Well, I have to admit that since early November, my fishing has slowed down quite a bit. Not so much because I’ve lost any desire to get out there, but more because of the double whammy of a fairly intense period of work at college and some car trouble. I strongly contend that a solid car is the most important piece of fishing tackle that people rarely talk about. Without a reliable car, I am back to fishing only in the Newquay area and/or relying on the willingness of others to let me tag along on their trips further afield. Since July or so, I’ve had an old petrol Astra estate that I bought from a dodgy place at a low price just to get back on the road after I wrote off my old car. The Astra saw me pretty well up until recently when it just decided that it didn’t like its new life as a fishing vehicle and conked out. Recently, I have acquired a newer Vectra estate – a very nice car but one that has proven to have some teething troubles that are in the process of being worked out. The upshot of all this is, that I have been without a fully drivable car for about a month now.
Nevertheless, I have been fishing here and there. Lately I managed to get over to the Fal and had a pleasant evening’s fishing there, catching huss and codling along with a blizzard of whiting. My most recent fishing trip though was a mission to the Bristol Channel, an area that I have fished a number of times over the last few years and one that I really haven’t cracked at all in the sense of consistent results. This was originally meant to be my new car’s maiden voyage proper, but come the hour, it was away having its niggles sorted out so my mate Mark ended up doing the driving honours. Thanks Mark! In the event, I had some decent fishing, catching a ray, a few codling and some other bits – which was as good as I’d hoped for, given the latest reports! So, with a lack of anything else to write about, I thought I’d rattle off something about the Channel as it really is a great area to fish and it seems to me that it does get passed over a bit (perhaps unfairly) in favour of places like Chesil.
From the moment you step out onto a reef in the mid Bristol Channel, you can tell that you’re in a pretty special habitat. Crabs scuttle away from your headlamp beam, scurrying into crevices and under boulders. The surfaces of the rocks are dotted with oysters and limpets, whilst the reef structure itself is arranged in crazed fractured grid patterns, as if a giant child put together a jigsaw puzzle, than smashed it into bits and left it all over the floor. Trying to imagine the forces over time that sculpted these intertidal landscapes is a bit of a brain-boggler for me. In the midst of what seems like a lot of seemingly shapeless chaos, you find these intricate lattices of rock that hardly look like they could have been carved by something as unconscious as geological processes.
The Bristol Channel is a compelling part of the country to visit and fish. Having only fished the England side between the Minehead area up to Hinkley power station, I have had far from the full taste of what the Channel has to offer, but I have journeyed up there a fair few times and sampled a healthy number of spots in the area I described. There’s a lot of advice out there on what to expect and where to go at certain times but hopefully I can come up with a few things that I’ve learnt or been told that aren’t readily available or thought about, but which may be useful for anyone who is tempted to give the Channel a try. The Channel has a bit of a reputation as a challenging place to fish, and I would say that it is, but it’s not that bad. If it was, nobody would ever pull a fish out of it, and there’s plenty of anglers catching plenty of fish up there.
First off, the things that are reasonably common knowledge, the water in most of the Bristol Channel is a muddy brown. This ‘brown-ness’ tends to clear a bit the more you head past Minehead towards North Devon. A beach like Bossington to the south west of Minehead can be reasonably clear on a neap tide to pretty murky on a spring. In the main part of the Channel, this has the advantage to the angler that the fish can’t see any element of your line or terminal tackle so you can be as crude as you want and get away with it scot-free. Secondly, due to the huge tidal range, you spend a lot of time moving about and there are relatively few marks where you can practically stay fishing the same spot for an entire tide cycle. Most of the well-known spots are best fished over a window of four hours or so, typically over high or low water. Some you can get a bit longer on if you are a longer caster and prepared to crank like a madman on the retrieve. Third, it’s possible to catch fish in ridiculously shallow water, even in blazing sunshine.
I thought what might be useful in this piece is to go over some of the marks that I’ve spent some time at and to talk about what they’re like to fish, what I’ve caught there and what else can be caught there. I must say, I’ve never had a really spectacular trip to the Channel but I’ve had plenty of solid and enjoyable fishing. The first time I ever went to the Minehead area was probably one of my better trips; we had great sport with smoothhounds, I caught some nice rays and we fished some great marks with stunning weather the whole two days. Since then, I’ve probably been on about another 8-10 trips to the Channel, usually fishing a few different marks and increasingly favouring the more mid-Channel area.
