Tales of the Tamar by Tom Worthy of Plymouth Angling

This is probably one of the easiest tales I’ve ever had to write, basically there is no fish of any decent size anywhere in the river. Apart from Thornback Rays that is. From all marks on the sea front of the Hoe all up all the associated rivers of the Tamar, there are a lot of very small whiting and Pollock being caught, you will be lucky to get a Pollock at the moment around the 2lb mark. To be truthful the fishing is pretty poor, and by the look of things around the country the south west is not alone at this situation at the moment.

Things will pick up in the next couple of weeks and here is a couple of local places that some fish have been caught, however these have not been prolific.

Devils point, Thornback ray on crab or prawns. At dawn herring have been caught here using sabiki rigs. Mark Ash had a nice 13lb+ thorny from here.

North Corner, Thornback ray on crab and prawns. Small Bass on cocktails of lug and squid / bluey, using running ledger rigs.

Hoe piers and rock marks, Pollock and Ballan Wrasse on float using Ragworm as bait.

There have been some events which have been running over the last month:

Plymouth and District Shore League held their presentation evening and AGM last month. One of the main topics of the league is that the Devon and Cornwall boundaries have now been lifted; anglers can now fish anywhere in the U.K, more information of the new rule changes are available on the Shore League web site.

2010 Fixtures:

Castaways SAC will be hosting the first of their Breakwater comps on Saturday 10^th April 2010, this is a limited numbers comp (100 anglers). Entrance tickets and rules are available from Plymouth Tackle shops at £12.50, this is a cash back comp and the first prize is £350.

Plymouth Angling Inshore Boat Competition.

Sunday 21st february 2010
Plymouth Angling Inshore Boat Competition
Venue: Anywhere inside Plymouth Breakwater
Species: Thornback Ray only
Time: 0900 until 1800
Weigh in At Plymouth Angling 1830-1930

Sponsors : Plymouth Angling / Sidewinder Lures

For me the comp stared the week before preparing all the stuff and co-ordinating with QHM the restrictions and frequencies for vhf, also my flipping boat engine packed up on Friday. i tried to stretch it out for another month but she let me down, got a new Volvo penta being fitted at the end of the month so i had to bum a boat off one of my mates, a Plymouth pilot 18 ft. Nice comfortable stable fishing platform but a bit slow to what I’m used to.

There were three on my boat for the day and another 25 other anglers stretched out along the Tamar at various locations on another 9 boats. i decided to fish up on the banks of the hole at Cremyll as it was well known for Ray, after two hours here and wasting valuable crab i decided to move down beside another couple of boats off the ballast pond at Torpoint, plus i had heard that they had been some ray caught here by other boats today.

Passed one boat at anchor off the ballast pond and he had only one ray at 6lb but he also had 7 codling to 5lb. The next boat i passed had 3 ray around the 7lb size so it was catch up time for my boat as we tied up to a buoy about 100 feet south of the Torpoint ferry, had to go here as the boat never had an anchor ha ha.

Low water was about 4pm and we got tied up and lines down by 1pm. I was into a fish straight away and the other two with me were also into fish, whiting all around a LB, can’t have these eating my expensive crab all day bummer. Then I got my first ray bite of the day, a lovely looking 4lb female, she went straight back. Then Tommy Jones hit into a ray and got it aboard and she weighed 6 lb, getting bigger. This trend continued for a couple of hours and we were hearing that a 9lber had been caught and a load of 7lbers, oh goody.

Then i had a cracking bite, this was a good ray, stayed down hard on the bottom and was taking line, had a nice little fight on here. When i got her aboard she weighed 9lb 15oz, so close to my 10lb mark. She went into my keep net and over the side she went for the weigh in. Tommy then had another male ray at 7lb 12 oz, we decided to chance it with this and he to went into the net.

We ran out of crabs at 4.50, without crabs there was no point in fishing anymore so we tied up the boat on her mooring and returned to the shop for the weigh in.

All in all only seven ray came to the scales, with many many more being released throughout the day, and the majority of those that came to the scales also being kept alive and released back under the bridge, there is now a 9lb 15oz female thorny available from Saltash marks.

Winners
1st Tom Worthy 9lb 15oz (£120 cash / Boat Rod / Sidewinder Lures)
2nd Martin Neal 9lb 4oz (£70 cash / Booms / Sidewinder lures)
3rd Tom Jones 7lb 12oz (£30 cash / Booms / Sidewinder Lures)

This Months Comp is a Ballan Wrasse species hunt on the 28^th March, rules and signing on in store.

Lets hope it picks up soon

Regards

Tom