Dive report 17/10 – Eddystone Lighthouse / Plymouth

This is a dive I been hoping to do for a couple of years now. It’s one of the few places where you can see big shoals of thousands of bass… big bass. Did I mention thousands…of big bass…

Ross dived Eddystone last year and took a massive 10 lb+ bass. I forget how big but it was a monster and got to dive with a big shoal taking several fish. So when Jon called me up and asked if I wanted to join him this past Sunday I was definitely going!

Jon was travelling down on Saturday for a dive but Sunday was the earliest I could make it down. It was a early start, 5am wakeup call, but well worth it as the drive down to Plymouth at sunrise was fantastic.

Arrived at the Mount Batten centre just before 9ish and Jon joined me shortly after that. It was an absolutely perfect morning for diving!

It was my first time out from Plymouth so great to see a new location and got a few snaps on the way out to the Eddystone.

The Eddystone is 7 mile out from Plymouth so Jon opened the tap and we started cruising out. The sea was in a pretty good state so we made good time, but still quite a trek!

From the picture above you can see the scale of the lighthouse by the 18 foot rib to the left… The “stump” on the right is from the previous lighthouse, Smeaton’s lighthouse. It’s an imposing place being so far out to sea but some great diving is to be had here.

We anchored up and hit the water. I immeditaly saw some monster mullet, 2kg+ but left them hoping to see bass which often follow… I did this a few times and was sorry in the end as I never saw bass other than a small schoolie, much to small to shoot.

The thing about Eddystone is that the bass can really gather here and shoal up, in their thousands. Or they just not there. Below is a clip of a friend, Dave, taking a 11lb bass here on a previous trip. Here you can see the shoal coming up to him before he even dived, he’s just gotten into the water! Amazing stuff.

Alas we where not to have the same good fortune… Jon did see a shoal once, but we never had the opportunity to dive on them and never saw them again even though we tried various different locations. It was exceptionally busy there, two bubble blower boats, so 10+ scuby doo’s in the water probably and a good few fishing boats including a trawler… all probably a bit busy for bass…

As we where having no joy at Eddystone we moved inshore to try a few marks there. Jon knew of a couple of wrecks that we made for, the HMS Scylla and SS James Eagan Layne. They where both fantastic dives as both wrecks are still very distinctive, especially the Scylla which was only sunk in 2004.

They both in about 20m+ of water depending on the tide and section you diving on so tough deep diving, but very rewarding.

On my first dive I saw three bass come out of the wreck and I had a shot at one while I was still descending. I missed (this was not to be my day…) and ended up with my spear jammed in the wreck. I had to abandon that dive and descend again to retrieve. By the time I made a third attempt the bass had either moved on where no longer interested in me. Jon saw a monster on the Layne, but could not get a shot in. We continued to dive and Jon landed a decent pollock.

Not long after I decended for a dive and positioned myself on what would previoulsy have been the deck and looked inside the hull, I saw a small pollock making it’s way to me to come and investigate. As I was lining him up, a bass overtook him and I thought ahh, I’ll have the bass. Literately as I pulled the trigger on the bass, a really good sized pollock stuck it’s head up from under the structure… I got the bass, but missed out on a really good fish as I never saw the pollock again.

We moved onto the other wreck, the Scyllia, after a few more dives. Never got anything but it was very enjoyable dive as the ships is still mostly in tackt. Jon took a few nice bass from there but I never saw them.

Our final dive as the sun was setting was on the Plymouth breakwater. We anchored in the middle of the breakwater and started diving, Jon going right me left. Almost immediately Jon started seeing bass and continued to chase them all along the break water taking a few bass along the way. I saw a shoal of mullet with a good sized fish in them, I took the mullet but never saw the bass.

We got back to the slip after dark and very cold after a day on the sea.

For me it was not to be a day I took home a bag of fish. Needless to say, I’m very pleased to have dived Eddystone and the two wrecks. Diving locations like this gives some variety to our normal dives in Mounts Bay and keeps it fresh. The joy of being in one of the last true wildernesses is more than enough for me.

Thanks for a great day Jon!

Short Documentary About The Lighthouse