I think that in years to come, I'll look back on 2018 as one of the oddest years of shore fishing I've ever experienced. For sure, every individual year has its quirks, but '18 seemed to be characterised by a far more bipolar up-and-down nature than any I have fished through previously. After the lacklustre winter of 2017 where I'd become so disillusioned with my usual winter haunts that I'd chosen to spend the colder months mostly fishing rough ground, the early spring of '18 had been something that I'd looked forward to. As the ocean surrounding my native north coast began to settle after its winter upheaval, my first trips out on to the open shore were met by this unsettling feeling that something was very wrong. Usually I associate spring with a feeling of freshness and opportunity; a change of weather and a new influx of hungry fish. This past spring, however, it felt as if very little had moved in to replace what little had been there in the winter. Despite catching the odd fish, the vibe of the ocean and the way it made me feel to be beside it was... empty. It was as if the sea had fallen into some strange state of depression, losing its vibrancy and becoming a barely-living shadow of its former self. The fish just weren't there as they should have been.
Although the year started poor and fished really badly for some species, the 2018 shore season was definitely characterised for me by some of the high points being particularly good. I had a healthy slice of good fortune in February when I caught a ling on my first attempt of the year, following it up with new PBs for spotted ray, golden grey mullet and bull huss in later months. I also had my first tangle with what I would call 'proper' tope from the shore through July also, and seeing as the ling and tope captures haven't been documented in any of my writing throughout 2018, it's these I'm going to describe in detail for this piece. It seems only fitting to start with the ling.
My first step on the ladder to ling success came some years before when I was passed some delicate information about a couple of marks that I'd be most likely to encounter them from. For some reason during my species hunt in 2016, I never got round to trying any of these places for ling and it wasn't until November of 2017 that I made my first visit to the mark that would end up delivering the goods. After a substantial trek through the fields, I found myself at the top of the cliff looking down at my chosen mark with the tide already well on the way to high and the water carrying some colour from a recent blow. I remember feeling comfortable and confident setting up on this new spot which had a natural flat platform and a big panorama of water with lots of depth variations to explore. Almost instantly I caught a decent pollack of about 6lbs on half a herring but had very little else for the rest of the session. Still, I was intrigued by this promising new mark and it remained in my thoughts as one to visit again soon.
For whatever reason it wasn't until February of 2018 that I eventually made my second visit to the ling mark. The day was crisp with a wind that bit cruelly right through to the bones, even through several heavy layers. This time I had arrived at low tide and I could see well into the clear water, spying a good few submerged rocks and tangles of kelp that had gone unseen on my previous visit. After a few speculative casts, I was soon able to identify where there was a definite deepening of the subsurface terrain into a natural hole, slightly off to my right and at relatively short range. It was here that I decided to concentrate my efforts, lobbing my large fishy offerings into this newly-discovered pit.
What followed throughout the day was a predictable series of rattling bites and the occasional tiny eel that managed the improbable task of choking down an 8/0 Koike Wide Mouth. To be honest, I wasn't expecting much in the way of serious action until dark, but I reasoned that it's always good to get some daytime experience on an unfamiliar mark. As night drew in, the bites slowed to nothing over the high water period, to the point where I began to wonder if there was something big patrolling down there and scaring all the smaller fish back into their hidey holes. I waited... and waited. The thrill of anticipation dwindled as the minutes turned to hours and with the ebb now well underway, I decided that I was going to make the next two casts my last as I had under an hour of fishing time left. These last two casts went back into the pit and I began to tidy away all the bits and pieces that I'd strewn across the rocks.
I'd just cleaned off my chopping board when I happened to look up and notice my left hand rod tap over a few times, accompanied by a couple of clicks from the ratchet of the 535. I stopped what I was doing, paying attention to the now-developing bite, my eyes glued to the luminous tip and the tension in the bright yellow line. The tip shuddered and the line dropped suddenly and I leapt up to grab the rod, feeling down the line for signals with every tactile sense sharpened in readiness. My fingers detected two firm taps and I reeled down hard before lifting into something that was very much dead weight. The fight was completely unremarkable, much like hauling up a large crab, until the fish neared the surface where it nodded a few times. As the head broke the surface, it looked for an instant like that of a cod, until the elongated body that followed gave away the identity of my target species: a decent ling!