Starting at the nearest towards the mouth of the Channel, I’ve fished Bossington beach a few times, mostly for smoothhounds which it seems to be a pretty reliable spot for in season. I tend to favour the middle of the beach, perhaps a little to the left as this seems to be one of the less snaggy spots. Go too far left though and you start hitting snags again; I seem to recall there’s some sort of concrete pipe or something that runs out here. The tide run on this beach is very strong on a spring but this does make for exciting fishing when you get a huge slack liner from a rampaging smoothie. I’ve also caught codling, and a few other bits and pieces here. It can produce almost anything though, so I’m told. The beach itself is very comfortable to fish, being made up of smooth stones arranged in terraces. Sometimes the terraces can be a bit short which hampers casting a bit, but generally it’s okay. You can fish all the way down to low and back here but there really isn’t much water over a spring low and I’ve felt like I was wasting my time when I tried this. A few hours either side of high seems to be best.
Heading further towards Minehead, I have fished Selworthy and Greenaleigh once each, which isn’t enough to say that I really know them at all. My enduring memory of Selworthy was that it was a fair old trek to get out and down there, but a beautiful open sandy beach and one that I’d like to revisit at some point. The fishing for ray, turbot and bass is supposed to be very good here on the right day, although I seem to remember I blanked when we fished it. Greenaleigh, I think, is another spot that is supposed to be decent for ray although I can’t remember catching much here either. This is more of a boulder beach giving on to sand and like Selworthy, fished over low water. The next spot round is one that I have spent some time on; the White Mark by Minehead. I have fished here both in front of the White Mark itself and in front of the huts further towards the town. In front of the White Mark is a good spot for ray, I’ve had spotted, small eyed and blonde here as well as other bits and bobs. This is a bit of a funny place; although at low water it seems as if you’re fishing over sand, snags can be frequent and I suspect these are odd boulders that quickly become monstrous line snags. A lead lift or a lead that planes quickly to the surface is a big help and I usually use one of the Finn type leads when I fish here. I’ve caught smoothhounds in front of the huts but have only fished it once. Again, I found this spot to have more than one or two line snags. I’ve only fished around Minehead in winter once at the mark known as Golf Links, which I didn’t get any codling at but I know it has a good reputation for producing them.
The next spot up I’ve fished is the gap in the stakes between Blue Anchor and Dunster; I didn’t have a great deal here but I could see why this is a decent spot. The ground at low water looks very fishy. Further along, I’ve fished a couple of spots at St Audries Bay, namely the reefs out to the left (which I didn’t get much at) and the beach itself over high water, which I had a few congers from. I think here the reefs would be better over a spring low, whilst the beach is best fished on a smaller tide as you wouldn’t be left with much beach on a bigger one! Next up is the reef at Kilve, which I’ve only fished the once and found a very fishy looking area but quite snaggy. It’s definitely one I would go back to though as I think you could get a longer fish here than on some of the other reefs in the area.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the Lilstock area, mainly fishing the beach, which is a popular venue, although I have fished the reef a couple of times too. Lilstock beach is one best fished over a smallish high tide as you are casting over a boulder beach onto mud and on a bigger tide, you need a fair cast to clear the stones enough that you can reasonably expect to get your gear back. Despite its popularity and its overall ‘fishiness’, I’ve found Lilstock beach pretty temperamental and only occasionally have I caught well there, usually at night. The place is best known for thornbacks, cod, conger and smoothhounds I think, although bass are common in the area too. The reef is further off to the left and I have had two very different experiences here. The first time I fished it, we fished around the middle of the reef structure and I had a bit of a shocker, not getting any gear back at all despite moving around trying to find a reasonably clear spot. The second time, we went right out to the left of the reef and I found it pretty clear, getting all my gear back until the flooding tide brought some weed in when I found a snag or two. Again, Lilstock reef is known for all the same species as the beach, but does seem to be a cut above in producing better quantities and quality, if what I’ve been led to believe is true.
