According to official data, the Great White Shark has not been recorded in British waters, though there have been several very reliable, but unfortunately unsubstantiated reports from as far north as western Scotland. That said, one of its two closest relatives, the Porbeagle shark, finds the sea's around our coasts so much to its liking that the UK is now considered to be the number one spot in the world for finding them. Pockets exist all the way from the Isle of Wight up to the Shetland Islands. But without any doubt, the number one hot spot in terms of Porbeagle numbers over the summer months, not too mention the bigger fish in the spring, some of which could easily challenge the current 507 pound world all tackle record from Scotland's Pentland Firth, has to be the north Cornish coast. To be more specific, the area under the radar dishes a couple of miles to the north of the holiday town of Bude, which is fast becoming known as Britain's shark alley. Unfortunately, though understandably I suppose, with surfing one of the key attractions in the Bude area, the Cornish tourist board would probably rather this particular asset be kept as low key as possible, as some of these fish, including the real biggies in the spring, run so close to the shore as to be well within small boat fishing range. Some absolute monsters have been hooked up, though for obvious reasons, not landed from small boats, which explains why the current record has not been broken before now. You try bringing that sort of a lump into a dinghy. It would be suicide. The fish would also have to die in the process which would be a great pity, though under recently enacted EU legislation it would be illegal to do so anyway, as Porbeagle Sharks in excess of 210 cms in length cannot now be brought ashore. This particular visit took place in August when the small to middle range pack fish tend to dominate.

For several weeks Graeme Pullen and I had been planning to see if we could put a big shark inside the new 17 foot Wilson Flyer he had just bought himself specifically for this job. At one point, Dave Devine, Charlie Pitchers and myself had intended to trail down our Warrior. But with the on/off last minute weather related nature of fishing such an exposed stretch of open Atlantic Coast such as this eventually clashing with their work commitments, I ended up going down on my own and jumping in with Graeme. On the plus side, this gave me the perfect opportunity to reacquaint myself with the Wilson Flyer, a boat I am particularly familiar with having fished from Dave's many times in the days before we decided to go into partnership. With the experience of having fished from a V-hulled Warrior for so long since, I have to say that the Wilson suddenly looked and felt like a totally different boat to how I thought I remembered things. Eventually though, it all comes back. But it took a couple of hours. Now, looking back on the two days spent in the Wilson, I have to say that sea angling needs boats like this if it is to thrive – good, sea worthy work horses at a price newcomers to small boat fishing can more readily afford. Nothing fancy. A boat built to a price that is going to stand the test of time. With a Yamaha 60 on the back and three of us, plus all the fishing gear on board, we soon covered the 14 or so miles from Boscastle to the dishes at around 3500 rpm/17 mph with a bit held back in reserve. It's nice to be able to go faster. But a lot more economical, and in anything other than ideal sea conditions, uncomfortable to do much more.

In terms of putting a small boat in, at face value, you would think that the obvious launching choice would be Bude. It's nearer to the dishes and it does have facilities, which while they are not good, have similar restrictions to Boscastle, with the exception of one. What Bude also has is the potential to throw some pretty formidable surf into the equation where the channel meets the open sea. Well, it is a prime surfing destination, so what do you expect. It's at this point that you might have to call a retreat, even though the sea out beyond the surf tables is fishable enough. At Boscastle you don't have that problem. But what you do have is about 12 miles of extra sailing to get to the dishes from what is widely recognised as being the most 'invisible' harbour in Britain. Even when you are on top of the entrance it is still difficult to see the route back in. These days, a small white painted lookout station on the cliffs at the south side of the entrance at least gives you a clue. And at both destinations, once you launch, you are going to be out there for at least 10 hours until the water comes back, regardless of what the Atlantic Ocean may suddenly decide to throw at you. So the weather needs to be absolutely perfect, which for this particular visit it was, though only just, as the wind and rain began pushing in within hours of us getting back to the slip on day two.

Rubby dubby is an absolute must for drawing sharks into the vicinity of the baits. Traditionally, Mackerel allowed to go soft over night, then pulped up with some bran and maybe pilchard oil has been the time honoured way. But not for Graeme, whose track record at catching sharks is second to none. Rainbow Trout are a much better bet, and for two good reasons. One is that you don't have to waste time looking for Mackerel, other than a dozen or so for bait from the back of the island at Boscastle entrance. But more importantly, having been fed on high protein pellets, farmed trout have big livers that are rich in oil. Graeme gets his from Avington trout fishery who are only too happy to supply them from their hatchery mortalities which would otherwise cost them money to dispose of. So with the boat set up on its drift line anywhere between one and three miles of the shore on the uptide side of the dishes, and a good oily chum slick working its way from the bags, it's time to set the tackle up. Fifty pound class outfits are a must – just in case a real biggie comes along. Five feet of 400 lbs bs wire joined to 8 feet of 400 lbs bs mono via a heavy duty barrel swivel with a second swivel to attach the reel line and a 10/0 O'Shaughnessy hook with the barb flattened down at the business end completes the trace. Baits need to be positioned half to three quarters of the way down using a balloon as a suspender float. Don't put too much air into the balloon as Porbeagle's can be notoriously fickle fish if they detect anything much in the way of resistance. The balloon is attached using an elastic band so that if it doesn't break free when the fish dives, it can easily be pulled free at the boat so as not to impede the take up of line. Now set the ratchet on the reel, and as we did, sit back and wait, which in our case was not for very long.

