Berry Head Wed. 30 March

[Pross]

Fished Berry Head for the first time on Wednesday evening. Arrived about 8.00pm and by time I'd walked down there (didn't realise I could open the gate and drive down!) and set up it was about 8.30pm with HT being around 10.00pm. Having safely negotiated the steep track down the bank onto the concrete platform I promptly fell on one of cracks in the concrete skinning my leg and, as I found out later, cracking a bone in my hand so the omens weren't looking good. I fished using rag worm on a sliding float rig set at about 10 feet on my carp rod and on my first cast the bait had barely had time to settle when the float dipped out of sight and the rod twitched. I assumed it was snagging on rocks and left it only to get a bigger rattle that felt like a wrasse. I tightened up but didn't have anything on but my hook had been stripped. Having re-baited I cast out again, the float again dipped withing a minute and I left it for a while before tightening up and striking and this time felt a pull in return. I reeled in to find a pollack of about half a pound. This was quickly followed by 2 smaller pollack of about 6 to 8 inches and I was getting lots of what felt like wrasse bites over that first hour. It all went quiet then and at about 10.00pm I started thinking about packing up but instead tried the other end (left) of the platform. Again I started picking up what felt like wrasse bites but failed to hook into one and, with my hand hurting and feeling the cold in just a thin fleece, I called it a day at 10.30pm for the slog back up the hill. It didn't quite live up to the early promise but it was nice to be fishing again and even better catching and on such light gear was good fun. It was also good to fish a new venue and the view over Tor Bay on such a clear night was superb with a few fireworks over Torquay. Met a few other anglers on the way back up who between them had managed a mackerel, a herring (first time I've heard of anyone catching one, thought they weren't around the south coast anymore) and a few wrasse to 2lb. There were also 3 people down there when I arrived who were unsuccessfully chasing doggies but managed a few starfish between them. Looking forward to returning to Berry Head when the mackerel are in properly and taking my daughter for her first proper fishing trip.

Also managed to catch 83 crabs in 1.5 hours at Dartmouth (none peeling unfortunately!!!) and had a couple of hours off the rocks at Challaborough Bay on Tuesday evening without a bite using limpet on a pennel pulley rig.

[Fishing Forum Admin]

Nice read pross and hope your hand is ok

Sound great fun catching pollock on the float

[gullyworm]

Sounds a decent session,always nice to catch on light gear.
I had a walk on southsea pier last sunday and they were catching lots of Herring ,first time ive seen it down here.
PS Hope your hands better.

[Norfolkboy]

Lovely report Pross, hope the hand heels soon.

Nice to hear of some summer species being caught already

[Pross]

Yep, apparently quite a few mackerel around in that area at the moment but they are on the bottom so I'm waiting for them to come up higher for a bit of spot on the float and hopefully my fly rod. Hand is OK but it's an awkward spot at the base of my thumb so I keep putting pressure on it.

[pingu]

unlucky pross
know what you mean about that walk
hope hand beter, glad too hear fish about again

[CHUBB]

nice one, good to know that the wrassing is picking up a bit!

when i was playing rugby i used to run up and down that hill a couple of times for post christmas fitness training, its not so bad without having to lug gear up and down!

i dont know if i caught herring before, i caught some fish before that looked like them and when i looked them up, some sources said sprat, some said herring so who knows, but it will be good to break out some light spinning gear again!!!

[Simon TorbayFishing]

Sounds like the summer fish are starting to arrive as the bay has been almost devoid of fish for the last few weeks.