The last spot along that I’ve fished is Shurton reef. I have to say, I really enjoy fishing this place at night as it’s one that seems to readily capture my imagination. Thornbacks, cod, conger and bass is what I’ve caught or seen caught here, but I’m assured that it is an awesome smoothhound mark at the right point in the season as well. Shurton is accessed and fished for 2-3 hours either side of low and I get the impression that it seems to like a medium tide best of all. Here you are casting onto clean ground but the reef can be a bit ‘snatchy’ on the retrieve so it is best to crank as fast as you can. Weed can make life a bit difficult and I have lost fish in the reef here due to weed on the line. The bulk of Hinkley power station nearby only adds to the atmospheric tension of this place for me, just like looking across at the lights of Wales does for me fishing White Mark back at Minehead. Unfortunately, the development going on at Hinkley meant that we were unable to fish Shurton on my most recent trip as there were enormous mechanical behemoths in the embayment making a lot of noise, something that fish like cod would be pretty sensitive too. Hopefully, this won’t be the case next time I go to fish up there as Shurton is probably the mark in the Channel that I’ve felt happiest fishing so far, and I’d like to have the option of fishing it at some point during a trip.
I thought I’d save this bit for last as it deals with one of the main aspects that people find challenging about the Channel: snags. Snags and tackle losses are something which are commonplace in the Channel and which you have to be prepared to take on the chin. How to minimise these losses is up to the individual, some like to use rotten bottom devices or strong mainline, others use a bendy pattern of hook to ping out of snags. Personally, I haven’t felt much of a need to make extensive use of any of these possibilities, I tend to use the standard shockleader knot, making that join in the line the weak link, and use standard pulley rigs with normal hooks and no rotten bottom. I don’t like rotten bottoms for casting any distance as I don’t trust that any design is completely safe. Also most of the marks are shallow and you are fishing a good way out, which means that the hook is laying on the deck all the time and just as liable to snag as the weight. I don’t tend to like using a weak hook as most of the time the fish need bullying and if you go easy on them because you are worried about the hook bending out, you will surely end up with your fish burying its head and getting you stuck fast anyway. If you use a rotten bottom and a strong leader knot like a bimini or spider hitch, I find what tends to happen is that you still end up badly snagged and the break will happen further down the mainline, leaving much more line out there, the bulk of it being limp mainline that will wave about in the tide. If you use a springy shockleader, you can be reasonably sure that the line left out there will coil up into a more compact form making a smaller potential snag for yourself or the next angler to hook into. Overly strong line for me is a bit of a non-starter. I wouldn’t go heavier than .40 as thicker diameters pick up too much tide. A pulley-rig and a ‘no mercy’ fish playing approach has worked pretty well for me so far at the spots that I’ve fished (although I’d be more than ready to change if a mark or situation demanded it). The beauty of the Channel is that, as you usually get very little bait erosion from crabs and suchlike, you can leave a bait out there for a long time so that (hopefully) much of the time when you reel in you have a fish on, decreasing your odds of getting stuck.
The very worst snags to encounter in the Channel are line snags where anglers have kept chucking more and more tackle into the same area, creating a mass of anchored gear trailing line. There is no way to combat these monsters and a quick retreat seems to be the best tactic. Often what will happen is that I’ll be able to fish one half of the tide with no problems, but when the tide switches, I will start getting stuck on drifting line. Sometimes, this will happen when there are no line snags out in front as the bow in the line starts getting swept on to a rock and caught up. I find I can tell when this has happened by the solid feeling of the snag, in contrast to the slight ‘give’ of a line snag, and generally the line will come back rough and damaged. The solution to this is the same: a swift move.
Despite the reputation for snags and physicality, fishing the Channel is mostly a pleasure, particularly if you go with the mindset that you are going to lose some gear and are prepared to just tackle up again and keep going without losing your cool. The diversity of places to fish and the feeling of being in a different world to what is normal for me back home in Cornwall makes my Channel experiences a lot of fun. Standing on some of the marks and looking at the ground around me, it is easy to see why big fish come into feed over the many larder-like reefs and beaches; a real contrast to somewhere like Chesil, which requires a bit more of a leap of imagination.
