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South Devon 2015

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
It can take a long time to get an up-to-date response or contact with relevant users.
Great to see this flurry of catch reports ( been quiet on here for a while ) some good catches as well , must be fishier as of late , with good conditions and hope it lasts !! I was in my self yesterday but only after scallops and razor clams ( plenty to be had ) happy days !!
 
Reactions: Dai ASBO, stan7 and AlB
Red mullet grow to about 4lb the legal limit is 20cm (I think) they appear in numbers in the Autumn.
Where I live their arrival spells "gill nets" as the local fishing fleet go mad for them!
Personally, I don't like eating them as the taste is very distinctively 'fishy' but they are very popular in restaurants & amongst some of my friends.
We call the small ones (under 1lb) Goldfish!
Gurnard, well Red Gurnard, are not so common in shallow water but in my opinion are superb eating.
We catch them on the rods in deep water very regularly, I have speared a few big Tub Gurnards in the shallows to around 5lb.
 
Reactions: Mr. X, halfandy, stan7 and 3 others
Went in yesterday of an east devon beach, south easterly wind had picked up and there was a bit of a swell the conditions made it hard to navigate, line of sight in the water obstructed by the waves. I lost sight of my float whilst fishing around it, I took half an hour to locate it after swimming in the wrong direction, stupid I know but lesson learnt, higher flag needed. I don’t like diving with float line attached I find it restricts movement, can get caught up and possibly scares fish. I saw some skittish bass around but didn’t have a shot, surprised not to see any mullet as the mark usually holds plenty, came away with a nice plaice found on the swim back from the reef so happy with that.

Some great reports and catches posted lately
 
Reactions: Dai ASBO and scrumpy
Thanks foxfish, I agree with you on the gurnard, lovely fish. I must have seen a dozen or so the other night, normally a rare sight for me to see one! I'll be trying the red mullet tonight.

Strong easterly wind so I made my first trip to S.Hams toady. Vis was excellent 5-7m until after high tide when it slowly reduced to being cloudy at the surface, with 3ish on the bottom.
I must have seen nearly a hundred bass within 10min of getting in, but I couldn't get one of them! At times they came so close I could almost touch them! As soon as I could single one out and slowly start to track it they'd disappear. Sooo frustrating! I kept seeing schools of bass throughout but they'd appear behind me only to vanish as I turn my gun around, or wait until I'd singled one and then go. I'm sure they were doing it for fun!
I only saw two takeable mullet - one was a monster - but didn't get a shot on either.

Thinking about it, the next time I see a school of bass in front of me I'm going to try to focus on the end of my spear instead of the fish, and wait for one to line it's self up.

All in all a very good dive, but those sodding bass do nothing but aggravate me!
 
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Reactions: AlB and stan7

I know the feeling and am sure many others have had the same experience. What has worked for me pretty much every time is to stay calm, patient and to remember to aim properly - seems obvious to say but sometimes its taking care of the simplest things that pays off. If the fish are particularly skittish and in and out of sight due to the range of vis then you'll need to wait for your moment as you say. I was under a pier a couple of years ago and every dive down numerous large fish and bass would hurtle past, I kept missing though. I had a word with myself, applied what I mentioned earlier and then every shot from then on produced a large fishy prize The last 2 bass I caught last Sunday evening were in similar conditions to what you described, loads about but turning the gun on the fish was making them dart away, so waited and all came good. Then they all buggered off. Bugger.

Thinking of a South Hams dive tomorrow morning, but looks like may be a bit choppy, if I go will be getting in around 9:30 - any one got any fortune telling ability that can indicate whether its worth a crack or should I just not bother? Got the day off work and kids in school - this never happens so I deserve a dive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Thanks for the advice Dai (where abouts in Wales are you from?)
Staying calm and aiming properly is usually the first thing I forget when faced with a big school of fish. I get so excited that I take a poor shot at the first decent fish I think I can hit. The school disappears, and I am left cursing myself and fishless.
Yesterday I managed to stay calm enough to notice that if I stayed still and inanimate the bass would come close and have a good look at me. I'm sure I was taking time to line shots up when they gave me the chance, and should have got at least one fish for all the shots I took. So, either the fish can predict the future, enabling them to move out of the way split seconds before they get speared, or, I was taking a shit shot. Maybe I was snatching at the trigger - I've caught myself doing that before...

http://passageweather.com/index.htm?http://passageweather.com/maps/engchannel/mappage.htm

Predictions for tomorrow don't look good I'm afraid, although I'm not sure how well S.Hams holds up compared to Teignmouth / Torbay.

Good luck, and thanks again.
 
halfandy said:
Thanks for the advice Dai (where abouts in Wales are you from?).
Click to expand...


My pleasure. I'm from the South East but family mostly from Wales. Lived between the valleys and Swansea for about 6 yrs before moving South West. About to move to Paignton now, hopefully by mid Nov.

I tried Friday morning, vis was ok on the sheltered side of the reef but awful elsewhere. No fish about so finished early.
 
Taken from dorset thread.

