An Estuary Closer to Home

Having had an early session fishing the morning low tide just after sunrise and having some bait left over (see previous post about the Taw / Torridge Estuary here), we decided to try the Exe Estuary in the afternoon to use the left over lugworm. By “we” this time my wife joined me rather than the kids. Again I was mainly targeting bass but in the outside hope of finding some of the elusive Gilthead bream whilst also getting to know one of our local venues a little better.

We parked ok, but struggled to find a route through to the waters edge. We eventually sussed out how to access the water, and set up two pike rods on a likely looking sandbank. It was low tide by the time we were ready to start fishing and being on a low bank with gullies behind us, I was very conscious of the risk of getting cut off by rising water. I reasoned we needed to pack up and leave by the time the water had risen to my rod rest.

We chatted to a chap collecting peeler crabs from his “traps” who concurred with my assessment whilst at the same time giving me hope that we should see some fish.

As it was, the fishing was pretty exciting! No sooner was a rod cast out and put in the rod rest than the tip was banging round. A small bass was landed, unhooked and returned. The new cast had the same result, and the next, and the next… As it was, we struggled to get two rods cast out the action was so full on. I ended up landing 10 small bass whilst Maria landed one on the second rod whilst I was busy with the first, on the rare occasion we managed to find time to cast the second one out.

All the fish were small with the exception of one solitary fish that stood out from the crowd. Not a monster but good fun on a light pike rod.

We stopped fishing and called it a day when we ran out of bait. Don’t think we fished more than 45 minutes it was that hectic. Had a lot of fun and one nice fish at least to show for it all. Not bad for the left over bait..

Taw & Torridge Estuary

Following the previous weekends excitement of exploring a new venue I returned again, but with the kids this time. We decided to fish the morning low tide so left the house about 4am and drove with some enthusiasm up to North Devon, enjoying the sunrise along the way.

We set up two pike rods with simple rigs and small light gauge hooks – loaded with fresh lugworm. We didn’t get many bites but those we did get were really cracking bites. I landed a small schoolie, and Izzy missed another bite on the second rod as I was unhooking the first Bass.

It was apparent that it was a spring tide as the water was rising so much faster this time than the week before. We seemed to spend most the time and energy relocating the rod rest rather than actually watching the rods. We fished an hour or so, up from low tide before deciding to call it a day and go grab a breakfast of fast food goodness.

After breakfast and a leisurely drive home we were back in bed for a quick snooze by 9:30 in the morning.

On the search for Bream

I’ve caught many black bream from boats off the south coast as well as red bream years ago when fishing on a boat off of Newquay. I’ve never caught a bream from the shore or even seen the other main bream species more commonly seen in the uk – the Gilthead bream. Having read a couple of articles on Gilthead bream I recently decided it was time to try to rectify things and target Giltheads from the shore.

As far as I can tell the estuaries of the south west are where the majority of Gilthead catches are made so I picked an estuary I know well to start at. This combined with some amazingly hot and sunny weather meant I felt I would be in with a realistic shot.

A hunt through the freezer turned up a half dozen old frozen peeler crab and after arriving at my chosen venue at low tide, a half hour digging at the beach left me with a few lugworm and in a good position to start fishing.

I took a carp rod and bait runner reel to bait fish which I set up with a simple two hook flapper rig with small sharp hooks. I started off fishing crab on one hook and worm on the other. Whilst the bait rod was out, I tried a bit of lure fishing in the hope of catching a bass or two. The stringy green weed fouling the hook on every retrieve soon persuaded by to give up on the lure fishing. If I’d remembered to bring the soft plastics I would have probably fished small weedless plastics but as it was, in my quest to travel light I’d left them at home.

I didn’t get any bites for the first hour but as the tide started pushing in and I was thinking I was wasting my time one of the baits was smashed – the rod tip was pulled right down a couple of foot and nearly out of the rod rest. I missed the bite. On inspection it was the worm that had elicited the interest. A rebait and recast resulted in another identical bite almost as soon as the rod was back in the rod rest. Again the worm was gone so I baited both hooks with lug.

From then on I had an exciting spell of casting and getting immediate savage bites. Some bites were real belters where the tip was just smashed down whilst others were real savage rattlers. Whilst I was using a light carp rod so easy bite detection was only to be expected, I was still surprised by the aggressive bites – two of which resulted in small bass.

The fishing stopped when the lugworm ran out and I headed back to the car, enthused although none the wiser as to whether any of the bites I’d missed were bream or not. I guess I’ll just have to try again soon.

A Belated Start to the Coarse Fishing Season

A busy life got in the way of Jason’s & mine usual fishing trip to mark the start of the coarse fishing season. We eventually got a date in the diary for only a couple of weeks after the glorious 16th.

Glaston Manor Angling have now upgraded their website to allow the purchase on day ticket online which is fantastic for us and saved the hassle of trying to get to a tackle shop to buy the license before fishing. Anyway, with electronic proof of our purchases on the phones, we kicked off our 2022 coarse fishing by meeting at one of our favourite haunts – West Lydford on the river Brue.

All the usual swims were fishable and we had great weather, but water that was reasonably coloured. Hardly any fish visible at surface which didn’t bode well for fly fishing. We started off with a quick walk of the bank – I took my fly rod and Jason his light lure rod. We gave the stretch a quick exploratory effort that wasn’t rewarded with any immediate success so re-tackled with float gear.

I float fished maggot and had a few gudgeon and minnows before managing to pull out a fun sized cub of around or just under a pound by casting in under an overhanging tree on the opposite bank.

Jason had quite a few small chub plus a really heafty chub on double maggot. Quite a monster!

Despite the success it wasn’t long before we decided to explore other sections of the Brue and headed up to Wallyers Bridge.

This is one of my favourite stretches of river but today it was very windy, more overgrown than usual and looked pretty unfished. In fact it was largely unfishable for the whole stretch except the first corner.

We persevered for a while, in which time I landed a few fun sized roach and a perch – all on float fished double maggot. With the fishing proving less than thrilling we moved on again to Flight Weir.

Again it was breezy and only really the weir swim fishable. The rest of down stream river was either fenced off or overgrown, and the upper section above the weir – its usual state but super windy.

We settled into the weir swim and started catching numerous small roach and chub. Jason caught plenty of nice chub and perch before the sun started to set, the temperature drop and we decided to wrap it up for the day.

Good to be back out – successful to some extent but not quite the day’s fishing we had thought.