What followed was one of the most calamitous attempts at landing a fish that I have ever made. I had borrowed a gaff from my friend Mark Reed for this trip as I had somehow managed to lose mine during the previous month, and it was with this wickedly sharp implement that I made my effort to pluck the beaten fish from the water. The odd wave was coming through and swamping the most obvious rock to stand on so, although it would be awkward, for safety's sake I stayed a bit higher and tried to use the sea to bring the fish to me. A likely swell brought the floating ling up just within range and I stretched out with the gaff, managing to get a tiny hold in the skin. I decided to go with it and began to lift smoothly, only for the fish to instantly flap itself free from the gaff’s point, knocking the gaff clean out of my hands and into the drink. I swore bitterly as my prize clattered onto the rock below, further up than it had been, but still out of reach. With the gaff now floating away, I was forced to go for the lift, grabbing hold of the line and carefully drawing the fish towards me. Luckily, the hook and line held and with a final triumphant heave, I brought the fish to hand and claimed it with a victorious bellow.
The fish had gorged the bait right down and, looking into its throat, I was glad I was using 150lb trace as the line had evidently been grating against its impressive array of teeth. I killed the fish quickly and popped it into a rockpool, getting my scales out of my rucksack, eager to see what sort of weight it might go. It was gloriously fat for a ling, evidently this was a fish in breeding condition, and it made 8lbs 8oz on the Reuben Heatons; a fine prize from the shore and one that would go on to make a fantastic meal for my family a couple of nights later.
Five months later and I was making the early morning drive to a mark that I knew had been absolutely living with tope the night before. My friends Mark and Roy had taken a chance on a likely area and hit the jackpot big time, scoring many runs between them and managing to land several tope each in amongst the ones lost through gear failure, breakages and hook pulls. These were fish running from the mid-teens to the mid-twenties in pounds, not large by many people's standards but both Mark and Roy reported that in the deep water and strong tide, they were a stern test for normal beach gear and got the adrenaline pumping harder then they'd felt in some time.
To anglers in other parts of the country where tope run bigger and are a more frequent and predictable catch from the shore, the prospect of putting in many hours for the chance of a few smallish pack tope may seem like small beer, but this is mostly what is on offer to Cornish anglers. Although the waters around our county do attract and hold the species, they are seldom caught from the shore in these times and many good anglers have never had the pleasure. Having already put in a few sessions chasing tope through the early summer with no success, the prospect of a virtually guaranteed shot at my first sizable one (I'd caught a couple around the 5-6lb mark in previous years) was something that I just could not pass up.
I'd made all the necessary preparations, coming tooled up with wire traces, plenty of bait and a huge net but still the reality of what I was doing didn't hit home until the rod arched over and the ratchet sizzled off within 10 minutes of my first bait going out. I let the tope run for a short time before leaning in and setting the hook. The fish pulled powerfully, taking line against the clutch but I soon turned it and was making headway when suddenly everything went light. Reeling in, I discovered that one of the crimps on the bite trace had slipped (I wasn't using a Flemish loop at that point). After getting the pliers on the case and tightening up the crimps on all the other traces, I cast again and this time when the run came I suffered no such mishaps and fought the lively fish into the side before landing it safely. This was a long, lean male pack tope and I carried it in the net up to where I had made my base camp. After photographing and weighing the fish carefully, I slipped it back into the navy blue depths and watched it as it sinuously made its way back out to sea to rejoin its companions.
The rest of the session passed in a frustrating blur of missed runs. I had at least another four good takes that I just did not connect with and unfortunately by the time I thought to change my hooking arrangement, the runs had dried up. Still, there was a valuable lesson to be learned; the single 8/0 hook that had been successful for Mark the previous night and that he had suggested to me in place of my usual 6/0 pennels, was evidently not suiting the way the tope were taking the bait this particular morning. I know that with any shark species you can expect a certain amount of missed bites, but one fish landed out of maybe 6 runs is an unacceptably poor return, particularly when on a normal day you might be fishing for the opportunity of just one pickup. It occurred to me yet again how often it is that different things work for different people too. Some people fish combinations of rigs and hooks for certain species that I would just never choose and vice versa. Part of the fun of fishing is that there's a learning curve that comes with every species and it's the building of a relationship with the target fish and finding out what works for me by trial and error that makes me a better angler for the next time. Ultimately, there is no substitute for first hand experience, something that as far as tope are concerned, I'll definitely be looking for more of in 2019.
