Sea Fish

So, onto the final part of my 2015 highlights trilogy!  The epic finalé.  Hopefully it’ll be more Toy Story 3 than Jurassic Park III; more Die Hard with a Vengeance than Superman III!  There’s only one way to find out… Cornish manoeuvres in the dark On our first holiday with our (by now, 4 months old) baby daughter, fishing was never going to be high on the agenda, it would be a case of grabbing a chance if and when it arrived.  We stayed in this country, which allowed me to take quite a range of gear with me so that I could exploit any opportunities which came my way.  The first of these came in Poole, where we spent a week. Our hotel was walking distance from a bay of some repute amongst local angling bloggers I’d looked up before we went.  A couple of evening trips produced my first two bass (which would have each fitted in the palm of my hand and they were returned as quickly as possible) and a couple of eels which had me fooled I might have hooked a bit better bass.  Brilliant fun, a new species chalked off and all done without …

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I’ve had a strong desire to catch a tope, ever since a school trip to Anglesey in the mid-nineties, where I witnessed a large specimen captured and released. That experience put the species right at the top of my “to catch” list of British sea fish. The tope is Britain’s largest inshore native shark, and grows to a maximum size of around 2 metres in length and 95lb in weight. I love my freshwater predator fishing, so when I was offered a chance to fish for these sleek predators, with two Scottish International anglers, Brian Burn and Willie Kennedy; I just couldn’t refuse! After a bit of hasty organisation, my friend Craig and I made the trip from Derbyshire up to the beautiful Galloway coast. We checked into the Queens Arms Hotel in the picturesque and quaint, Isle of Whithorn, and settled down with a pint; leaving just enough time to set the next day’s scene with Brian and Willie, before we each got some much needed rest. The beautiful Isle of Whithorn harbour is a scene straight from a postcard! Early next morning we headed down to the public slipway with Willie’s boat and set off towards some of …

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