As my Diary gradually fills up, I thought I would take a look back and remind you how good last years tope fishing was. Hopefully this will whet your appetite and may prompt one or two of you to get those last few dates filled up.
Our first trip was a nice early one. I had just returned from a short break to northern England and a slight break in the weather meant I could get Paul’s group offshore in search of some early tope. I like to get off there as soon as I think they have arrived. It’s nice to nick one or two early fish before anybody else is targeting tope and those early fish can often be the biggest too.
With bait sorted we could head for our first mark of the day. the lads had invested in some new gear specially for the trip so as we steamed out they made sure their lines were properly bedded on the reels and set up with their tope rigs.
Once anchored, we sent our fresh baits out and hoped that the tope had arrived. Tope fishing around here is often a waiting game. It can be very hit and miss when targeting a certain species that are not present in huge numbers. Some of our tope marks produce little else other than tope and dogfish. if we are lucky we may pick up a decent bass on a tope bait or even bump into a shoal of bass while travelling to or from a mark. We can also catch the occasional thorn-back ray and from time to time even smooth-hounds will pick up our fish baits.
This trip was fairly typical of early season tope fishing. we changed our baits regularly to keep the scent trail going down. When freshening the bait up we often found a sneaky dogfish robbing the bait and stopping any would be tope from taking. There is no way of avoiding them so we just tend to fish through them. To be fair they aren’t normally too numerous and save a blank on a quiet day. with a few dogs under our belts the tide began to ease. Richard’s rod came into action as a decent fish took off with it. to be honest as I recall the fight was a little underwhelming, I’m not sure the fish knew what was going on until it was in the net. Richard was rewarded with a fine male tope of 39lbs and our first of 2021. We had a move over slack water to another mark for the next tide. we were pleased to see one decent fish but as ever with fishing once you catch on fish you want another one or a bigger one or a different type and so on. The tide got going and Aside from a few dogfish we pulled a nice hound out on our fish bait. We fished the worst of the tide until it began to ease once again. As it notched back we had our first thorn-back ray of the day. then Deans rod took off with a cracking run, the fish held for a bit then took off across the tide. it was well up in the water by now and heading off on another run with little regard for what was still a strong tide. Dean was using some heavy uptide gear, a brand new penn 6-10oz uptide rod and a sizable penn multiplier freshly loaded with over 400yrd of braid. The vast majority of which was now in the north sea trailing behind a tope! As Deans reel rapidly emptied of line I fired up the Gallopers engines and popped the anchor to follow after the fish. By now panic had got the better of Dean and he was thumbing the spool on his reel to try and slow the fish down. while I was busy with the anchor I heard the lads cry out as the line had gone loose. Dean wound like fury in case the fish was belting back towards us but it was gone. I assumed something had snapped under the pressure but it turned out his 10/0 circle hook was no longer a circle but instead it was a ‘straight’ . who knows if it was a monster or just an angry fish but it was certainly powerful. We re-set the anchor for one last cast and thank fully Dean was given the chance to redeem him self. Once again he had a cracking bite and a good fight though it was nothing in comparison to ‘the one that got away’. It was a nice fish however, another male this time 33lbs.
This got us off of the mark and the rest of the season was pretty good. Our best day was 13 tope to 47lb the boat and several others lost. The 47lb fish was a male caught by Steve Canham and matched a female of 47lb caught by Chris Bendall a couple of weeks earlier to be our joint biggest tope of 2021. These were a tad short of the previous years best, caught by Ian Hewitt at 48lb. The Day after this we had 10 tope to the boat and was most memorable As one of our younger anglers Honey Gage had 4 of them. Unsurprisingly Honey made short work of getting these fish to the boat as she does with most fish. Honeys biggest went 35lbs which she was most pleased with. her Dad Andy’s biggest went 37lb that day which may not have helped the father daughter rivalry.
Although we had seen a few bass on those early trips they became more prominent in the later part of the season. On several occasions we were able to stop on the way to or from our tope mark to target some feeding bass. Other times we had some big bass on the tope baits. Yvonne had a cracking brace of bass in successive casts. I am sure she wont forget them in a hurry. Other trips saw lone big bass mixed in but the tope kept coming. One notable fish was caught by Stephen Clarke ( one of many he had last year) this one had an existing tag in it. the tag seemed to have been in for some time. We tried to contact the address written on it but they had since moved unfortunately.
We had a pretty good success rate on the tope once again in 2022. We had just one trip at the end of the season with out any tope. We knew we were pushing it by then as I had seen the numbers decrease over the previous days. I gave the lads other options but they decided to give it one last go, fair play to them as every day is different. We may not have found any tope but we made the day up with a few bass, hounds and even a pollock.
I only have limited availability left for tope fishing this year. If you wish to get booked in or on my mailing list for spaces then please get in touch.
Due to the nature of the fishing I don’t take hire rods/beginners on tope trips. I take a maximum of 6 anglers, this improves the odds of each angler catching a tope as well as reducing tangles and hopefully improving their experience.
Please take note, I have listed below my weekend availability until the end of April. As you can see weekend Dates are limited after February as things are getting booked up very well in advance. If you would like a weekend booking or a specific date/tide then please get in touch and book as soon as possible or it may be gone. Quite a few mid-week dates have already gone too to please don’t delay.
I do have availability mid-week if you fancy a trip out. Please contact me on 07956411528 to discuss availability.
NEXT SPACES
Not all dates are advertised, I have some midweek availability please contact me to discuss midweek dates.
05/02/22-9 spaces @ £60pp max 10 anglers
06/02/22- boat from £420 less than 6 people larger groups welcome max 10 anglers
19/02/22-1 space @ £70pp max 6 anglers
20/02/22- boat from £420 less than 6 people larger groups welcome max 10 anglers
18/03/22- (Friday) 6 spaces @ £60pp
19/03/22- boat from £420 less than 6 people larger groups welcome max 10 anglers
10/04-22-4 spaces @ £100pp offshore trip max 6 anglers
16/04/22-5 spaces @ £60pp
17/04/22- boat from £420 less than 6 people larger groups welcome max 10 anglers
18/04/22- boat from £420 less than 6 people larger groups welcome max 10 anglers
23/04/22-1 space @ £100pp
24/04/22-6 space@ £100pp max 6 anglers
30/04/22- boat from £420 less than 6 people larger groups welcome max 10 anglers
Please call me for more information on 07956411528
Dad (Stuart) has availability on the ‘Razorbill 3’ please call him on 07850234077
