Had to move to the very far end of the deck and by the time the ferry had moored up I was left with about ten feet of wall to work with. Cursing my luck I temporarily put the bass rod away and concentrated on the LRF rod instead. Wasn't a problem in the end. The swell was creating a bit of movement at the end of the pier and this area appeared to be full of fish as a result.
After losing a couple of drop shot rigs, it was obvious that there were some hefty snags to my right, limiting me even further to where I could cast. However, by feeling the rig down and letting it bounce around gently just off the bottom I was soon into loads of little pollack and some sizeable sand smelt. Was well into double figures when Rob appeared with the others. Let him squeeze in next to me and he was soon into a succession of pollack himself, while I had a colourful, male corkwing wrasse.
During this time they had finished loading up the ferry and moved around to the upper deck again to allow the foot passengers to embark. Gave Rob the nod and we quickly moved into the vacated spot, but not before catching another ballan wrasse that came compete with one of the drop shot rigs I'd lost earlier! Fishing was bit slower in the new spot, but I thought there'd be a few more species around the pilings and it gave us a chance to put the other rod out in the hope of something bigger.
Left Craig in charge of the bait rod, while I carried on dropping down the side and was rewarded with a little poor cod and another ballan wrasse. Craig in the meantime was getting knocks and pulls and decided that it was time to reel in. However, the culprit was found to be a large velvet swimmer crab that had got the braid tangled around its legs.
Lobbed out some fresh baits into the same general area again and it wasn't long before the tip started rattling again. However, it was a fish this time in the shape of a small whiting. Not long after this, with the tide rising and the swell starting to breach the lower deck, we eventually decided to avoid wet feet and call it a day, but not before Craig repeated his crab-catching trick. This time it was a little spider crab, exquisitely camouflaged with bits of seaweed. Two locals in matching fishing gear had arrived on the upper deck by this stage as well and were busy casting over our bait rod - obviously some kind of subtle etiquette there that we missed, because when I snagged one of their lines retrieving ours I found myself apologising to them!
The next day I sneaked out of the bungalow before anybody else was up and made the short drive up the coast again to Ilfracombe to find the pier completely deserted. A text from Rob informed me that the others had decided to play golf, so I had a free rein in more ways than one. However, set up at the bottom of the steps down to the lower deck and never had to leave the spot! I'd caught the last hour of the ebb tide, which meant there was a bit of movement in the water around the pilings. 
Concentrating on the LRF rod, conditions again seemed ideal for the pollack and sand smelt, as they were both present in numbers and for a good half an hour it was a fish a chuck, the angle worm being grabbed on the drop, or as the rig hit bottom. As slack water approached the bites died off a bit. However, a few different species started to appear, including shannies, some really colourful little ballan wrasse and a grumpy-looking tompot blenny. Started getting some unhittable rattles after that.
In the hope that it was one of the "oddities" that had been coming out recently, I tied on a scaled down 2 hook flapper with size 16 hooks baited with scraps of ragworm. However, the culprit was revealed as an inevitable rock goby. Carried on for a bit longer, but the bites had slowed right down and the pier was now getting busy with the Sunday crowd, so called it a day.
Was nice to have been kept busy, but a shame that I'd not been able to add to the species list on what was probably my last trip to the coast this year. We'll have to see.......
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