Due to family commitments and working lots of nights, the odd night dive is all I seem to be able to manage nowadays. I have spent many a day travelling the far reaches of the South hams enjoying diving and coming home late evening. Sometimes with fish sometimes without but it became apparent that there wasn't the luxury of time for me to continue diving in the daytime unless staying close to home, which if anyone knows teignmouth is not known for its viz!!
Night diving Is just the same as daytime dives, meaning you need to learn technics and how to hunt fish. How many newbies - no offence but how many post 9-10lb bass?? Not a lot.
I always dive alone at night which throws up many challenges but excites me and I enjoy the peace at night.

We are all adults here! Why can't an olive branch be put out and let bygones be bygones. Guys might or might not come back to this forum but life's to short, people that spear fish in general want to see fish. I like seeing all catches but without those guys posting, whom I've never met there isn't much to log on for. As others have stated look at the page number compared to a couple of years ago.

Stephen might own this site and hats off for building such a site, but come on let's see fish reports back onto this forum. Guys have set up sites on facebook so may well stay clear but I'm sure there'd be happy to post their best fish of the night without upsetting people, many i question ever get wet or ever catch!

So here I am having spent an hour typing this, can I really be bothered anymore? If people are just going to criticise.

There is a lot of crap happening in the world and in my life, so let's just see people happily posting their catch.

Rant over.

lee
 
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Reactions: BatRay, Trelawney and AlB
I was a little perplexed to read your post Lee. Having just read a few pages of the Dorset thread I understand where you are coming from. Luckily, the Devon thread doesn't seem to suffer with arguing, and I was blissfully unaware that such things were going on.
DeeperBlue is an awesome resource IMO. Long may it stay that way!
 
Reactions: Mr. X, BatRay and AlB
Agreed, the posts are what it's about so here's my effort.

I thought I should say what we have been up to this summer. I'm sorry I've been really bad at posting but it's been a great few months of diving. One of our mates picked up a 7m rib so we have had a couple of fantastic trips around spots in South Devon. It's great having the sounder too so you always know how deep you are going.

We hit some offshore spots including a well known landmark where i got a 10lb pollack (in the photo). I'm not usually a big fan of shooting pollack but when this one turned up it looked huge and I couldn't resist. Now I have had a lot(!) more practice cooking it I'd definitely shoot another of the mood seized me.

We had a great dive there, more for the spectacular scenery than anything else but fairly fishy too. I was going to bring the world a video but I lost my go pro (my third) whilst I had my head in a hole so I'm a bit off filming for now.

I also dived a wreck off Plymouth at 60 ft. We didn't take the guns because it turns out that appearing next to a scuba diver at that depth gives them enough of a scare without taking a weapon.

Probably the best dive was off a headland in a huge current where we picked up a couple of bass each. There was a buoy in the current to hang onto and breathe up before letting go and dropping 12m down to the sea bed (by that time about 50m from the buoy!) And then swimming back in an eddy.

I quite like the new bass law because it pushes us to find other species and makes the diving more interesting.

Bring on the autumn and the best diving of the year!

 
Reactions: AlB, halfandy, DafyddRees and 7 others
Nice report ( and fish ! ) good to see a nice pollack as well , bit of a clue in the background as to where you were !! ha ha ... not many can get there though ..well done ..
 
No terry twice in the last month, Both teignmouth way. Going to call time on teignmouth and possibly the whole spearfishing scene. I'll see how the next few months pan out. Always fancy spots in the South hams but seem to have lost the interest to travel and then dive local with poor viz on most dives. Teignmouth / dawlish seem particularly bad this season, lots of work still going on along the sea wall at night, which has undoubtedly had some effect on the viz. Also the teign has been chocolate brown since early spring and further up near teigngrace it is very high for this time of year and carrying so much debris down it. Maybe a double figure will save the day!!
Lee
 
It has not been good vis this way this year , seems we have an easterly once a week just to keep things stirred up ! I know what you mean about driving to S Hams , 30 miles seems to take an hour because of the lanes etc , but I have had plenty of nice days out in that area some good vis , but recently every time I am free to go there is 6 foot of surf , it has been a windy summer I think . Surprised to hear you are thinking of giving up !! ... Terry ....
 
Just had a quick look at Babbacombe and the vis is pretty good ( by Torbay standards ! ) 3-4 metres , will be in Tmrw not sure where yet though . Any vis Shams way ? ....
 
Reactions: John86
Surprised to hear vis in Torquay but glad to hear it. Hoping for some S Hams vis as may get a dip on Sunday.
 
scrumpy: Sorry to hear you have become so disillusioned with spearing. It'd be a loss not to have you on DB. Admittedly vis around Teignmouth and Dawlish has been pretty bad / awful. Just as the vis starts to settle it gets blown to pieces, probably not helped by the work done to the sea wall. I've been toying with the idea of buying a 35cm for Teignbridge / Torbay dives. I could at least then see the end of my spear!

On another note, this morning I took the dinghy out from the Exe to catch some mackerel (there were plenty.) The vis looked ok - I could see my feathers 2-3m down. I was gonna go for a quick dive this evening but I succumb to Captain Morgan. I'll have to hope it lasts till Monday now.
 
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