A Cold Evening Catching at Cleveleys

Good Sized Whiting for me from Cleveleys

With the high pressure dominating the weather and the rain finally giving way we manged to get out on Sunday night for a spot of sea fishing with a few of the guys from Blackpool and Leyton Angling Society (BLAS). Along with all sorts of seasonal running about I’d picked up some Black Lug from Wayne’s Tackle in Preston which although a bit lazy saved me having to pump any in the freezing cold at Formby so money well spent.

We arrived with about 3/4 hour to spare until the start of the BLAS match so had a good chance to catch up with friends we hadn’t seen for ages. After surveying the beach from the car park for any likely gulleys before the tide covered them up while wrapping up in almost every layer we had we made our way down to the waters edge.

With the sea almost flat we cast our Black Lug tipped with Mackeral baits into the darkness. It wasn’t long until the Whiting started to show, small at first but getting progressively larger throughout the evening. We swapped baits around a bit to see what else was there, using Squid to tip the worms or just on it’s own and managed to catch a few small codling (all undersized) as well as a just in-size Dab for Wendy.

Small Codling for Wendy

Moving up the beach as the tide continued to flood the fish just kept coming and one one occasion I felt my bait get ‘hit’ twice while winding back in to re-bait only to find a couple of Whiting had jumped on the bottom and top hook of a Pennel bait that was hopefully going to catch me a Cod.

It was one of those nights where no matter what bait you put out you were going to get a Whiting or two, regardless of what end tackle was used, the trick was going to be if you could manage to catch an in-size fish before the small army of little ones found the bait.

For once I was the lucky one and managed to come second in the match, admittedly out of only eight people but still, after not being out for a while it was good to catch anything and getting a few ‘points’ was a bit of an added bonus. Wendy, although catching the same number of fish as me, only managed one in size, the Dab, but still, 9 fish each more than made up for our freezing extremities.

The major revelation of the evening wasn’t anything to do with sea fishing though, as we’d be fishing from 6pm till 10pm we’d bought some food flasks and loaded them up with soup. Why we hadn’t done this before is a mystery as we usually take sandwiches but with it being a little chilly we thought something warm would be better. It was probably the best idea of the weekend.

Hot soup, a roll to dunk in it and a few fish being caught – who cares what the weather’s like…

Last Sea Fishing Visit to Anglesey of 2009

Plas Cymryan - Is this the most perfect place to live?

We spend the last weekend of September on Anglesey searching for Small Eyed Rays and any other denizens of the deep we could find.

Unfortunately no one told the fish that our reason for being on the island was to catch a few of them and the two times we ventured out we didn’t even have a bite – let alone manage to land anything of substance. As it was we weren’t that bothered, we just needed a little break before the mayhem that is the run up to Christmas and if you can’t relax on Anglesey there is something wrong with you.

Perfect bait placement - now where are the fish?

As well as trying at Cymryan we had a go for Bass in the inland sea, which is the large body of water separating Holy Island from Anglesey proper but the only fish we saw were a few small Bass or Mullet jumping wherever our baits weren’t.

So that’s it for Anglesey this year – we’ll be back chasing Bass in the spring but until then it’s eyes to the weather as we hope for a few winter storms to bring in the Cod up here in Lancashire.

Three Things I do to Enjoy England

As most people who blog I constantly scan the web for articles of interest and I came across a feature on the Guardian’s website called Enjoy England so I thought I’d make a list of three of my favorite things to do in England, except of course I’m including Wales.

Sea Fishing – rocks, estuaries, beaches, everywhere…

Fishing on the banks of the River Douglas

It had to be the first thing I mentioned.

England, in fact the entire UK and Ireland coast has some of the best sea angling in Europe, if not the world, and we’re lucky enough to live very near the coast so we try to get out and wet a line as often as possible.

We’re not always hugely successful in our quests but the scenery and wildlife more than make up for any short comings in our angling ability.

Our most notable catches have been from Anglesey, but the fishing up here in Lancashire and its neighbour Merseyside, on the right day, can be truly stupendous where anything from Bass to Thornback Rays or Cod to Smoothhounds can show up to the skillful or lucky angler.

As we’re approaching winter all angling eyes will be firmly fixed on the weather reports hoping for some good westerlies to churn the sea bed up and a good drop in temperate. This should bring in the larger Whiting and following close on their fishy heals will hopefully be some large Cod. I’ve yet to catch one of the monster Cod that we know are caught around the Fleetwood and Liverpool area, 2.5 lbs is my biggest, but I’m an angler, and as long as there’s a line in  the water, there’s always a chance.

Hiking, Fel Walking, Rambling – whatever you want to call it.