Although the year started poor and fished really badly for some species, the 2018 shore season was definitely characterised for me by some of the high points being particularly good. I had a healthy slice of good fortune in February when I caught a ling on my first attempt of the year, following it up with new PBs for spotted ray, golden grey mullet and bull huss in later months. I also had my first tangle with what I would call 'proper' tope from the shore through July also, and seeing as the ling and tope captures haven't been documented in any of my writing throughout 2018, it's these I'm going to describe in detail for this piece. It seems only fitting to start with the ling.
My first step on the ladder to ling success came some years before when I was passed some delicate information about a couple of marks that I'd be most likely to encounter them from. For some reason during my species hunt in 2016, I never got round to trying any of these places for ling and it wasn't until November of 2017 that I made my first visit to the mark that would end up delivering the goods. After a substantial trek through the fields, I found myself at the top of the cliff looking down at my chosen mark with the tide already well on the way to high and the water carrying some colour from a recent blow. I remember feeling comfortable and confident setting up on this new spot which had a natural flat platform and a big panorama of water with lots of depth variations to explore. Almost instantly I caught a decent pollack of about 6lbs on half a herring but had very little else for the rest of the session. Still, I was intrigued by this promising new mark and it remained in my thoughts as one to visit again soon.
For whatever reason it wasn't until February of 2018 that I eventually made my second visit to the ling mark. The day was crisp with a wind that bit cruelly right through to the bones, even through several heavy layers. This time I had arrived at low tide and I could see well into the clear water, spying a good few submerged rocks and tangles of kelp that had gone unseen on my previous visit. After a few speculative casts, I was soon able to identify where there was a definite deepening of the subsurface terrain into a natural hole, slightly off to my right and at relatively short range. It was here that I decided to concentrate my efforts, lobbing my large fishy offerings into this newly-discovered pit.
What followed throughout the day was a predictable series of rattling bites and the occasional tiny eel that managed the improbable task of choking down an 8/0 Koike Wide Mouth. To be honest, I wasn't expecting much in the way of serious action until dark, but I reasoned that it's always good to get some daytime experience on an unfamiliar mark. As night drew in, the bites slowed to nothing over the high water period, to the point where I began to wonder if there was something big patrolling down there and scaring all the smaller fish back into their hidey holes. I waited... and waited. The thrill of anticipation dwindled as the minutes turned to hours and with the ebb now well underway, I decided that I was going to make the next two casts my last as I had under an hour of fishing time left. These last two casts went back into the pit and I began to tidy away all the bits and pieces that I'd strewn across the rocks.
I'd just cleaned off my chopping board when I happened to look up and notice my left hand rod tap over a few times, accompanied by a couple of clicks from the ratchet of the 535. I stopped what I was doing, paying attention to the now-developing bite, my eyes glued to the luminous tip and the tension in the bright yellow line. The tip shuddered and the line dropped suddenly and I leapt up to grab the rod, feeling down the line for signals with every tactile sense sharpened in readiness. My fingers detected two firm taps and I reeled down hard before lifting into something that was very much dead weight. The fight was completely unremarkable, much like hauling up a large crab, until the fish neared the surface where it nodded a few times. As the head broke the surface, it looked for an instant like that of a cod, until the elongated body that followed gave away the identity of my target species: a decent ling!