So, despite the Channel being a bit of an enigma for me, this is something I am not unhappy about! I enjoy the feeling of not knowing what to expect as it keeps fishing interesting and makes me appreciate what I do catch more. Judging by the quality of some of the anglers that I’ve met up there, fishing the Channel is good for your overall skills and watercraft too, so if you’re looking for a fresh challenge or just something different in your fishing and you’ve never tried fishing in permanently brown water, why not give it a go?
Nevertheless, I have been fishing here and there. Lately I managed to get over to the Fal and had a pleasant evening’s fishing there, catching huss and codling along with a blizzard of whiting. My most recent fishing trip though was a mission to the Bristol Channel, an area that I have fished a number of times over the last few years and one that I really haven’t cracked at all in the sense of consistent results. This was originally meant to be my new car’s maiden voyage proper, but come the hour, it was away having its niggles sorted out so my mate Mark ended up doing the driving honours. Thanks Mark! In the event, I had some decent fishing, catching a ray, a few codling and some other bits – which was as good as I’d hoped for, given the latest reports! So, with a lack of anything else to write about, I thought I’d rattle off something about the Channel as it really is a great area to fish and it seems to me that it does get passed over a bit (perhaps unfairly) in favour of places like Chesil.
From the moment you step out onto a reef in the mid Bristol Channel, you can tell that you’re in a pretty special habitat. Crabs scuttle away from your headlamp beam, scurrying into crevices and under boulders. The surfaces of the rocks are dotted with oysters and limpets, whilst the reef structure itself is arranged in crazed fractured grid patterns, as if a giant child put together a jigsaw puzzle, than smashed it into bits and left it all over the floor. Trying to imagine the forces over time that sculpted these intertidal landscapes is a bit of a brain-boggler for me. In the midst of what seems like a lot of seemingly shapeless chaos, you find these intricate lattices of rock that hardly look like they could have been carved by something as unconscious as geological processes.
The Bristol Channel is a compelling part of the country to visit and fish. Having only fished the England side between the Minehead area up to Hinkley power station, I have had far from the full taste of what the Channel has to offer, but I have journeyed up there a fair few times and sampled a healthy number of spots in the area I described. There’s a lot of advice out there on what to expect and where to go at certain times but hopefully I can come up with a few things that I’ve learnt or been told that aren’t readily available or thought about, but which may be useful for anyone who is tempted to give the Channel a try. The Channel has a bit of a reputation as a challenging place to fish, and I would say that it is, but it’s not that bad. If it was, nobody would ever pull a fish out of it, and there’s plenty of anglers catching plenty of fish up there.
First off, the things that are reasonably common knowledge, the water in most of the Bristol Channel is a muddy brown. This ‘brown-ness’ tends to clear a bit the more you head past Minehead towards North Devon. A beach like Bossington to the south west of Minehead can be reasonably clear on a neap tide to pretty murky on a spring. In the main part of the Channel, this has the advantage to the angler that the fish can’t see any element of your line or terminal tackle so you can be as crude as you want and get away with it scot-free. Secondly, due to the huge tidal range, you spend a lot of time moving about and there are relatively few marks where you can practically stay fishing the same spot for an entire tide cycle. Most of the well-known spots are best fished over a window of four hours or so, typically over high or low water. Some you can get a bit longer on if you are a longer caster and prepared to crank like a madman on the retrieve. Third, it’s possible to catch fish in ridiculously shallow water, even in blazing sunshine.
I thought what might be useful in this piece is to go over some of the marks that I’ve spent some time at and to talk about what they’re like to fish, what I’ve caught there and what else can be caught there. I must say, I’ve never had a really spectacular trip to the Channel but I’ve had plenty of solid and enjoyable fishing. The first time I ever went to the Minehead area was probably one of my better trips; we had great sport with smoothhounds, I caught some nice rays and we fished some great marks with stunning weather the whole two days. Since then, I’ve probably been on about another 8-10 trips to the Channel, usually fishing a few different marks and increasingly favouring the more mid-Channel area.
