THRILLS AND SPILLS
Reader Harry Templeman recalls three days of fun fishing featuring personal bests and a large tuna providing some added excitement…
A reader’s exciting story of fishing off South Devon.
A line stripped from my reel, there seemed to be no chance of stopping the rampaging tope. Finally, just when I thought I was getting the upper hand, the rod sprang back as the fish’s teeth cut it to freedom. Although annoyed at losing the fish, it had been superb fishing on the last of three successive days of small-boat fishing off South Devon, with eight tope boated and two lost. e summer’s day had started with a quick stop at the Skerries to catch our bait before heading off in search of the tope. After a short trip to the mark, we got the baits in the water and soon dogfish were taking an interest. My fishing partner Paul Millman, from Brixham, caught the first tope, a 30-pounder that set the tone for the day’s sport. My first take produced a good run before the fish chomped through my line, so it was time to get the wire on and from then on it was non-stop action, including both playing lively fish at the same time. at’s entertaining when trying to land the fish.
If that wasn’t enough, we stopped off at the bank again for a couple of hours on the way home and Paul boated a 13lb small-eyed ray.
TUNA DRAMA
at had been a fitting end to our three days, which began when we set out in search of tope and blonde rays. e first day produced plenty of blonde rays to 27lb, spotted and small-eyed rays, a 13lb bull huss and 17lb conger eel. It had been a hot day that produced plenty of other fish too, with the bonus of seeing a tuna, estimated at about 50lb, jump out of the water close to our boat. We’d see a much bigger one the next day.
Black bream were our target on the second day when we visited the Skerries. We’d had two failed attempts at finding them before, but the water temperature had risen this time and the rod tips were rattling as soon as our baits hit the water. We caught six bream, including a personal best of 3lb for me. ere were lots of big scad too and I was lucky enough to catch another personal best weighing 1lb. However, we both agreed that the highlight was seeing an estimated 400lb tuna jump out of the water about 300 yards off the bow of the boat. It was unreal to see the beast jump out of the water about 10 times.