Bracklesham Tope - 10th August 07

Lewis 77 · #1 08-16-2007, 07:54 PM

This is the first time since my computers been repaired that I can write about a trip to Bracklesham beach, near Pompey, myself and my mate ollie (Flying Fox on this site) made last Friday Evening - 10th August.

After a couple of my friends had caught, landed and lost tope at this venue the previous week, over low tide and in very shallow water, me and ollie decided to try in darkness over high water.

Arrived at the beach at 8pm and managed to catch some fresh mackerel for bait just as it was getting dark, a few scad which were returned, a small thornback, and few pout. Set up the rod with a slosh reel with 15lb line, a 60 leader, then a length of 100lb line joined to a wire trace and 6/0 hook.

As it got dark we both chucked out half a side of mackerel about 40 yards and waited. At about 10pm Ollie had the first take and after a 15 minute struggle he eventually landed the fish. We tried to work out a way of weighing the fish but couldnt think of way of doing it without harming the fish so we measured it and it was in excess of 160cm. My mate had one the previous week of virtually the same size which went 45lb but this fish ollie had was leaner so we estimated it around the 38lb mark.

The fish was pictured then returned carefully. Here is a poor mobile phone pic.

We waited another two hours with no more bites and agreed to give it a couple more casts then go home when I had a bite and the line steadily left my reel at speed and headed for the Isle of Wight! The fish took about 70 yards of line off the reel and didnt seem to want to stop. After a while it turned round and headed inshore towards us and headed towards a pipe outfall. Had to give the fish a bit of stick to bring it towards us and then I managed to get the leader line on the reel and fish within a few feet of the beach. For about 5 minutes it was swimming on the edge of the shore making a few attempted darts back out to see. After playing the fish for about 15 minutes I managed to get it in on an incoming wave and beach it.

This fish was slightly shorter than the first but was more solid and felt in good condition. Managed to place the fish into two green sacks and weigh it by the bags handles and the tope weighed 35lb 4oz. We used digital scales which can weigh fish upto a possible of 55lb. Again the fish was pictured then returned.

Here is a picture of the topes mouth ....

Had another chuck then left for home. Not a bad evening as we both caught our biggest ever fish from the beach. Tried the following night, a few scad and pout but no tope. Find it very strange how shallow water these fish come into, no more than 10 foot deep at most where we were fishing.

Have some better pictures on my digital camera which i will put on this thread once i re-install all the software which I lost when my computer got replaced.