Looking out to the Three Peaks

With the Lake District and the Three Peaks only an hour away, The Lancashire Fels even closer and North Wales only about 2.5 hours away it seems almost inevitable that loving the outdoors, we’d make the most of the hills and mountains surrounding us.

We’ve ambled for miles and miles around the surrounding countryside, in all weathers and at all times of the year but by far the best and most satisfying was when we went up Fairsnape in the middle of winter. As we climbed higher  we ended up walking through pristine snow covered hillsides until we reached the top to find a landscape that was so perfect it could have been a painting.

Bird Watching – another excuse to be outside.

Avocet in profile

England is truly blessed by the bird gods as all twitchers (as more dedicated than I am birdwatchers are called) will tell you.

Due to our sometimes less than predictable weather some very rare birds can be found almost anywhere in the UK.

Up here in Lancashire we have some of the best wetlands and salt marches anywhere in the world for migrant species such as Pink Footed Geese and when winter falls, the Ribble estuary is home to literally thousands of these birds as they escape the cold of more northern countries.

The RSPB have a couple of very notable reserves in the area. Leighton Moss at the top end of Morecambe Bay has a very respectable breeding population of Bitterns as well as a number of Marsh Harriers. Marshside near Southport, Merseyside is a terrific area to watch the huge flocks of geese during the winter as they move inland onto the salt marshes to escape the incoming tide.

As well as these two fantastic reserves we have WWT Martin Mere almost on our doorstep which has been host to BBC Autumn Watch in previous years.

So with so many brilliant opportunities is it any wonder we go bird watching. It’s another good excuse to get outside and most of the time we can combine it with sea fishing, walking (some of our fishing is a long way from the car) or both.

So… what are your three favourite things to do in England?

Are you like us and anything outside is good or do you enjoy going to see live bands, see new cities or go out to the pub. Whatever it is I’m sure you’ll agree, England, the rest of the UK and Ireland has it all.

Flounder for Lunch Anyone?

The 'head' of the River Douglas

After Saturday where we did all sorts of house and garden type things we went to the River Douglas just up the road from where we live for a spot of Flounder fishing with a lot of sitting, lazing, in the sun thrown in for good measure.

A Chubby little Flounder for me

As per usual for this venue I took my older fixed spool rod and reel and Wendy took her normal match fishing gear. Rigs were ‘normal’ 1 1up 1 down flappers armed with size 1 fine wire aberdeen hooks which we’ve found are easier to remove from the fish if you want to return them alive and unharmed.

Bait was Black Lug and Ragworm from Waynes Tackle on Water Lane in Preston, and was in excellent condition for bought bait and although I would have preferred to get my own Lug as we’d been busy the previous few days I just hadn’t had time.

The fishing was very slow although it was very pleasant to watch the leisure craft go past including a few intrepid canal boats that must have been making their way up to the lock at Tarleton after crossing the River Ribble. It’s only been possible to cross the Ribble recently as a method of getting from the Lancaster Canal to the Leads Liverpool Canal.

Wendy, as per usual, snared the first fish, a tiny Eel of about 8 inches which covered her gear in slime and tied her rig in a knot, it seems small ones are even more of a pain than large ones.

Next fish came to me just as the tide started to ebb, on Lug, a plump little Flounder of about 3/4 pound – nothing to shout about but a fish is a fish.

Wendy finally get a Flounder

Wendy’s rod gave a knock just as we were considering packing up for the day and she also landed a small Flounder, this time on Ragworm.

After that the tide had ebbed so quickly and so far that there was a stretch of mud between us and the water so not wanting to retrieve our gear through all the gloop we packed away and spent a whole 10 minutes driving home for a mug or two of tea.

Not sure why the fish didn’t show today, there were a few other anglers along the river and they didn’t seem to be having much luck either so we’ll put it down to ‘one of those things’. The crabs should be moulting again soon so I expect our next river sea fishing trip will see us using peeler crabs as bait.

Only time will tell if it’s any more successful but as is often said “that’s fishing”.

Easy Sea Fishing at Penrhos Country Park

Penrhos beach - North of the coastal park

The wind continued to blow and showers were forecast so we elected to try somewhere with a bit of shelter. We’d been for a walk around the coastal park at Penrhos and had seem someone fishing north of the car park, just where the clay cliffs start so we parked up, donned waders and waterproofs and got going.

Weed was a bit of a problem initially as the tide ebbed from right to left and the wind blew the same direction, but once the tide turned everything became a little calmer.

A small Bass for me

This was another one of those infuriating sea fishing sessions where you know there are fish there, made even more so by the fact we could see birds diving for bait fish and we even saw a few fishing jumping, but no matter how hard we tried or what method, we just couldn’t hook into anything.

