Our second lads' trip down to North Devon came around very quickly. Doesn't seem that long since we were down in May and it was the same hardcore group of ageing hedonists that made their way back down the M5 once more, cars loaded up with surfboards, paddleboards, golf clubs and fishing tackle.
The weather on arrival was extremely pleasant and after unloading all the gear into the bungalow we were off down the beach, some of us to make the best of a small, but surfable wave and others to have a stomp in the direction of Crow Point and back. The following morning I was up before first light and on the road up to Ilfracombe for a dabble off the pier. Was a bit of a gloomy morning and I had to wait until about 7.30 before it was really light enough to see what I was doing. With about 2 hours to high tide, the bottom deck was already flooded but with nobody else there I had my pick of the spots up on the top, so headed to my usual "pouting hole". Had been unable to get any fresh worm locally but had a mackerel fillet and some raw king prawns from Lidl as adequate back-up baits.
Tackled up with my usual scratching rig, a mini two hook flapper with size 14 Kamasan Animals. Baited up with a slither of mackerel belly on the top and a chunk of prawn on the bottom and dropped it down the side of the wall. Ilfracombe can be a bit fickle at times but it has thrown up some unusual species for me, notably my first topknot and a Connemara clingfish.
Sport this time last year had been particularly fast and furious, so I was a bit disappointed not to get an instant bite as soon as the lead hit the bottom. In fact it was probably a full five minutes before I had a rattle on the rod tip resulting in the first fish of the morning, a rock goby. Next few drops down produced three different members of the cod squad - pollack, pouting and poor cod.
However, it was pretty slow compared to last visit and I quickly moved onto the next little bay between the wooden mooring posts in an attempt to find the fish. Had another rock goby and a couple of pollack before hooking something much bigger, probably one of the resident wrasse, that immediately stitched me up in the weed. However, managed to land a smaller consolation ballan wrasse a few casts later before spotting a bait ball of small fry being scattered by something bigger from below.
Dropping the rig through the shoal I immediately had another pollack on the drop on the mackerel belly strip, followed by a sand smelt. Quickly added several of the latter by just jigging the rig a couple of feet below the surface before the shoal moved off and it went quiet again.
Had put two hours on the parking ticket and with about fifteen minutes left the pouting finally decided to appear in numbers and I had half a dozen in rapid succession before I had to call it a day and get back to Saunton. A few other anglers had turned up by this stage, including a mum with her teenage son and a dad with his three young boys, which was not only good to see but also meant that there were some willing recipients for my un-used bait other than the greedy herring gulls. Got back in time to walk over to The Rock at Georgeham with the others for a couple of pints before rounding off the day with an excellent supper at Squires in Braunton - £15 for cod, unlimited chips, a side and a drink - what's not to like about that?
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