More Tope Tales

[nifty]

Hi All,

Had a Brilliant days sport today on our Tope mark boating six beasties to around the 40lb mark in a frantic three hours.

The day started slowly due to a stiff southerly breeze keeping me away from where i wanted to be as i didnt fancy the paddle back to the launch spot later on against the wind,so i spent a couple of hours feathering for bait(Unsuccesfully) while i waited to see if the wind eased. Fortunately about midday it died away so i went out to the usual mark and dropped the hook. The tide was pulling hard by now but after an hour all I'd had was one doggy so i moved out a bit further into about 25 ft of water a mile or so from shore and started again.

The only bait i had were six frozen mackerel as the shrimp rig had only produced two big weaver and small Pollack, so I put half a mackerel on and drifted it away downtide with half an ounce of lead and put the rod in the holder while i had a swig of pop.

Immediately the ratchet screamed and i fumbled about grabbing the rod and putting the drink away but i hadn't struck the fish properly and after a few seconds it spit the hook.

Straight back down with a new bait and within a couple of minutes it went again and this time I hit it hard and hung on. This felt like a very big fish and kept very deep but again after about five minutes disaster struck and everything went slack and i reeled in to find the 15lb mainline chafed through. I was using the usual 7ft heavy mono and wire trace so either it was a very long fish or it had rolled itself up the line which is apparently a common trick, although i havn't had it done before to me.

I was well gutted now but rigged up again and within a few minutes was hooked up again and this time managed to boat a 25lb fish.

In the next two and a half hours i boated another five ranging in size from a pup of about 15 lb to a nice fish that was estimated 40lb+.

I never had to wait more than ten minutes between fish and spent the best part of two hours bent into fish.

Trouble is i ran out of bait as I'm sure I could have bagged a few more, but I'd had a good day in the end so I wasn't too disappointed to have to pack in.

Again the pics are a bit disappointing.

 

nifty.

[nifty]

Newt,

HELP

 

Cheers

[musket]

brilliant--nowt else to say.

Jon

[SpeciMan]

Well done Nifty.

 

Its great that the tope are still inshore there. I'm going to try to head up there again before the seasons out.

[nifty]

Cheers Musket.

 

Simon, There seem to be more about now than back in June but I think you'll need to be quick to catch them again this year before the weather turns.

nifty.

[nifty]

There'll be some of these about though.

[Norfolkdan]

Nice one Nifty.

[Martin Hurst]

Nifty , were you in Mid Wales today? I nipped over to Borth and had a few mackies on the shrimp rigs. Tried for tope off Borth head ( always thought there was a chance here) but two hours gave nothing.

[nifty]

Hi Martin,

Yes, I was about 4 miles or so north of you.

Could have done with a few of those mackies.

 

nifty.

[Martin Hurst]

Think I'd have prefered your catch but not sure how i'd have coped! Plenty of yaks out but only me fishing , only a few jetskis so quite an enjoyable trip. was a little taken aback by how shallow it is so far out! Still getting to grips with this lark but having great fun , maybe soon i'll have the confidence to tag along with the experts!??