PLYMOUTH skipper Frank Lee who operates Secret Star provided a party of Royal Marines with a super day's fishing at a small wreck lying within an hour of the Cornish coast.

Live launce made contact with pollack to 17lb, and the heaviest five ling all over 20lb was a heavyweight of 32lb. Dave McPolland, who had fought seasickness throughout much of the session fished in a fairly rough sea condition, battled this fine fish to the gunwale.

It is the third in the class taken in recent weeks from both Plymouth and Torbay charter boats and confirms the species has returned to the region's waters in reasonable numbers following a long-term absence of classy specimens.

Ling to 29lb cod to almost 20lb and good weight pollack were also taken by visiting anglers fishing from the Plymouth boat Size Matters skippered by Shaun Brett who also dealt with the first good conger of the season, these being returned.

Moderate sport with spotted ray is available on the North Devon beaches those in the Westward Ho and Bideford seeming to give the best chance.

Garfish to 1lb 10½oz have been taken at Berry Head and shoals of sizeable mackerel are steadily moving closer to the coast. The Record Fish Committee has now taken a year to adjudicate on the claim for a shore caught thornback ray caught by Paignton's Mike Johnson.

An fine mackerel of 2lb 13oz 14dr was taken at Porthkerris Point on Cornwall's Channel facing coast by Jason Rule one of Camborne AA's talented juniors. The specimen is a record for the club and is a whisker over 2oz short of the Cornish Federation's record set 32 years ago.

Carp anglers have had outstanding success. Crediton's Mike Izzard, who knows everything there is to know about fishing Creedy Manor, had two exceptional sessions and his total bag weights were 226lb and 195lb.

He banked 22 fish all but a couple in upper double figure class and the heaviest was a common of 25lb 13oz. Colyton's Steve Heal fished a swim on the right-hand bank for three commons including a personal best of 25lb 9oz.

Exeter's Jarrod Kastner also had his biggest-ever fish, a common of 25lb 2oz when he fished shallow water with legered boilies. North Devon's Rob Kendall brought commons of 24lb 1oz and 22lb 10oz to the scales, but was unimpressed by a very low weight fish of just 8lb possibly the smallest in the lake.

Another catch in the 'best ever' category was a common of 22lb 5oz taken from the shelf swim by Minehead's Stephen Bailey and he ended the session with others of 19lb 9oz and 17lb 8oz.

There was plenty of activity at Paignton's Town Parks where Matt Everill was able to put a new weight line in his log book for a common of 23lb 1oz and he had a further three during the night time session at Peg 9. He fished boilies tipped with corn at the corner of the specimen lake's main island.

Ace Matt Skelly banked the venue's best mirror carp of the week – a fine fish of 25lb 2oz – and had commons of 19lb 8oz, 18lb 9oz, and 14lb 9oz. Home-made spicy meat boilies devised by Matt Dore achieved plenty of success. Commons of 19lb 4oz, 17lb 10oz and 16lb 12oz found the flavour irresistible and during another session he had a 25lb 10oz mirror and several more commons in heavyweight class.