm we had a total of 18 tope in the boat and I stupidly asked the skipper what the record for the day this year was, he told me (but I won’t spoil it for others) and yep you guessed it Pack tope turned into no tope with only 1 more tope caught on a dead herring bait I had put down in the last 3hrs of fishing taken the total to 19 tope for the day between the two of us…ow and I should of added as many dog fish as you could shake a sh**y stick at when the tope went off the feed.
Ow and also should add pap’s landed two tope on a 1 hook trace J, a 20lber had taken the hook and a 12lber had taken the sliding boom that was red and had been tangled up in the rubbing leader, so 2 tope came in at once.
So we can’t complain a great day out and I was happy on the drive up with 3 each so to reach 10 was what I dreamt about and pap’s had 9 also taken the biggest one.
Grand total of fish between us on the day was…..
19 tope (12-30lb)
1 Bullhuss (5lb)
31 mackerel
6 launce
1 herring
1 codling
1 whiting
Over 30 dogfish
Great day out and fingers crossed the weather and the fishing holds for next Monday when me, Dave and Graham head up again for a bash at the “Pack Tope”