Starting at the nearest towards the mouth of the Channel, I’ve fished Bossington beach a few times, mostly for smoothhounds which it seems to be a pretty reliable spot for in season. I tend to favour the middle of the beach, perhaps a little to the left as this seems to be one of the less snaggy spots. Go too far left though and you start hitting snags again; I seem to recall there’s some sort of concrete pipe or something that runs out here. The tide run on this beach is very strong on a spring but this does make for exciting fishing when you get a huge slack liner from a rampaging smoothie. I’ve also caught codling, and a few other bits and pieces here. It can produce almost anything though, so I’m told. The beach itself is very comfortable to fish, being made up of smooth stones arranged in terraces. Sometimes the terraces can be a bit short which hampers casting a bit, but generally it’s okay. You can fish all the way down to low and back here but there really isn’t much water over a spring low and I’ve felt like I was wasting my time when I tried this. A few hours either side of high seems to be best.
Heading further towards Minehead, I have fished Selworthy and Greenaleigh once each, which isn’t enough to say that I really know them at all. My enduring memory of Selworthy was that it was a fair old trek to get out and down there, but a beautiful open sandy beach and one that I’d like to revisit at some point. The fishing for ray, turbot and bass is supposed to be very good here on the right day, although I seem to remember I blanked when we fished it. Greenaleigh, I think, is another spot that is supposed to be decent for ray although I can’t remember catching much here either. This is more of a boulder beach giving on to sand and like Selworthy, fished over low water. The next spot round is one that I have spent some time on; the White Mark by Minehead. I have fished here both in front of the White Mark itself and in front of the huts further towards the town. In front of the White Mark is a good spot for ray, I’ve had spotted, small eyed and blonde here as well as other bits and bobs. This is a bit of a funny place; although at low water it seems as if you’re fishing over sand, snags can be frequent and I suspect these are odd boulders that quickly become monstrous line snags. A lead lift or a lead that planes quickly to the surface is a big help and I usually use one of the Finn type leads when I fish here. I’ve caught smoothhounds in front of the huts but have only fished it once. Again, I found this spot to have more than one or two line snags. I’ve only fished around Minehead in winter once at the mark known as Golf Links, which I didn’t get any codling at but I know it has a good reputation for producing them.
The next spot up I’ve fished is the gap in the stakes between Blue Anchor and Dunster; I didn’t have a great deal here but I could see why this is a decent spot. The ground at low water looks very fishy. Further along, I’ve fished a couple of spots at St Audries Bay, namely the reefs out to the left (which I didn’t get much at) and the beach itself over high water, which I had a few congers from. I think here the reefs would be better over a spring low, whilst the beach is best fished on a smaller tide as you wouldn’t be left with much beach on a bigger one! Next up is the reef at Kilve, which I’ve only fished the once and found a very fishy looking area but quite snaggy. It’s definitely one I would go back to though as I think you could get a longer fish here than on some of the other reefs in the area.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the Lilstock area, mainly fishing the beach, which is a popular venue, although I have fished the reef a couple of times too. Lilstock beach is one best fished over a smallish high tide as you are casting over a boulder beach onto mud and on a bigger tide, you need a fair cast to clear the stones enough that you can reasonably expect to get your gear back. Despite its popularity and its overall ‘fishiness’, I’ve found Lilstock beach pretty temperamental and only occasionally have I caught well there, usually at night. The place is best known for thornbacks, cod, conger and smoothhounds I think, although bass are common in the area too. The reef is further off to the left and I have had two very different experiences here. The first time I fished it, we fished around the middle of the reef structure and I had a bit of a shocker, not getting any gear back at all despite moving around trying to find a reasonably clear spot. The second time, we went right out to the left of the reef and I found it pretty clear, getting all my gear back until the flooding tide brought some weed in when I found a snag or two. Again, Lilstock reef is known for all the same species as the beach, but does seem to be a cut above in producing better quantities and quality, if what I’ve been led to believe is true.
