Wrasse fishing in torbay: spots to treasure!!!

[CHUBB]

i love fishing for wrasse, they are beautiful fish, are hard fighters and they grow to decent sizes. i use all my rods but my favourite is a cheap £5 tourist spinning rod that is 5foot long witha cheap £2 mini reel with 20lb line, with this gear, good fish bend the rod double in half and give a great fight!!!! but when going for bigger things i use a bass rod as that also gives a lovely fight.

since we all help each other out, here are my fave places to go wrassing, the best baits in each case are ragworm, crab and shrimps/prawns (the problem with rag is that the smaller fish take it asweel, to remedy this situation, use shrimps, this uasualy only tempts the bigger fish,usually) how to fish them and the biggest fish to come out of them that i have seen:

1)
location - end steps (farthest from car park) on the inside of the end of the breakwater
how to fish - float a large bait off the steps about 5 foot, there is a ledge that the fish patrol under, or drop a simple weight and trace rig with same bait just beyond the ledge,
biggest seen - 4lb 15oz

2)
location - end of berry head (before hairy ledge)
how to fish - there are a few holes in this area, the best ones are on the far left in the little cove bit and in the hole directly opposite your spot. these are best reached with float or freelining (weight and trace), another tactic is to drop a freeliner straight down the rock face, biggest fish was caught on conger gear with mackerel head bait.
biggest seen - 6lbs 4oz

3)location - berry head platform
how to fish - once again it is a case of floating or freeling with the best spots being straight down at your feet, one good hole is on the rocks on the left of the platform, straight down.
biggest seen - 3lbs 9oz (have seen one hell of a HUUUUUUUUUGEEEEE wrasse swimming in and out of the pillars estimate from pics of 7lb wrasse in the paper, i'd say it was well over 7lbs !!!!!!!!!!!!)

4)location - hope's nose
how to fish - best results come from bottom rigs with floating proving to be good as well with freeling as an extra option, all over the nose is great with the right hand side(the rocky side) proving best, the holes and gullies throw up some monsters!
biggest fish seen - 7lbs 1oz

5) location - rocks between broadsands beach and elberry cove, check out torbay fishing for exact place (http://www.torbayfishing.com/guide-elberry-cove.htm )
how to fish - best place is in the big gully to the righ of your fishing spot but everywhere else is ok, float or better yet freeline in the gulley with biggest fish seen - 3lbs exact

6)location - battery point
hoe to fish - there is a really deep pool that is good with freeling or float between the mini island in front of you and you can also fish the rest by either float, bottoming or bumping a freeliner over the rocks(last method is sure to pick up absolutely TONS of samll black bream in summer, with ragworm baits).
biggest fish seen - 2lb 15oz

MORE LOCATIONS COMING SOON ( when i can be bothered to add them)
more input from others would be terrific but for now: that's all folks!

[Simon TorbayFishing]

Very, very nice post Chubb!

[duncan]

find hermit crab the killer bait when the water is clear - same on these marks?

[CHUBB]

never used hermit crab before, i usually just use ragworm because it is the cheapest thing to get but this year my main bait is going to be crab, i think.
if i dont have any decent baits with me, i also find limpets to be a useful bait, not as good as the big three(rag, crab and shrimp), but beggars cant be choosers. just prise it off the rock, remove the shell and pop it on the hook.

[CHUBB]

just like to add thanks to simon torbayfishing on his wonderful site that led me to the elberry cove spot.
http://www.torbayfishing.com/

[pingu]

nice post chubb, love wrasse fishing, usually off exmouth docks, use a small spinning rod and reel with braid on and they fight like stink . love it!!!
but otter head rocks(budliegh) can be good(beachcaster here tho)

as a wierd bait when down the docks you can even buy a pot of cockles from fishmongers for 60p and away you go

[pixybasher]

Just the info I was hoping to get Chubb, cheers for that. You mention the steps at the break water, is this the first set of steps you refer at the start?

Also on Simons site I did a review on Durl rock, although I never had a bite the last time I was there I reckon its going to do the business when the weather warms up.
Maybe we could have ago together soon.

[CHUBB]

the steps i mean are the last ones from the bottom. so the last steps you get to when walking to the far end.
as for wrassing at durls rock, i have been to my favourite spots at least once each and the cold weather seems to have forced them elsewhere, in the last month(FEB) i have only seen 4 wrasse come up, 2 small ones from berry head that were about 8oz, one on crab, the other on rag, and two beauties from the breakwater end steps that were caught by a friend that i was teaching (4lb 13oz wrasse made it a good lesson! ), that was caught on float with ragworm, and the last one was my 4lb 15oz from end steps again with ragworm on float.
overall pretty miserable, in the end of last summer, me and my best mate (POPLO) were catching 50+ fish at most of the marks i mentioned every trip!!!! (fish range from absolutley tiny to about 4lbs)

[pixybasher]

That sounds alright, want to get a nice wrasse this year.

[pixybasher]

Hi gang,

Having read the above thread I decided this morning to have a walk over to Broadsands and have a ganders at the old place again.The water was really murky after the Easterly winds over the last couple of days so you couldnt see the bottom to estimate the depth.
I took a few pics but didnt realise that simon had some on his site but I'll stick them in anyway.
This is the beach looking back from the pitch and put.

A few of the rocky outcrops I think Chubb my well be talking about.


Try and steer clear of this area cos in the summer months all your get here is speed boats and water skiers.


Another interesting spot is a place called DEVILS ARMCHAIR, thats the big rock in the centre of the picture, the beach behind is Salturn cove and Goodrington.Access to devils armchair is through the Waterside caravan park.Nobody checks who you are so parking is normally ok.