ENCOURAGING SIGNS?

A cold calm winter’s night saw Jon Patten and I setting up our rods hopeful that something would show from the deepwater rock mark we were fishing. I fished two rods with Ammo sandeel and squid cocktails. As is often the case these days I fish with tactics that could bring a range of species including cod, ray, conger and perhaps spurdog.
We launched our baits out into the night and did not have to wait long before the rod tips rattled. The next three hours saw a succession of fish brought ashore. Three conger to around 8lb, close to a dozen dogfish, a whiting of 1lb 3oz, a rockling and on Jon’s last cast of the night small eyed ray of 3lb to 4lb. Not an amazing nights sport but encouraging and very enjoyable.

I return home and find that fellow club member Michael Taylor has landed a 22lb 12oz cod from a North Devon mark. Things are certainly looking up; could it be that the large cod showing up-channel are starting to migrate down channel? The next few weeks will be interesting. The shore caught cod is the first of over twenty pounds from North Devon that I have been privileged to report on in the ten years I have been writing the weekly Journal report.
There has been much speculation about why fishing has been poor this winter. The cod caught up Channel have been of a high average size but few and far between. Could it be that more cod have been caught up Channel simply because more anglers are fishing for them?