We left Saunderfoot loaded with heavy wrecking outfits and bottles of pilchard oil , we stopped in the bay to feather up so mackerel and then preceded at full steam to our first mark.
We dropped anchor some 8 miles out of soundersfoot over a deep reef i laid down some chopped fish and oil using the plastic bag technique made popular by John Wilson you basically feed a line throw a plastic bag push it throw the bottom clip on a weight fill the bag under tension with your ground bait hold it closed as you let it down into the water the water pressure continues to keep it closed as you then let it the whole way to the bottom wear up on you strike the rod inverting the bag and dropping the contents out over the sea bed i put down 4 of these and then hung a couple of sacks of the stern this combined with a couple of fish oil bottles on the anchor rope completed our invitation.
This was supplemented by the deck hand chopping mackerel and throwing a hand full over the side every so often.
I had brought a varied array of gear i had not been able to find much in the way of information on inshore porbeagle fishing so i hadn't brought my big Atlantic guns with me for one thing the water was a lot shallower so i had 4 tld 25 to pen 50lb tuna sticks and a light weight 20lb outfit for bottom fishing and tope.
Some of my inshore kit plus a big guns Daiwa outfit on the far left of the picture.
The tope outfit i put a 8/0 bronzed hook which i had reshaped the point to a knife point as im sure no one was telling the porbies this was only for tope. This was crimped to 4ft of 350lb stainless cable to this was crimped 600lb commercial nylon 9 ft trace knotted and glued to 50lb mono this i hoped would give me a decent rubbing leader plus a lot more stretch at close range, for tope the trace was a overkill for shark it was under gunned hopefully it fitted in the middle. i then ran a 10oz lead on the line and here it is and i know some of you aren't gonna like this but its by far the best bait ive found i hooked on a live mackerel through the back with shallow slashes down its side. i let the whole lot gently down to the sea bed bounced the weight away form the boat for about 8 yards and placed the rod down in with the lever drag on just enough to resist the tide with the ratchet on.
I then put out 3 shark rods one on a float about 90 yds back form the boat and about 50ft deep, 1 with a free swimming mackerel on with just a 4oz barrel weight on to take her down and finally one dead to the bottom with 11oz of lead on with a 4lb odd pollock flapper for bait.
All the traces on the shark gear were the same 8ft 600lb stainless cable 12/0 southern tuna hand sharpened and a 600lb BG swivel, this was then clipped to a 10ft running trace of 600lb commercial nylon back in the days when i believed in it.
The skipper put over a light bottom rod and started catching rays and then got bitten off twice and all went silent for about an hour. Then i had a dropped run on the tope rod the bait came back sliced in half. after another hour we had had nothing and then the rays and bottom fish came back and the mackerel started feeding again, i knew we had missed our chance and what ever had been lurking around had gone i felt we should more i talked to the skipper he agreed and we motored another 5 miles further out to another deep mark witch has a fast rip we anchored just off the rip and baited up as described earlier the gear went back down with fresh baits only this time no bottom fish showed up nothing not even a mackerel. After 10 minuets the skipper pointed and there not 10 ft under the surface was a tope swimming along i had never seen tope so close to the top before.
Then the stern deep rod roared off there was no question in my mind it was a shark run i struck into her and the pen stick bucked over as i felt real weight at the end she shock her head then she took off again the tld was half empty i couldn't put more pressure on her then she stopped and i felt it that horrible bouncing and grating when they role and all went slack i put the rod down and sat with my head in my knees i knew what i had lost that was no tope and no conger it had been what we were there for a shark. I reeled in the line and the 600lb rubbing leader had been bitten through half way up its length and above it was very badly abraded. We had no more runs that day and when we came back the next week all we had were rays. The boat was two brothers she is expensive for a inshore boat but shes a good boat and the skipper is one of the best.
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