This weekend past my lovely ‘wife to be’ was away for the day with the car. So it was time for a very local jaunt to a favourite fishing spot of ours. Devils Point, and more specifically A mark we call ‘Wrasse Rock’.
I invited my future brother in law along to join me and Owen on our mini adventure.
On route we came up with some rules for a mini competition with points being awarded in the following categories:
- Most fish caught
- Most species of fish caught
- Longest individual fish
- Overall total length of fish caught in the session.
In my head, I was going to take all four categories comfortably and the overall win based on my experience and previous performances.
Once we arrived at Devils point, we slipped the poorly placed Harris fencing and made our way down towards the eroding steps far to the right of the rocky outcrops that join the beach and the popular platforms. The first tactic was going to be rockpools. I set up 3 rods with identical splitshot rigs tipped with gulp sandworm. Before I had even finished setting up the 3rd for for myself beginners luck was striking (literally) and Greg was making some victorious sounds as he brought in the first fish of the day. A 15cm Corkwing Wrasse.
Whilst I had advised him to target the rockpools he had ignored me completely and gone straight to a ledge with deeper water much to his glory. The ledge had a deep pool just under it at the end of a gulley and was the perfect lurking spot for any potential predators.
Once setup I jumped straight to targeting my favourite pool and very quickly struck into a 12cm Shanny/Common Blenny. But before I could enjoy the moment Greg was in again and lifting his second Corkwing, this time 16cm in length. Owen assisted Greg, whilst the I uncooked my Blenny. I tried to get a good photo but the little begger had other ideas and decided to have a bite on my hand as per the above picture. Once he let go I placed him back into the pool he came from.
Owen was shouting regularly as he was hooking his own gobies and blennnies before dropping them back into the pool they came from. He hasn’t quite got the nack of setting the hookhold needed to land them. I was soon feeling for him though as I had a prod around a pool I know to be very productive and failed to hook up properly on 4 different fish. 3 blennies and a rock goby. All missed opportunities. I moved to fish alongside Greg who was having more luck landing a 12cm Pollack followed by more corkwings before he moved to the pool I had just failed in. I landed a nice little ballan wrasse after adding a second split shot to get my rig down faster and took the lead with 18cm for longest fish.
But I was falling behind in total fish and total length and Owen hadn’t got a fish on at all yet to challenge. Greg was running away with it.
Then just to take the piss. Greg landed one of the blennies that had taunted me moments before.
I decided to go for broke and try something completely different.
I offered to change everyone’s rigs but Owen and Greg were keen to carry on so I tied on a metal jig for myself and began to cast in hope of a garfish to propel me into the lead for total length. I had a good 20 casts or so and did have 2 solid hits but no hook up.
During this time Owen moved into Greg’s lucky hole and opened his account for the day with a Blenny.
We started discussing a move to ‘Wrasse Rock’ but just before Greg pulled out another Corkwing and at 18cm took the lead in all 4 categories.
Wrasse Rock didn’t disappoint, Owen managed to catch a corkwing and Greg had several more fish and extended his leads. He was having a red letter day considering his lack of experience. He was catching pollock and corkwings in turn on a dropshot rig.
I had a corkwings also taking my species tally to 3 and levelling with Greg. I tried for a pollock which is usually my most common species but I just couldn’t find one at all.
But the real highlight for me was my final fish of the day which was a 22cm ballan allowing me at least 1 victory with the longest fish and a share of the most species prize with Greg with 3 each.
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