Calmer waters greet the angling community

What a difference a week makes!

Last week, twenty intrepid anglers from Honiton SAC arrived at Budleigh Salterton to fish their match in strong South-easterly winds, by the end of the match only six anglers remained on the beach with Colin Berry taking the honours.

This week, fourteen anglers arrived on Beer beach for the monthly species hunt aboard Orca and Sambe to be greeted with flat calm conditions. The fishing was steady throughout the day with some reasonable fish coming aboard.

Ten species were boated, including Smoothounds, some nice Wrasse and a surprise Ling. As the points were added up at the end of the day, it became clear that there was no clear winner with four anglers scoring 230 points, fortunately I was one of the four.

Rays are showing well in the Bristol channel and, along with Smoothounds, are making up the bulk of the catches. Kev Dewey fished out of Portishead and landed a Blonde Ray in excess of 15lbs, whilst father and son duo of Terry and Liam Hartnell shore fished, both landing Conger Eels and Small eyed rays with Liam landing the biggest ray, a fish of just over 11lbs.

John Huteson of Brixham SAC fished a South Hams beach using a whole Mackerel for bait and broke his personal best weight for a Bull huss for the second time in two weeks, this time with a fish of 11lbs 5oz.

A few Gilthead Bream have been recorded from the usual marks, although nothing big yet, and Bass continue to show well on both lures and bait from both estuaries and the open sea.

Charter boats, Spot On from Brixham and Silver Halo from Torquay have managed to get out in the last few days and are fishing the wrecks, finding Bass, Pollack, Cod and the occasional large Tub Gurnard.

News has come through this week that Junior England Shore fishing team are in need of support and details can be found on gofundme.com. These youngsters are the future of our sport.

Newbarn Angling Centre continues to produce some nice fish, this week Tim Frost landed a Carp of around 17lbs on Max Attract Super G wafter. Willow pool is producing plenty of smaller Carp as well as silver fish.

This week, anglers are fishing the specimen pool for silver fish with the intention of putting them in the other pools.

NAFA held the second round of the Four-Season Carp competition, with Andy Short taking the honours this time with a total weight of 116lbs 4oz, Lewis Harding was next with 89lbs and Matt Dore third with 48lbs 4oz, the next round is the summer round.

Entries are still being taken for our fish of the month competition kindly sponsored by Sidewinder Lures and Newbarn Angling Centre. Please email your catch reports to johnsherlockfish@gmail.com