Weekending

I had the weekend to myself so I made plans for all out fishing. I did plan on being out this morning as well but a late night and the clocks going forward meant I well overslept.

Saturday started with me going down to the Straits on the Bangor side. I was using LRF and spinning gear, just trying to get a feel for using them. It was very slow going, with no sign of any fish. However I found a clear patch 3 foot deep amongst a load of seaweed, and dropping an imitation ragworm drew the attention of a small ballan wrasse. It had a look and I'm sure it took half of my lure, just not the half with the hook in it! It stayed interested for a couple of minutes before the swells from passing boats clouded up the water and the wrasse was gone. I give it an hour or so more but with nothing happening except the wind getting colder I headed off to prepare for my second session.

After digging a healthy amount of lugworm, I headed onto the island to try out a new mark for bass. Not sure on the timings, I arrived around 2 hours before high and before I had my second rod set up the first was already bouncing. I missed a couple of bites but soon landed one of the culprits which was a small bass about 8 inch long. This pattern continued up to high tide with many missed bites due to the fish taking the lug in between the pennel, therefore missing the hooks. I managed to land 5 fish before bites slowed down. Just after high I shone my head torch in the shallows and no more than a rod length out, shoals of fish were passing by. Initially I thought they were mullet, however the more I thought about it, the more convinced I am they were bass, all in the 1-2lb range.

With no sign of any bigger fish I moved to a mark slightly nearer the car. All was quiet for the first hour and a half, think I lost a doggie but that was the only action. Then as I debated packing up I had 2 bites in quick succession, first one missed but second one was on. Turned out to be a bass, and better than the fish I was catching earlier. This seemed to open the gates and it was manic for the next hour, I could only fish one rod at a time as they were biting before the rod was in the tripod. I landed another 4 with the best being close to 2lb. As quickly as they came on, the fish disappeared again and I headed off a lot later than planned but a feeling it was very worth it!

Change of wind

After a session on the North of Anglesey on Monday went pretty badly, I was set up for a session on the west coast on Wednesday night. The forecast was for the westerly gales to finally give way to North Easterlies, knocking the swell down and making the west coast fishable.

I was itching to get fishing all through work, and arriving in good time I had best pick of the ledges with no-one else there. I set up in daylight, swell was a bit sketchy but I figured it couldn't get worse with the tide dropping. Ended up being a slightly wet session still, with the rain never completely stopped.

Action was slow to begin with, just a couple of half hearted bites in the first couple of hours. I remained hopeful, expecting a mad hour or so as the tide dropped further. As darkness fell, bites became a bit more regular with the culprits being doggies, and several of them. I struck into another doggie looking bite but this felt heavier, and started to fight back. Soon a nice huss was on the surface and I made my way around the rocks to land it. I attempted to use the swell to bring it up the rocks but unfortunately it slipped back down and as it writhed around it managed to slip the hook.

Two refreshed baits were sent out immediately, and the rods were soon nodding again. It was a doggie on the one, and the other turned out to be small bull huss.

Another doggie or two followed (I didn't keep count) before I saw a slack line bite. Upon striking I felt a good weight again and the fish started taking line. After a short but decent tussle I had a nice thornback ray at the surface. This time I made no mistake with the landing, getting it onto a lower ledge before hand lining up. Its wasn't big but that was both likely targets achieved and firsts of the year. I had hopes for a couple more but sadly the doggies came on strong and nothing else got a look in.

End the Suspense

So with my bucket of lugworm as mentioned in the last post, I fished for a couple of hours Thursday morning before work - and how did I get on?

Well I was at the mark pretty well on low water setting up one bait rod and one lure rod. It became obvious that the water was too cloudy to warrant using the lures for long so it was soon two bait rods.

First cast I managed a first for the year, a doggie! And that was it. I fed the crabs for 1 and a half hours until last cast I was getting definite fish rattles. I got itchy and decided to reel in, too early it turns out and all I bought in was a slightly chewed worm, the culprit was probably a small flatfish.

With the wind and rain persisting so much I couldn't really justify taking pictures of a doggie, and I went to work looking like the proverbial drowned rat!

Last week round up

A short post, just rounding up the last weeks events. After holidays, working 6 days a week and trying to keep up my sports the fishing took a slight back seat, no major drama given the weather.

Last Thursday myself and Paul had plans to head to the north of Anglesey. A drop in the wind through the day opened up our options for fishing on the west side but we stuck to our original plan. I had been discussing this mark in detail with another at work, and previous experience also suggests it is more of a low water mark so fishing over high water wasn't ideal. The evening proved this theory right as it wasn't until at least one and a half hours that the rod tips started to twitch, the action being so slow that a starfish had time to plonk itself on my half mackerel bait.



By this point Paul had moved along the rocks slightly, and was rewarded with the first fish, a small huss, and I mean small. Probably in the 12-18 month old range. I missed one bite, the next gave me a series of reasonable pull downs but I resisted the urge to strike to ensure the fish had the bait in its mouth. Unfortunately whatever it was never came back and the bait came back relatively untouched. Paul dropped a doggie at the edge and despite a few more bites I had no fish to show. I put this down to only doggies finding my bait too big to swallow. Due to work we packed up as the tide was mid ebb, wondering what might have been if we had gone west.

Monday and Tuesday morning I decided to give my new LRF gear a long overdue soaking. I went to Menai Bridge as it was nice and close, and appears to be decent ground for the LRF species. I stuck mostly with Savage Gear micro sandeels and ragworm imitations but unfortunately had no joy. The water had about 2ft visibility in places but I saw little fish activity. Usually around this area you can see small pollack loitering under weed fringes but they weren't there on these mornings. On Monday I caught a glimpse of a fish that shot out from alongside a rock wall and had a look at a ragworm imitation before deciding against taking it. I believe perseverance will pay in the end with the LRF and results will improve once the water warms and clears slightly. On to tomorrow morning I have a bucket of fresh lug waiting to tempt a bass before work tomorrow.