The year is 1921 at the Carnbase Reef, a short distance from the vaulting cliffs of Land’s End and the Longships Reef, on which in 1875 the 115ft tall lighthouse was built. The anglers were Captain Hugo Millais and his wife who over two evenings had a dramatic experience with pollack and coalfish that is unlikely to be repeated.
They left Sennen Cove in the late afternoon reaching the reef of which their boatman John Roberts, a commercial fishermen, had great knowledge, an hour later. The sea surface was being churned to white froth by predators feeding on a huge shoal of herring and in a matter of two hours of whiffing with 6oz leads, the boat moving at 3½ knots, they caught 24 coalfish and pollack together weighing 269lb. The