What followed was one of the most calamitous attempts at landing a fish that I have ever made. I had borrowed a gaff from my friend Mark Reed for this trip as I had somehow managed to lose mine during the previous month, and it was with this wickedly sharp implement that I made my effort to pluck the beaten fish from the water. The odd wave was coming through and swamping the most obvious rock to stand on so, although it would be awkward, for safety's sake I stayed a bit higher and tried to use the sea to bring the fish to me. A likely swell brought the floating ling up just within range and I stretched out with the gaff, managing to get a tiny hold in the skin. I decided to go with it and began to lift smoothly, only for the fish to instantly flap itself free from the gaff’s point, knocking the gaff clean out of my hands and into the drink. I swore bitterly as my prize clattered onto the rock below, further up than it had been, but still out of reach. With the gaff now floating away, I was forced to go for the lift, grabbing hold of the line and carefully drawing the fish towards me. Luckily, the hook and line held and with a final triumphant heave, I brought the fish to hand and claimed it with a victorious bellow.
The fish had gorged the bait right down and, looking into its throat, I was glad I was using 150lb trace as the line had evidently been grating against its impressive array of teeth. I killed the fish quickly and popped it into a rockpool, getting my scales out of my rucksack, eager to see what sort of weight it might go. It was gloriously fat for a ling, evidently this was a fish in breeding condition, and it made 8lbs 8oz on the Reuben Heatons; a fine prize from the shore and one that would go on to make a fantastic meal for my family a couple of nights later.
Five months later and I was making the early morning drive to a mark that I knew had been absolutely living with tope the night before. My friends Mark and Roy had taken a chance on a likely area and hit the jackpot big time, scoring many runs between them and managing to land several tope each in amongst the ones lost through gear failure, breakages and hook pulls. These were fish running from the mid-teens to the mid-twenties in pounds, not large by many people's standards but both Mark and Roy reported that in the deep water and strong tide, they were a stern test for normal beach gear and got the adrenaline pumping harder then they'd felt in some time.
To anglers in other parts of the country where tope run bigger and are a more frequent and predictable catch from the shore, the prospect of putting in many hours for the chance of a few smallish pack tope may seem like small beer, but this is mostly what is on offer to Cornish anglers. Although the waters around our county do attract and hold the species, they are seldom caught from the shore in these times and many good anglers have never had the pleasure. Having already put in a few sessions chasing tope through the early summer with no success, the prospect of a virtually guaranteed shot at my first sizable one (I'd caught a couple around the 5-6lb mark in previous years) was something that I just could not pass up.
I'd made all the necessary preparations, coming tooled up with wire traces, plenty of bait and a huge net but still the reality of what I was doing didn't hit home until the rod arched over and the ratchet sizzled off within 10 minutes of my first bait going out. I let the tope run for a short time before leaning in and setting the hook. The fish pulled powerfully, taking line against the clutch but I soon turned it and was making headway when suddenly everything went light. Reeling in, I discovered that one of the crimps on the bite trace had slipped (I wasn't using a Flemish loop at that point). After getting the pliers on the case and tightening up the crimps on all the other traces, I cast again and this time when the run came I suffered no such mishaps and fought the lively fish into the side before landing it safely. This was a long, lean male pack tope and I carried it in the net up to where I had made my base camp. After photographing and weighing the fish carefully, I slipped it back into the navy blue depths and watched it as it sinuously made its way back out to sea to rejoin its companions.
The rest of the session passed in a frustrating blur of missed runs. I had at least another four good takes that I just did not connect with and unfortunately by the time I thought to change my hooking arrangement, the runs had dried up. Still, there was a valuable lesson to be learned; the single 8/0 hook that had been successful for Mark the previous night and that he had suggested to me in place of my usual 6/0 pennels, was evidently not suiting the way the tope were taking the bait this particular morning. I know that with any shark species you can expect a certain amount of missed bites, but one fish landed out of maybe 6 runs is an unacceptably poor return, particularly when on a normal day you might be fishing for the opportunity of just one pickup. It occurred to me yet again how often it is that different things work for different people too. Some people fish combinations of rigs and hooks for certain species that I would just never choose and vice versa. Part of the fun of fishing is that there's a learning curve that comes with every species and it's the building of a relationship with the target fish and finding out what works for me by trial and error that makes me a better angler for the next time. Ultimately, there is no substitute for first hand experience, something that as far as tope are concerned, I'll definitely be looking for more of in 2019.