Ilfracombe in North Devon is mainly associated with the tourist season being extremely popular as a holiday venue. Partly due to the influx of summer visitors, but more to do with the quality of the fishing, this attractive port has become well established as a top charter venue giving both quality and a quantity of fish.

Being situated at the entrance to the Bristol Channel, this area experiences massive tidal movement, in fact, the harbour dries out at low water, so definite sailing times need to be adhered too.

WHERE TO FISH
Baggy Point lays 8 miles to the south, its ground a prime holding area for autumnal tope, along with ling, pollack, wrasse and conger. Still going east, then Bideford Bay gives cleaner sandy ground giving back onto rocky reefs around Hartland Point.

General marks heading west towards Lundy Island alternate between rough ground and some sand, with patches of mud as you work more towards the Bristol Channel proper.

Lundy it'self gives opportunities for pollack to 16lbs, ling and big wrasse fishing over rocky pinnacles. You don't get there very often thanks to sea conditions, but the wait is worthwhile. Shark are often seen on the surface here.

SPECIES
On the clean ground expect thornbacks, small eyed, spotted and blonde rays from April right through the summer, with the thornbacks staying continually through the winter, but in smaller numbers.

Ling show over the rock marks from April onwards, but these are not huge fish, but good sport running in the 4-16lb bracket. Reef conger fishing starts in earnest in May running through until Christmas. Mainly reef sized conger upto 30lbs, or so. Mackerel are resident close in by May and can be taken fishing just out from the harbour. These stay until late October. Spurdog to 14lb can be still be encountered locally, too!

Tope and huss are taken throughout the summer and autumn, with cod moving in during October and staying until May. Whiting and dabs are the smaller inshore species, along with gurnards, scad and huge numbers of dogfish. Inshore rough ground can hold bass to double figures, mainly in the spring and autumn, pollack and wrasse, also trigger fish and the very occasional black bream early and late in the season.

TACKLE
Uptide techniques work especially well here with the fast tides taking heavy catches of tope in particular. No more than 18lb line and a 7000 sized multiplier completes the outfit.

Standard downtide rods need to be 30lb class for all fishing, simply because you'll be fishing with 1.5lbs of lead just to hold bottom on the average spring tides. Again, a multiplier holding 300yds of 30lb mono makes a good combination.

More in tune anglers choose wire line to allow less lead to hold better in the tide and to make the tackle more sensitive to detect feeding fish.

For uptiding, carry standard grip leads and a few sputniks upto 8oz. Downtiding weights need to range from 6ozs for trotting back for the rays, upto 2lbs. A couple of the latter worth carrying for the biggest spring tides and when fishing northwards into the main run of the Bristol Channel.

TIDES
Neap tides will fish okay here because of the fast run from the Bristol Channel and allows comfortable anchoring over the slack water periods. Spring tides are fierce and makes the Bideford Bay area with its lessened tidal action attractive for the rays etc.

The ling, conger and huss show better during the neap tide cycle, and the tope, cod and rays during the stronger tides.

BAITS
Squid and mackerel are the most popular baits for the conger, huss, tope, ling, thornback and blonde ray, with worm baits favoured for cod in the winter. Sandeel is excellent for the dogfish, spotted and small eyed rays. Wrasse take crab close inshore. Feathers and redgills are best for the pollack.

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