And then, while sitting and having a coffee, I noticed a slight bump on my rod but thought nothing of it as the weed and wind had been doing that all day, until it happened again – a tiny little knock.

Could this be a fish?

I wound in even more weed to find my smallest Bass yet attached to the bottom hook of my rig, a whole ragworm dangling from it’s mouth.

This was to be my first and only Bass of the hoiday but we’d found a new venue and got a fish out of it in conditions that in all honesty were probably best suited to sitting in the pub and having a pint. It doesn’t look very windy on the photo but believe me, it was blasting along the beach and after a while we called it a day as not only was the weather worsening but the tide was pushing us away from the deeper water.

Finally, a Black Bream from Pwllheli

A Small but pretty Black Bream from South Beach, Pwllheli

After a few days of chilling out, walking and catching up on some reading in the sun we ventured of Anglesey, over the other side of the Llyn Peninsula to have a go, once again, at Pwllheli south Beach, target: Black Bream.

My first (small) Black Bream

After a long, long wait, and trying far out, close in, big baits and small baits I finally managed to capture this beautiful little fish on a size 4 hook using ragworm with a strip of squid as bait.

Looking at the size of this little fellow it was evident that size 4 hooks had been too big and we’d have been better scaling down to size 6 or even 8. We tried this but the tide was starting to ebb so we called it a day after a few hours. Only one fish but one I’ve been trying to catch for years.

So now that I’ve caught this years target species, all be it a very tiny specimen, it’s time to thing of a new challenge – probably Small Eyed Ray in September / October.

The only thing that put a dampener on the day was that even on such a huge beach with hardly any one on it, people still let their dogs crap and kids swim unatteneded right in front of us – maybe we’re famous or something but I doubt it – it’s more likely that people are just ignorant.

Lazing on the Rocks at Llanbadrig

Long Spined Sea Scorpion from Llanbadrig, Anglesey

Not sure what we did on Monday but we got up early on Tuesday and headed up to Wylfa to have a go at the mini Bass and Mullet that hang around the warm water outflow from the power station. I’m not sure what time some people get out of bed but I thought we were quiet early and yet when we arrived all the rocks suitable for fishing from had people on them – as you know we’re not the social type of fisher-people so we moved clockwise round the island a few miles and ended up on a very comfortable mark at Llanbadrig.

A small Pollack on the float

I was first into a fish for a change although it wasn’t a monster by any stretch of the imagination, a small Pollack (or Colin as I seem to remember Sainsbury’s are wanting to call them for some reason – sheesh…) taken on a Ragworm fished under a float.

We’d fished here before and knew the bottom was a tackle graveyard so although there may be some monsters lurking around in the depths we elected to play it safe and have a bit of light tackle fun with the spinning rods and some floats.

I managed to catch the angriest, spikiest fish in the sea – a long spined sea scorpion, which is not venomous although it looks lethal, just a bit prickly while fishing straight down the rocks below my feet, again on a small Ragworm and for once I was ahead in the fishing stakes.

And then it all went Wendy’s way as she produced Wrasse after Wrasse with a few Pollack thrown in for good measure.

I also had a go at spinning and lure fishing, hoping to snare a bigger fish as the tide started to race past our protected little cove but after loosing a few soft plastic lures and a few leads decided that our choice to float fish was definitely the best thing to do.

A Wrasse for Wendy

I did finally get to use the landing net, which we’d bought years ago specifically for rock fishing as it has a long telescopic handle. Was it for a denizen of the deeps?

Was is heck, Wendy had got snagged on a rock and broken off and as one of her trademark pink floats made a bid for freedom I sprang into action – more like casually climbed down and netted it but the result was the same, one saved float although I’m not sure about her choice of colours…

We spent a very pleasant afternoon where catching small fish reminded me of when we first started sea angling, when every fish was fantastic and new.

I’m glad to have re-discovered that feeling, sometimes I think I get a bit blinkered in the search for bigger and better quarry and forget the sheer enjoyment of fishing and watching the world go by.

Catching a Few at Cemlyn, Anglesey

Sandwich Tern returning to chicks with a Sandeel, Cemlyn

We arrived on Anglesey with two weeks of doing anything except work in mind and thats exactly what we did. Sea fishing, walking, photography and bird watching, Anglesey has never disappointed us and these past two weeks have been no exception.

Sunday started with blue skies and after discovering that there was a supermarket just up the road from where we have stayed for years we made some sandwiches and went for a short walk at Cemlyn Bay to see if the Sandwich Terns were still there. As you can see from the above photo not only were they still there but they were still flying backwards and forwards feeding their young.

There were hundreds of them and even when we walked around the headland you could still hear them calling and see them diving into the sea in search of Sandeels.

