POLLACKING AROUND ON BRYHER

Sunday saw me heading up to Bryher to meet up with Neil and target Shipman Head for pollack. Usually when we fish this spot we have to get off just as the bigger pollack are starting to come through due to not wanting to get cut off, this time though we had a cunning plan!! Shipman Head is only accessible at low water or a couple of hours either side before the 7ft wide gulley gets flooded. We really wanted to see what happens if we could fish it for longer so we heading to the mark in a small punt, jumped onto the rocks, pushed the punt out and set up a trip anchor with a rope tied ashore-genious!! We would now be able to fish as long as we wished and still be able to get home when ever we wanted.

Neil and I both set up our Sakura Shinjins  with various soft plastics and jig heads in the hope of some reel screaming pollack. I must admit that I wasnt exactly feeling on top of the world (discoing the night before, at my age, I really should know better by now-yes I was hung over!) and it was no great surprise that it was Neil who was first in with a constant stream of smallish pollack hitting his lures!! 


He switched over to an Illex Lightning Jig Head  and a 7.5'' Slug-Go and was instantly hit on the drop! This was clearly a much better fish that made several crash dives before I could safely net her.

The tide was starting to pull now and may be thats why the better fish were coming through and feeding. I had managed to get a couple of small pollack up to 3lbs but Neil was finding the better stamp of fish with his lure again hit on the drop and another spirited fight resulting in me netting his fish.

An hour passed with only small fish showing so guessing that the bigger fish had moved on we decided to head back inside the bay and have a crack at the wrasse on soft plastics. We both set up our Major Craft Crostages I rigged up with a Yoshikawa 4.25'' Superworm and Neil fished a 4'' Molix Sligozzo to find what the wrasse would take a liking too. I had a few plucks which I guessed as being small wrasse before all hell broke loose right under my feet!!! As we were fishing in 8ft of water over some big old boulders I had tightened the drag right up as if you give a wrasse any line they tend to head towards the nearest hole or crevice. I thought that I had hooked a monster of a wrasse that had the Crostage bent double, diving left then right before we got a glimpse of the fish. It was a pollack and a decent one at that!!!!!!

At 6.2lbs it was a cracker and the biggest I have hooked in such shallow water, makes you think! Normally we look to fish deeper water for our pollack but this bad boy was hunting the gobies darting around the boulders and certainly made my hangover dissappear!


We carried on fishing (with our drags set a tad lighter-just incase) before one fish exploded into Neils Lure tearing line off, again we thought another pollack would appear but not this time. it was an angry wrasse that was covered in scars and bruises with deep red eyes, one evil looking fish!!

 We carried on catching smaller wrasse before everything went quiet and for the first time we had ever known, the wrasse just stopped feeding completely! Very strange, no matter what lure we threw at them they just werent interested even though we could see a few fish swimming around, all very odd!

It was another productive day on Bryher and more food for thought as to the feeding habits of pollack and wrasse. We learnt some important things and had a fun in the process, which is what its all about!!!