Sea Fishing & Walking in the UK

Chipping Away at the Canon EOS 450D

Moorhen on Nest

As well as doing a bit of sea fishing we went to visit my parents up in Chipping, Lancashire, over the Easter bank holiday where I gave my new camera a proper try out.

The results speak for themselves and considering that the lenses are the ‘cheap’ ones I’m very pleased with how the pictures have turned out. The moorhen above shows that the autofocus picked the wrong spot and couldn’t quite get in the gap where the Moorhen is but it’s still one of the best photo’s I’ve taken of a Moorhen – user error on my part.

Snake's head fritillaries (Fritillaria meleagris)

This photo was taken with the standard 18-55 kit lens with the aperture wide open to throw the background out of focus. The quality of the full size image is astonishing and at print resolution (300 dots per inch) is about 14 x 91/2″ without any enlargement.

Prunus (Flowering Cherry) 'Pandora'

Another ‘close up’, not for any reason except that the Pandora Cherry looked great against the blue sky.

Dwarf Tulip (Tulipa tarda)

And another close-up of a flower, my Mum is a brilliant gardener so there are always things to practice on. All the photographs were taken using the ‘RAW’ setting of the camera to get the best possible image quality and as the light was fantastic no other post processing has been done.

Am I pleased with the Canon EOS 450D? You bet I am – I can’t wait to get onto Anglesey or in the hills and mountains of Lancashire and the Lake District to see what it’s really capable off.

Formby Bank Holiday Bass Hunt

Pumping for Black Lug, Formby

The call went out to all like minded fools (I mean sea anglers) that Kev was going down to Formby Point, Merseyside for a Bank Holiday Bass hunt. I didn’t need much encouragement although getting up at 4:45am so that I could have breakfast, make a flask of coffee  and load the car before arriving at the Lifeboat Road car park did make me wonder at the state of my sanity.

The foolhardy few that woke to the sound of the dawn chorus just starting up made our way on to the beach and proceeded to pump up some Black Lugworm which was to be the bait of choice. Throughout the morning we would keep getting Lug as the tide pushed us up the beach so bait was as fresh as it could possibly be.

We knew that we were pushing it to get a Bass as they don’t usually show for about another month at Formby but the weather forecast was good and it beat watching bank holiday TV or fighting through crowds of tourists to get wherever you needed to go.

The method is to cast out then keep moving backwards until you see the gully behind you filling up, then you can either cross the gulley paying out line as you go, or wind in and cross the gulley then wait for the tide to fill it enough so that it’s fishable. The Bass travel up the gulleys that run parallel with the beach as these are where the water is deepest, and the food items they are searching for end up.

The Worlds Smallest Flounder

Our predictions of it being to early were correct and the only thing caught was a very, very small Flounder in about six hours of fishing but were we disappointed?

Not really – it was a long shot at best but as the saying goes “you’ve got to be in it, to win it”

We left the beach at noon, just as the numbers of day tripppers started to get unbearable.

One great thing was that I ‘tested’ by new Scierra breathable waders / boots combination – wow – what a fantastic thing these are, they weigh nothing, are fully waterproof, ‘breath’ so you don’t sweat and since you are wearing proper boots are comfortable to walk in.

I wish I’d bought some years ago and I expect they are going to make my fishing a lot better this year as they will allow me to fish places I’d previously been unable to reach. Hopefully Wendys’ will arrive this week to give her time to test them before we go to Anglesey.

Marine Drive, Morecambe – A Plaice for Flounder

Morecambe Bay, The Bay Between the RNLI and the Yatch Club Tower

There had been a report on one of the fishing forums covering the North West of the UK that a few Plaice had been caught up at Morecambe, nothing huge – up to a couple of pounds, but as the weather forecast for today was good I nipped down to Crosby to dig a few Blow Lug after work on Thursday and we braved the traffic and ventured North. Along the M6, through Lancaster and an hour or so after leaving we arrived at Marine Road Central, Morecambe at about 10:30am.