Cemlyn Bay, Anglesey

The bay itself is fairly steep and covered in shingle rather than sand which keeps away all but the most hardcore sunbathers so we almost had the place to ourselves. As you can see – hardly a ripple in site and we decided to come back later and have a go at fly fishing in the sea for the first time, more on that later.

Six Spot Burnet Moths on Ragwort

All along the edge of the beach and cliffs the Ragwort was flowering and covered in both the moths and caterpillars of the Six Spot Burnett (Zygaena filipendulae), the caterpillars look identical to the Cinnabar Moth ones I’d spotted in Bolton during the previous week (yellow and black stripes) but where the moths have a red stripe and a dot the Six Spot Burnett has six spots on each wing. Sometimes the simple beauty of our countryside and wildlife amazes me and this first proper day on Anglesey was turning out to be one of the best yet.

A small whiting for me

Later that evening we came back to Cemlyn for a spot of sea fishing.

The fly fishing, although not a total disaster proved a bit troublesome in the evening breeze but we’d brought our light beach / bass gear with us and as the sun set cast a couple of juicy crab baits to the ‘gutter’ formed where the shingle meets the sand which in theory is where food is washed by the tide and hence the fish are to be found.

A lad fishing down the beach from us told us his father had had a few Bass there the previous evening but as per usual this was not ‘last night’ and the Bass didn’t show for us or him.

I managed to save a blank with a greedy little Whiting then a darkness settled we made our way back to Ty Cristion.

Micro Tope – Sea Fishing at Blackpool

Blackpool, North Wall - Looking a Bit Like Rain

After a weeks worth of truly dismal weather we joined the guys from BLAS (Blackpool and Layton Angling Society) for an evening sea fishing match, fishing a couple of hours either side of high water at Blackpool North Wall.

We met at the boat club on the prom where the weather looked like it was preparing to throw a few suprises our way, but the forcast was for the wind to drop so we set up and got on with it just as the incoming tide hit the bottom of the wall. The swell was fierce and although we had initially been hoping for Ray or Smoothhounds it was looking more and more like Bass were going to be coming out – conditions looked perfect, the bottom being churned up nicely and a nice big surf.

As it turned out no Bass were caught by us although we heard of a few coming out either side of our group – typical.

My First Shore Caught Tope

About an hour in I managed to snare a small flounder that had engulfed my crab bait and impaled itself on a size 2/0 hook intended for slightly biger quarry. I decided to try something different and as the swell seemed to drop slightly I cast a sandeel fairly close in to try for a dogfish – not something I’d usually target, but this was a match and a fish is a fish after all.

While preparing my next rig with a crab I noticed my line go slack and start to move downtide, assuming the lead had been broken out by weed or the surf I wound down only to find it continuing to move at a very odd angle.

A little thump told me something was on but I had no idea what it could be until I landed my first ever shore caught Tope. Not the biggest specimen by any stretch of the imagination but still a perfectly formed mini shark, forget the match – this was brilliant.

After chatting to a few of the guys who fish the wall regularly during summer (they live in Blackpool) apparently this is fairly common and you can usually catch them using baby squid as bait.

We didn’t have and squid but you can bet that Wendy launched a sandeel bait seaward in her effort to snare one of these little beauties.

Wendy's Second Whiting

That was it for me although Dave got another small Tope on crab, Millsy a Whiting, Sparky a Whiting and Wendy, after trying every trick in the book managed to land a couple of Whiting.

As per usual with these matches the weather played a huge part in our lack of success and no one managed to land an insize fish but the evening was great, with good company and, much to our relief stayed rain free even if the wind didn’t drop as we’d hoped.

That’s probably going to be our last sea fishing session until we go to Anglesey but we are going to try and get out and do some fly fishing next weekend as all the new goodies we’d ordered after our lessons at Mere Beck arrived last week.

We’ve sorted everything out (as you do) and have got a couple of 8 weight rods for salt water fly fishing and a couple of cheaper 6 weight ones for normal fly fishing – for those times when no matter how hard you try time, tide and weather are against you. I’ll chat more about the gear once we’ve tried it.

So next weekend the plan is to go back to Mere Beck for a bit of practice on a lake before we attempt fly fishing in the sea and maybe, just maybe, catch a trout.

Bolton Angler Rescued, Aberdaron, North Wales

It goes to show you can never be too careful while fishing as this chap found out last weekend. Apparently a wave swept him off the rocks near Aberdaron and he was in the water for an hour when the coastguard helicopter winched him to safety.

See the full story here on the BBC news website – Angler rescued after hour in sea

A reminder to us all – fishing is great and we all ‘push the limit’ every so often, but it’s not worth risking your life for.