Looe is most famous for it's shark fishing. This began properly in the mid 1950's with the famous Brigadier J. A. L. Caunter prominent in extolling the virtues of sharking out of Looe.

Such was the quality of the shark fishing at this time that the British record blue weighing 218lbs was taken by a Mr N. Sutcliffe in 1959 and still stands today. Then, in 1971, a massive British record mako shark of 500lbs found a place in Looe's history books. This fish caught by a lady, Mrs Joyce Yallop, was hooked just off the Eddystone Light.

Sharking remains Looe's bread and butter fishing to this day, though commercial pressure on the shark stocks has reduced the numbers and average size of the sharks compared to past decades. Looe is home to the famous Shark Angling Club of Gt Britain. Looe hosts a shark fishing festival each September.

WHERE TO FISH
General shark fishing is carried out beyond the 10 mile mark, mostly at 20 miles plus distance and done only on the drift in deep water.

Inshore lies areas of rough reef type ground, cleaner sand, and areas of mixed sand and rock. Rame Head is a noted wrasse and conger area and lies 9 miles to the east. Whitsand Bay, also eastwards, is cleaner ground holding flatfish, rays and bass. To the west(19 miles) is the Dodman Point. Looe Island or sometimes called St George's Island has a good tide around it and attracts dinghies and smaller vessels after pollack, bass etc.

SPECIES
Apart from commercial mackerel fishing, little in the way of winter fishing goes on. April sees the beginning of the season with rough ground marks giving ling, some cod, pollack, conger etc, and the first of the mackerel start to show closer to shore. The inshore marks also see bass, smaller pollack, wrasse and rays moving in.

The shark fishing gets underway, usually by the end of May with sharks contacted at 30-40 miles radius. During June and July the sharks move ever closer and can be less than 10 miles out by mid August. By this time, the mackerel are thick in numbers and backed up by pilchards which have made something of a comeback in numbers over the past half decade.

September and October see the numbers of sharks slowly decline, but then the rough ground marks give their returns of conger, wrasse, bass, odd huss and tope to compensate. Cleaner ground holds numbers of whiting and dabs, throughout the year.

Mako do still show, but not to rods unfortunately. The last Mako was a sub 100lber taken commercially, amazingly, during January a few years ago. Threshers can appear in the area, mainly in the early summer.

TACKLE
Most of the shark fishing is done with 30-50lb class gear, though there is a swing more and more to 20lb-30lb class as the main option. The main trace can have a rubbing leader of 250lb mono some 10ft long, ending in about 3-4ft of 300 to 400lb wire. This heavy wire gives added peace of mind just in case that rogue mako puts in an appearance. Hooks should be Mustad O'Shaughnessy 8/0 to 10/0, or Sea Masters.

For general inshore work a 30lb class rod is adequate, but do carry some heavier 1lb plus leads to cope with the bigger tides. Some redgills are handy for the pollack and bass, or silver Toby type spinners.

TIDES
It matters little regards the size of the tide for sharking hereabouts, though there is a tendency for the greater numbers and bigger fish to show up on the springs tides when the boats drift covers maximum ground.

Inshore, then pollack and wrasse will still feed well on the neaps, but expect better bassing on the bigger tides. Rough ground conger feed best on neap tide slack waters.

BAITS
There is only one recognized shark bait. Mackerel! However, a bunch of pilchards used to be excellent and probably still is but not now so fashionable.

Inshore wrasse will take lugworm and crab, the pollack and bass favour redgills or live launce, though pollack hit feathers too. Congering is done with flapper mackerel baits which the ling also favour. Baited feathers picks up the whiting.

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