First Guiding Session

 The sudden turn in weather had me scratching my head where to fish on my day off on Saturday. However the day before two friends, Stuart and Rachel registered an interest in coming fishing, despite having no previous fishing knowledge or experience. I decided on Point Lynas as the mark as it is fairly comfortable, easy access, out of the worst of the weather and more than likely to throw up a few fish.

Once down on the mark I set them up with a light spinning rod each, explaining the basics of what I was doing. The plan was to fish small ragworm baits close to the rocks for wrasse, pollack and mini species, although with the tide heading out for most of the session I had a feeling sport would be a little slow. I talked them through how to use the fixed spool reel to cast, in this case it was just an underarm swing, releasing the weight at the furthest point so the weight dropped just of the edge of the seaweed.

While they were waiting for the first bites I set up a feather rod, and a heavy rod to see if any bigger fish were swimming past. After 20 minutes or so Stuart decided to reel in and check the baits and as soon as he started reeling in he said there was something pulling back. Slow and steady the fish came up to the surface, it was a small ballan wrasse that gave a good account on the light spinning rod. The next bite was a little while coming, and it was Rachel's turn. This time a slightly better wrasse fell for the ragworm baited sabikis. After that Stuart was in again and to my surprise it was a dogfish hanging onto the small ragworm bait. This continued, each time I expected to see a wrasse or pollack but it was only dogfish finding the tiny baits.

Moving around the rocks they had about 8 dogfish between them, and as much as I sometimes detest catching them they are brilliant fish for beginners as they provide a bit of weight and can usually be relied upon for bites. As the day drew to a close Rachel managed to tempt a scorpion fish to give us a bit more variety. Considering neither of them had any experience fishing before they were able to pick it up quickly and were comfortable in swinging out the weight and bring in a fish without assistance. Overall on top of the fishing the weather was good and we witnessed a wide range of local wildlife so it was a pretty successful day all round.


After the session I had a couple of hours spare so made a short move to Bull Bay. Again the fishing was a bit slow but I managed a couple of ballans and a shanny and lost a couple of bigger wrasse that couldn't be stopped. I think it was the clear water making the fish a bit wary of taking the baits, and the bright sunshine almost definitely put the pollack off, but I was happy to be able to provide my first "clients" with some fish.