A slim bodied shark with five gill slits. The main dorsal is roughly triangular and has a rounded point. A second, smaller dorsal sits just in front of the wrist of the tail. The teeth are a small triangular pattern with notched and serrated edges and extremely sharp. There is a small but deep notch in the tip of the tail fin.

COLOURATION
An overall grey, though persistent feeders over sand do show more of a brown tinge. Reef living tope can infrequently turn up with an almost black back. The belly is a dirty grey to white.

SIZE RANGE
This depends on the locality. In the Northwest of England the tope are small pack fish up to 20lbs with only a few larger ones. In West Wales and Luce bay in Southwest Scotland there are fish from all size denominations up to 70lbs plus. English channel tope are average pack fish running between 15 and 20lbs with a few fish double this weight. The Essex coast also sees a variety of size from 12lb pack tope to fish over 80lbs. Commercially caught tope have exceeded 100lbs and a length of 6-feet.

BREEDING SEASON
Tope migrate to the inshore shallows during April and May dropping their young, which are about 14 inches long and born live and fully formed, in litters from between 15 and 40 in number throughout May and June. The largest female tope carry the largest number of pups. Regards actual breeding little is known, but probably occurs during late autumn in deep water.

DISTRIBUTION
Less common in the Southeast of England than anglers realise and does not feature in great numbers along the English Channel Coast, though is not classed as a rare catch here. Some fish are present along the Devon and Cornish Coast but again, not in great numbers.

Pack tope to 30lbs feature throughout the Bristol Channel. The top area has to be the Pembrokeshire Coast and in particular Cardigan Bay where both pack fish and 80lbers swim.

Other noted areas are Morecambe bay for pack fish and Luce bay in Southwest Scotland for bigger females. Parts of Western, Southern and Eastern Ireland also have large concentrations. General distribution is throughout the Mediterranean along the coast of Europe as far as Northern Norway.

HABITAT
A wide ranging predator. Likes to hunt sandy gullies and gutters swimming with the tide. Sweeps across sandbanks trying to disturb flatfish. Has a particular preference for shallow reefs holding small pollack and bass. Will often penetrate a short way into the deeper channels of estuaries after flatfish and school bass. Surprises anglers by sometimes turning up in 300-feet of water over wrecks, though tope are happy to feed in only 12-feet of water, even by day. Likes to work areas of fast tides around rocky headlands and across the mouths of sandy coves.

DIET
Stomach contents are dominated by whiting, dabs, codling and pout. Rarely are mackerel and other fast swimming species found. Has been known to contain edible crabs and small lobsters.

TACKLE AND TECHNIQUE
Fishing for tope To get the best sport from tope, fish with an uptide rod of between 9.5-feet-10-feet matched to a multiplier reel carrying 350 yards of 15 to 18lb. Ignore stories of long runs from tope. Average fiske 5y take 50 yards in the first run, less in further runs. Odd female tope hooked in fast tides may take 150 yards first off, but rarely get more than 200 yards from the boat at most.

A sliding ledger rig with a flowing trace of 6-feet proves the best rig. Use 4.5-feet of 60-80lb mono ending in 18 inches of 60lb wire as a biting trace. This is long enough to protect the main line from the topes rough body.

In deeper water tope are best fished for using conventional straight down the side methods, but retaining the uptide rod for maximum sport when light leads can be used.

Over shallow reefs with a little tide run, try freelining a whole mackerel or small pollack. This is a good method for picking up the large female tope during the early and late autumn periods.

BAITS
The often quoted mackerel is not the best bait for tope. Half the body of a whiting or dab out fishes the mackerel 5 to 1. Equally good are fillets of pout. Best bait of all is a live whiting about 6 inches long. In areas where there is an abundance of launce eel these too can be affective. Off the Essex Coast a section of freshwater eel has taken a string of very large tope but has proved poor in other areas.

TIPS
It pays to put a bag of mashed bran and mackerel down with the anchor, but tie this a few feet up the anchor rope so that the scent falls to the seabed just astern of the boat.

Whilst waiting for the first tope it's wise to deliberately fish for smaller bottom feeders. This activity is noted by passing tope that home in on the scene of interest.

If tope consistently run off with your bait, then drop it again, this is a sign that the bait and hook are too large. Drop down in both bait and hook size and you should get proper takes. A fish strip 3 inches by 2 inches is plenty. Each season large tope are frequently taken in tiny 1 inch mackerel strips intended for dabs which proves bait size is unimportant.

Thick wired hooks are to difficult to set in to the jaw of a tope. Use only medium wired hooks like Mustad Barbless Tope Ray hooks, or Cox and Rawle Uptides in size 4/0 and 6/0. These will easily hold a record fish if need be.

FACTS AND FOLKLORE
Small tope apparently make reasonable eating, hence a growing market for pack tope flesh in France and Belgium. Larger tope taste acidic and are too tough for the general kitchen table.

Commercially caught tope have been recorded over 100lbs in weight. The best verified weighing 107lbs taken in a trawl off the Scilly Isles.

There is some interchange between the Irish and Welsh tope stocks. Irish tagged fish have been caught years later in Cardigan Bay which proves their ability to easily survive the tagging operation.

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