A Small Flounder For Me

We were a bit early as you can see from the top photograph so we had a bit of a walk while waiting for the tide to reach the bottom of the shingle.

It didn’t take long for the water to reach us and with the sun shining on the mountains of the Lake District in the distance we cast our baits into the bay and waited. And Waited then waited some more. A few other people turned up to fish but it was definately a day for fishing rather than catching. I managed to land a small Flounder on frozen Black Lug and Wendy had a bite, although we think it was just crabs picking the mackeral tips of her lugworm baits, but most of the baits were coming back in untouched.

No Plaice for us but it was worth a try, maybe the fish are starting to feed on the crabs that should now be starting to peel, maybe they were somewhere else today, who knows?

But what a lovely day to be out and what a great view of the Lake District and the mountains over the other side of the bay. Morecambe is definately going through a face lift at the moment and it was good to see how clean the place (pardon the pun) is but I don’t think we’ll go back for a while.

We tend to like fishing where the only thing you can see is sand, sea, sky and rocks, not that we’re anti-social you understand…

Morecambe Marine Road Central - The Yatch Club Tower

A New Angle to Try, Fly Fishing at Mere Beck

Mere Beck Fly Fishing, Lancashire

We’ve always wanted to have a go at Fly Fishing but it’s always seemed out of reach for some reason, maybe because up here in Lancashire you always hear tell of the best streams being ‘down south’ or the famous rivers being in Scotland but there’s a growing community out there of people who are applying this method of angling to our local salt water species of which one of the main sources of information is the website of UK Saltwater Fly Fishing.

So, the question remained, where to go to ‘have a go’ and learn the techniques?

Looking Down the Ponds, Mere Beck

And after much searching on the internet we quickly eliminated the paid weeks tuition up in Scotland (a bit too expensive) and came across Mere Beck Fly Fishing, you can imagine my astonishment when I found out it’s 10 minutes drive from my house and with the weather today being so good we went to have a look round.

After having a chat with a very knowledgeable lady who ran the reception / tackle shop / everything, we spent a good hour just walking round the many ponds that are fed a constant flow of water creating a slight current for the fish to thrive in. Tuition can be arranged and tickets for fishing can be bought from 3 – 8 hours. It looked fantastic and I got that feeling that this was exactly what we were looking for to get a feel for fly fishing and to ‘have a go’ and see if it is something we want to persue.

The next stage is to book a day of work, sometime in May I think, that coincides with Wendy’s nursing and arrange to go for the day.

I also had a look at our Snowbee catalogue which I got hold of to have a look at waders just to see what fly fishing tackle is all about and start to learn some of the lingo (are there any anglers out there who don’t look through tackle catalogues at all the new tackle they can buy?) – it seems very simple and lightweight compared to our usual stuff but as per normal there doesn’t seem to be a top limit to what you can spend so a little restraint is going to be called for until we’re sure.

As for sea fishing with a fly rod I think most of the methods are the same as for trout but the tackle is slightly heavier, protected against the salt and the flies bigger.

Canon EOS 450D

The other thing I did this week was finally purchase an SLR camera. I had one a long time ago when I worked in a camera shop but sold it to purchase my first Apple Mac about 15 years ago and have since had increasing more complicated compact cameras of which my current one is a Canon Powershot A640 which has served me well and no doubt will still take the majority of my sea fishing photos’.

My new camera is a Canon EOS 450D (Not Canons top model but not the bottom one either) with the ‘kit’ lens which is an 18-55mm zoom plus a larger 55-250mm zoom. I haven’t got the more expensive lenses as I want to make sure I’m going to use it enough to justify the expense but first impressions are good.

I just need to remember some of the photographic techniques I picked up and have now forgotten, at least everything is now digital and I don’t have to pay for film to be developed while I re-learn how to work the thing.

