I had top pike angler Jason Davies and his mate Tinker as clients on Tuesday. The day started off very rough on the way out over the Brancaster bar, to the point of the front of the boat going under on several occasions, but once we were out a mile or so it calmed down slightly, and after a couple of hours it just got flatter and hotter throughout the day with loads of sunshine. The mackerel proved elusive yet again, with just enough caught for bait to get started toping.

The first run came after only 5 minutes, to Tinker and this resulted in a nice 34lb fish. I doubled up the lead on a mackerel rod and left this over the side working away on it's own and this brought the odd fish to just keep up with the bait attrition caused crabs. The second run was a screamer and came when Jason was flat out in the cuddy not feeling to well and after grabbing the rod and winding into the fish it promptly fell off and as circle hooks don't usually let go it was probably a very small fish that couldn't get the bait into it's mouth (I hope !)

We then had a couple of hours of soaking up the sun before the third run, that Jason nailed and I soon boated his first tope, a 38lb female, which he was very pleased with. In the early afternoon we finally ran out of bait and as it was slack tide we ran over about 4 miles to a sharp drop off and nail the mackerel getting about 50 in half a dozen drifts over.

By the time we got back to the tope mark the tide was running hard but no further runs were forthcoming so as soon as there was enough water we ran back to the harbour and I left 2 happy anglers to drive home thinking about new boats, tackle etc etc !!

Steve

NB:If you fancy getting amongst the last of the Summer Tope, give us a call at the shop on: 01553 773409

Or Contact Us using our online booking page