We hadn't even got the second line in when the ratchet on the first outfit started to sound out. Not the long searing run you might expect. Porbeagle's will often do little more than bob the balloon, mouthing the bait before letting go, as if checking it out before confidently deciding to eat it. And that's exactly what was happening here. The float didn't even go under. You get a lot of good Tope in this area, even on baits suspended as much as 30 feet up of the bottom, which is what we thought this particular fish was going to be. Initially it let go of the bait. But feeding more line out to it eventually persuaded it to have another go. Then suddenly it was off. Not a big fish, and still looking likely to be a Tope, it eventually turned out to be a small Porbeagle of around 60 pounds, brought into the boat, tagged and released, and with no more than 15 minutes fishing time on the clock. We couldn't believe our luck. But very soon I was to get even luckier still. Not only did shark number two come along within minutes of the first one, it was also a very much better fish, though as with the first one, it didn't give that impression from the onset. Again things started with a few short tugs against the ratchet, a few bobs of the balloon, and a dropped bait. Then suddenly it was off, only to let go again when I tried to set the hook. So, like Graeme, I tried the feeding out slack line trick, and within seconds it was back and running, only this time with the bit between its teeth.

Porbeagle Sharks don't fight like any other shark I've caught before, and nor do they fight like Tope. The nearest thing to a decent Porbeagle in performance terms is probably a Tuna. They like to stay deep under the boat having you moving constantly from one side to the other then back again avoiding the prop. Very powerful fish too. When they decide to go, they are in charge. At one point however it suddenly decided to take off towards the horizon, rising ever higher in the water column as it did. It reminded of when a good Rainbow Trout runs on the fly then takes to the air. I honestly though it was going to come right up and out, which had us both thinking that perhaps we had got really lucky and hooked up into one of the Great Whites other close relatives the Mako, which has a habit of jumping. But eventually it went right back down again to slug it out under the hull. Time passes quickly when you are onto a decent fish, though I am reliably informed that it took in excess of half an hour before the trace swivel broke surface. Then it was decision time.

Not exactly a monster, but no pup either at what turned out from measurements taken later to be around 170 pounds. So, after quite a bit of thrashing about at the side of the boat with Graeme on the wire, we had to decide whether we wanted it in the boat, or to cut it free at the side. As the hope had been to bring our fish in for tagging, and to see how things might go in the confines of such a small (now suddenly feeling even smaller) space, we decided to put the Wilson Flyer to its ultimate stability test. Graeme and myself on the fish, David Lucas on the video camera, and 170 pounds of non too happy Porbeagle all on the same side of the boat together. Yes it dipped down in the water a bit, but nothing to get too alarmed about. Of greater concern was keeping out of the way of the sharks teeth once it had slid down onto the deck. Fortunately, being quite a short, heavily built thick set fish, the Porbeagle is, thankfully, less inclined to thrash and bang about like a tope.. Instead it just flexed from side to side on its belly giving the deck a good clean with its abrasive skin. Measurements were taken along with a few quick photographs, then it was time for a tag to go in at the side of the dorsal fin, followed by what turned into the biggest struggle of all in trying to lift it back out over the side. Not so much a case of the fish itself making life difficult for us as the sheer weight of the thing. I would imagine that 200 pounds is probably about the limit not only of what you might want in a small boat, but would be able to manage to get back out again afterwards.

Six Porbeagle's tagged and released were not the only fish we ended up with over the two days, in addition to which we had chewed baits, runs that faded to nothing, and a couple of free swimmers close to the boat, one of which was obviously interested in the rubby dubby bags. On day two when we had no balloons left and had to resort to bright yellow solid floats, we even had sharks trying to eat the floats, which ties in nicely with studies done in America on sea survival equipment. Yellow it seems stimulates sharks to attack to the point where some life jackets were being referred to in the research paper as 'yum yum yellow'. Some 'real' Tope also picked up a couple of the suspended shark baits on the drift. So at slack water we decided to put a grapnel anchor down with a rubby dubby attached, and position mackerel flappers a couple of turns up on the reel above the snaggy tackle hungry bottom. This produced some good sized Bull Huss to which we added Pouting and Pollack on baited feathers put down to test out what else might be lurking down there. But incredibly, after all that, no Tope. And to further confuse to the situation, despite fishing at anchor with the baits down deep, two of the Porbeagle's boated fell to these baits along with a couple of presumed shark bites off's on the heavy mono traces intended for the Tope and Huss. It just goes to show that however much you think you might know about fish and fishing, in the final analysis, the fish themselves decide how and when they should feed.

SEE THE VIDEO VAULT –Shark Alley