Sunday

Planned a session with Paul for the Sunday night just been. Had been watching the weather forecasts all week and changed my mind constantly about where to go. Dependent on the swell it would be either Ty Croes or Cymyran. It was touch and go with the weather all day but eventually as we were driving there we decided to go Cymyran to try something different and maybe get something a bit unexpected, and we might get to Ty Croes and it was unfishable anyway.

The roar of the waves, and the very gentle breeze as we got out the car justified the decision to stay away from Ty Croes and we were quite optimistic with the life in the water we would see some action. Second cast in and I had the first whiting on a flapper but the fishing proved to be a bit slow with bigger baits coming back untouched for the first couple of hours.

Then came a 10 minute spell of activity, firstly myself getting a reasonable bite which came to nothing. All of a sudden Paul is dashing to his rod clearly into something more than a whiting. As the beast came into the shallows we kept catching glimpses of it in the headtorches and we started guessing what it could be. I went out to meet the fish, and in front of me a lovely small eyed ray emerged from the surf with me shouting back "ITS A RAY!!". It was what we were hoping for but I never expected one to come out the first time we tried here this early in the year. With a firm grip on the fish I passed it onto Paul, his first small eyed ray, and a beauty at about 7lb 8oz! After a couple of photos it was returned to the night, probably unaware of the joy it brought us.

With renewed enthusiasm and energy (drinks) we carried on fishing and before he even had chance to cast out again Paul had a wallop on his other rod which unfortunately came to nothing. I managed another whiting late on but soon after I birded my multipler, making a right mess of the cast so I was down to 1 rod. With the wind beginning to pick up we called it a night, stopping of chatting to a bloke who had also managed just a couple of whiting.

The track down to the car park has taken a serious beating over winter with some very risky looking ridges and holes. I caught the mudguards a few times each way but the track is only going to get worse so we were glad to get down there and get a decent ray while it was still possible to get my car down there.