Fairhavens’ Sea Fishing Flounder Fiesta

River Ribble Estuary at Fairhaven, Lytham

Well not exactly a fiesta but the first match of season for Blackpool and Layton Angling Society (BLAS) got off to a cracking start today with light winds and glorious sunshine as the eight of us met up at lunchtime at Fairhaven Lake, Lytham, which sits on the other side of the promenade to the Ribble Estuary into which we would be fishing.

The target species today was Flounder as they moved into the river with the tide to feed on crabs, worms or whatever else these greedy fish can get their mouths round. Usually we’d fish for Flounder with peeler crab but there was non to be had without having to travel for hours so Wendy and I had got hold of some black lug, ragworm and mackerel which we were hoping would be OK for today.

Shackys' Fairhaven Flounder

We waited for the water to hit the bottom of the wall, and the walkers to move off the beach and then all cast in, hopes high for some non-stop Flounder action.

Most of the guys were concerned about lack of crab for bait but it didn’t seem to make much difference for those anglers that had it as the fishing was very slow. Shacky was into a fish about an hour into the match of about a pound in weight but mine and Wendys’ baits were coming back in untouched until about half an hour later when Wendys’ rod showed a very positive bite.

She waited awhile until it showed again then quickly reeled in to find… nothing. We were all a bit shocked that nothing was hooked but I suppose that’s fishing.

A few minutes later I saw a slight knock but thought nothing of it until on reeling in when I managed to land a Flounder as well. Not as big as Shackys’ but still, a fish is a fish when your match fishing.

A Fairhaven Flounder

And then it went quiet, occasionally bites registered but we just couldn’t connect with the fish for some reason as all they seemed to be doing was nibbling at the Mackerel they seemed to prefer today rather than gulping it down like they normally do.

We called it a day at 3 o’clock as the tide was started to ebb and soon there wouldn’t be enough water to fish into. Dave managed to win the match with three fish, Neil with two then Shacky and me with one each. As this match was the RNLI trophy we had a collection for the lads and lasses of the RNLI and raised a bit of cash to help in their funding.

The fishing was not as good as expected but the weather was fantastic and it was great to be out on the first sunday of Britsh Summer Time. The next match is up at Fleetwood in about three weeks, at a venue we’ve not fished before called Fleetwood Channel, so we’re looking forward to that one, hopefully someone will inform the fish.

Upgrade Update

So far so good. I’ve managed to get all the posts from blogger into this blog (using wordpress) without having to retype everything. All the categories, tags and links seem to be working.

The next big task is to go backwards through the posts sorting out over or undersized images, I’ve done the first two pages but considering how long they took I might just do them every so often.

[edit] I think I’ve managed to redirect all the old links to the new format (time will tell) and I’ve instructed google to remove the old ‘labels’ and ‘archive’ pages from its’ search index so that people (and the seach engines) don’t follow these and arive at an error page. I’m up to page 4 on my image resizing, it’s taking a while to locate the original images but I’ll get there.

Blog Spring Clean – Solstice Maintenance

Spring is finally here, officially it’s the first day of spring today, also know as the Spring Solstice or Vernal Equinox, and we’ve had some amazing weather this week with temperatures rising as the Sun makes it’s presence known – finally.

As for spring cleaning, as well as the usual house related nonsense, I’m migrating this blog fully to a server hosed by supanames using wordpress to drive it and while I’m at it doing that giving it a new look. What this means is the blog may collapse or look a bit odd for a while. Hopefully I’ll have it sorted over the weekend but I’ve learned in this industry (web design, building, etc) that you can never be 100% certain that things will go according to plan.

There may be a few broken links for a while and I know the images need sorting out (making bigger) but stay with me, hopefully I’ll have it all sorted soon.