The last spot along that I’ve fished is Shurton reef. I have to say, I really enjoy fishing this place at night as it’s one that seems to readily capture my imagination. Thornbacks, cod, conger and bass is what I’ve caught or seen caught here, but I’m assured that it is an awesome smoothhound mark at the right point in the season as well. Shurton is accessed and fished for 2-3 hours either side of low and I get the impression that it seems to like a medium tide best of all. Here you are casting onto clean ground but the reef can be a bit ‘snatchy’ on the retrieve so it is best to crank as fast as you can. Weed can make life a bit difficult and I have lost fish in the reef here due to weed on the line. The bulk of Hinkley power station nearby only adds to the atmospheric tension of this place for me, just like looking across at the lights of Wales does for me fishing White Mark back at Minehead. Unfortunately, the development going on at Hinkley meant that we were unable to fish Shurton on my most recent trip as there were enormous mechanical behemoths in the embayment making a lot of noise, something that fish like cod would be pretty sensitive too. Hopefully, this won’t be the case next time I go to fish up there as Shurton is probably the mark in the Channel that I’ve felt happiest fishing so far, and I’d like to have the option of fishing it at some point during a trip.
I thought I’d save this bit for last as it deals with one of the main aspects that people find challenging about the Channel: snags. Snags and tackle losses are something which are commonplace in the Channel and which you have to be prepared to take on the chin. How to minimise these losses is up to the individual, some like to use rotten bottom devices or strong mainline, others use a bendy pattern of hook to ping out of snags. Personally, I haven’t felt much of a need to make extensive use of any of these possibilities, I tend to use the standard shockleader knot, making that join in the line the weak link, and use standard pulley rigs with normal hooks and no rotten bottom. I don’t like rotten bottoms for casting any distance as I don’t trust that any design is completely safe. Also most of the marks are shallow and you are fishing a good way out, which means that the hook is laying on the deck all the time and just as liable to snag as the weight. I don’t tend to like using a weak hook as most of the time the fish need bullying and if you go easy on them because you are worried about the hook bending out, you will surely end up with your fish burying its head and getting you stuck fast anyway. If you use a rotten bottom and a strong leader knot like a bimini or spider hitch, I find what tends to happen is that you still end up badly snagged and the break will happen further down the mainline, leaving much more line out there, the bulk of it being limp mainline that will wave about in the tide. If you use a springy shockleader, you can be reasonably sure that the line left out there will coil up into a more compact form making a smaller potential snag for yourself or the next angler to hook into. Overly strong line for me is a bit of a non-starter. I wouldn’t go heavier than .40 as thicker diameters pick up too much tide. A pulley-rig and a ‘no mercy’ fish playing approach has worked pretty well for me so far at the spots that I’ve fished (although I’d be more than ready to change if a mark or situation demanded it). The beauty of the Channel is that, as you usually get very little bait erosion from crabs and suchlike, you can leave a bait out there for a long time so that (hopefully) much of the time when you reel in you have a fish on, decreasing your odds of getting stuck.
The very worst snags to encounter in the Channel are line snags where anglers have kept chucking more and more tackle into the same area, creating a mass of anchored gear trailing line. There is no way to combat these monsters and a quick retreat seems to be the best tactic. Often what will happen is that I’ll be able to fish one half of the tide with no problems, but when the tide switches, I will start getting stuck on drifting line. Sometimes, this will happen when there are no line snags out in front as the bow in the line starts getting swept on to a rock and caught up. I find I can tell when this has happened by the solid feeling of the snag, in contrast to the slight ‘give’ of a line snag, and generally the line will come back rough and damaged. The solution to this is the same: a swift move.
Despite the reputation for snags and physicality, fishing the Channel is mostly a pleasure, particularly if you go with the mindset that you are going to lose some gear and are prepared to just tackle up again and keep going without losing your cool. The diversity of places to fish and the feeling of being in a different world to what is normal for me back home in Cornwall makes my Channel experiences a lot of fun. Standing on some of the marks and looking at the ground around me, it is easy to see why big fish come into feed over the many larder-like reefs and beaches; a real contrast to somewhere like Chesil, which requires a bit more of a leap of imagination.
So, despite the Channel being a bit of an enigma for me, this is something I am not unhappy about! I enjoy the feeling of not knowing what to expect as it keeps fishing interesting and makes me appreciate what I do catch more. Judging by the quality of some of the anglers that I’ve met up there, fishing the Channel is good for your overall skills and watercraft too, so if you’re looking for a fresh challenge or just something different in your fishing and you’ve never tried fishing in permanently brown water, why not give it a go?