Floundering About on the Bank of the River Douglas

A Flounder from the River Douglas, Hesketh Bank

We’d had quite a busy day on Saturday doing all sorts of house related stuff so after the obligatory trip to the tip this morning (how does a house generate so much junk?) we drove the whole of 10 minutes to the River Douglas where we fished an hour and a half up to high water and about an hour down.

I’d finally got round to clearing out the bait freezer in the garage and given it its’ once when ever I remember defrosting so we took a box of squid, a couple of Mackerel and about 40 frozen black lug which we’d got from Formby beach in 2006 (a little old to say the least).

Wendy with a Flounder from the River Douglas

The sun was high and the weather was great as we cast our ‘well past their sell by date’ lug into the murky water but it wasn’t long until Wendy landed the first plump Flounder – a fish of about a pound in weight. The rigs we were using were nothing more complicated than 2 size 1 aberdeen hooks mounted on snoods about 18″ long, 1 near the lead, the other about 20″ up the main line, anchored to the river bed with a 5oz grip lead as when the tide comes in the Douglas has quiet a swift current.

I was using one of our older fishing rods and a fixed spool real which I purchased about 6 years ago, as my normal multiplier distance casting outfit would have been a bit overkill for the river. Short casts we’re going to be needed to land the baits on the mud slopes of the river where the Flounder would nose around as they searched for food – multipliers are a swine to cast short distances in my experience.

Fishing on the banks of the River Douglas

All in all we had an extremely pleasant afternoon as we promptly caught fish after fish on old black lug and although we tried the other baits only lug was catching today. The final ’score’ was 5 Flounder to Wendy and 4 to me, although I did catch the biggest, a lovely thick Flounder of just under a pound and a half.

We’re going to be re-joining BLAS (Blackpool and Layton Angling Society) in a couple of weeks at their first match of the season which will be another flattie bash at Fairhaven, Blackpool, but I expect that the shore crabs will have started to shed their shells by then so peeler crab will be the bait of choice, but we’ll take lug as an option – although it won’t be from the 2006 vintage as all that was left is now in the bin.

Random River Douglas Fact (I think): The River Douglas used to be called the River Asland which I’ve read somewhere means River Dirty Water – from the muddy colour of the water as the banks of the Douglas and the Ribble are all mud, creating a great, if a little muddy, environment for all sorts of wildlife.

One That Got Away

Don’t know how I managed to miss this while I was ‘fishing’ the internet on Monday but John Holden, well known for advancing beach casting techniques, teaching beach and competition casting and all round angler, angling writer and photographer has his own blog which is well worth a read.

You can find the blog at lets go beach fishing (nice name), with his main website at www.johnholden.co.uk which has information on the books and teaching videos John has produced.

Fishing The World Wide Web

So here I am after having one of those days that I’d rather forget caused, I think, by a stomache bug that went round work last Friday. I’d planned to go out yesterday but I just wasn’t feeling up to it and have taken the day off work today to get myself back to normal.

But, as they say, every cloud has a silver lining and I’ve done a bit of searching on the internet for bits and pieces about sea fishing and angling in general. The internet has certainly changed the way we gather information about our hobby / sport and with a few quick google searches I’ve come up with a couple of gems.

I was searching for “Bass Fishing” and although I usually stay away from youtube links as they’re normally a bit dodgy I came across this film, made in 1947 by Van Campen Heilner, it’s not up to date by any stretch of the imagination, or even in the UK, but it was good just to sit back and watch this film of fishing from half a century ago.

The other main thing I managed to find today was Dave Lumb’s Specialist Tackle. Now I don’t usually link to tackle dealers but Dave makes custom rods and gear for most freshwater fishing and I expect he could make rods for salt water plugging for species such as Bass and Pollack, but the main reason Dave’s company took me by suprise is it’s only about 2 miles from my house and I’d never even heard of it!

And talking of dealers – we’ve a new one opened up in Southport called Tony’s Tackle, I had a quick look and it looks promising, it’s on Rufford Road (B5244), Southport