Sea Fishing & Walking in the UK

Relaxing Sea Fishing at Rossall, Lancashire

Double Shot of Whiting

Last night we had a quick trip up to Rossall near Fleetwood, Lancashire to see if we could snare a few fish before Christmas and to get away from the mayhem that seems to arrive at this time every year.

The weather was by no means ideal and when we got there the sea was flat calm with a mist rolling in. It’s always a bit strange being on a beach during the night but with hardly a ripple on the sea and visibility down to 100 meters it was a little odd, but damn it was good to be out sea fishing after so long.

Hi-tide was about 1 o’clock so we fished from about 10.30pm through to 2.00am.

Bites were a little slow in coming to me during the run up to high water but Wendy was getting plenty of interest in her lug worm baits but just couldn’t connect with any fish. Then as high water arrived she started landing a few Whiting then proceeded to show me how it’s done by catching 2 at once.

A Flounder from Rossall

It was another of those sessions where I was out fished by Wendy, 6 fish to 3 although I did manage a Flounder as well as 2 of the smallest Whiting I’ve ever caught. I’m beginning to get used to it but it didn’t matter and all too soon 2 o’clock came and it was time to pack up.

Another great session sea angling on the Lancashire coast and just what we needed, a bit of peace and quite, the sound of the sea gently lapping against the promenade and a few fish – fantastic!

Winter Storms and Christmas Cheer

Robbie the Reindeer

Isn’t Christmas great?

There was no fell walking, sea fishing or birding last weekend, as it was Christmas tree buying weekend! As usual we ended up chopping over a foot off the top of it to get it in to the house – it happens every year but we just can’t help it. It is now in position and decorated with lights and baubles. It looks great and smells wonderful.

On Sunday we went up to my parents to get some Holly for the table decorations where we had a good chat, a wonderful diner and a drink or two which was very relaxing.

But what about the weather? The wind along the Lancashire coastline these past couple of weeks has been unbelievable and, looking at the forecasts for the coming weeks, is set for some time.

During the Christmas break we’re hoping to go sea fishing up towards Fleetwood as well as do a bit of fell walking so hopefully the weather isn’t going to be quite as bad as predicted.

If nothing else the storms are good for birding as all sorts gets blown of track and ends up a little closer to land than is usual so we’ll probably have a couple of trips out to the coast without fishing rods.

Now that will make a change!

Wild, Windy and Wet – No Sea Fishing This Weekend!

Well I can definitely say that the winter storms have arrived here in Lancashire this week. The weather has been awful and it looks like it’s going to continue into the weekend. Damn!

We were hoping to go out on a boat trip (fishing a match with the Blackpool and Layton Angling Society guys again) onto the River Mersey but neither myself or Wendy are fantastic on boats in dodgy weather so we’ve cancelled – I hope they have a good time on Sunday – if the boat goes out!

The garden is now devoid of leaves and underwater so there’s nothing to do there, so what to do over the weekend?

Christmas shopping has been done but I’m sure we’re missing something…

The Christmas Tree!!! Yes, this is the weekend that we get our tree, a real one of course and kick-start Christmas off with putting up the decorations, and maybe a glass of wine or two…

A Rarity on our First Birding Quest

An Evening of Lapwings

After purchasing the scope on Friday we were eager to try it out on something a little more challenging. There had been sightings during the previous month of a very rare bird to the UK so flasks were packed and like proper birders off we went in search of our quarry.

The destination was Fluke Hall, Pilling on the Southern side of Morecambe Bay. The weather was, once again, very windy and just to make it worse, showers were frequent and cold. I thought I’d spotted our target on the drive to the car park but wasn’t sure until a very kind man confirmed our suspicions.

We came out of the woods a little apprehensively, would it still be there? YES! You could see it with the naked eye, closer with the binoculars and through the scope it was amazing. A Glossy ibis! So rare a visitor to the UK there have only been 87 sightings between 1958 and 2004. It’s not even on the RSPB web site. Just as I pulled the camera from my pocket it flew behind the trees but just to see it was fantastic – a truly exotic bird in Lancashire – amazing!

It’s likely that well be doing a lot more birding now that we have the scope so below are a few links that will keep the avid bird watcher up to date.

birdguides.com A free map with sightings or register for more in-depth details.birdformum.net A massive resource for all things birding, from sightings to equipment reviews – to get started try looking in the section for North West England.

And last a link to rockyroaduk.com – views and stories from the saddle of a mountain bike, mainly around Lancashire. Some great photos and stories from Chris.

And the photograph above? Well, we had to go and have a quick look at the Little egrets at Marshside. I couldn’t get a photograph, it was a bit dark but the moon was just visible as these Lapwing flew past.

After all – we’ve a scope now and it seems we’ve become birders…

A Couple of Birders Reborn – Martin Mere Revisited

I took a few days off work at the end of last week to do a bit of sea fishing but the weather once again had different ideas. A little wind we want but 45 mph gust onto the shore is a bit much by anyones standards. Fell walking was out of the question so where to go?

Digiscoped Wood Pecker

As Martin Mere is only a few miles from our front door we decided to pay another visit to this fantastic bird reserve owned by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust.

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that sometimes the birds are just too far away to see or photograph. Well on Friday we finally did it – we purchased a fieldscope (small telescope) from the very helpful Andy at the In Focus shop, it really does make a huge difference being able to set up many ’scopes’ onto the same subject at the same time so that you can compare them. We ended up with an Opticron GS665 with a 20 – 40x magnification eyepiece, a tripod and a clamp for using it within a hide. After using it until the light failed we are both very pleased so far with our purchase.

The photo of the Great spotted woodpecker was taken as an experiment – I focussed the scope onto the bird then took a photo through the eyepiece of the scope using our digital camera. Not brilliant but not bad for a quick trial. After searching round the internet I’ve found this is called ‘digiscoping’ and there are brackets made for holding the camera in place so I might give that a go eventually.

Magnificent Marshside – Birdwatch

RSPB Marshside

The weather forecast yesterday was horrific with almost 40mph winds and heavy rain so we cancelled our sea fishing trip and hence didn’t get any bait. Imagine my frustration on waking this morning to a light breeze and glorious sunshine – oh well, British weather, what can you do?

Not wanting to waste the fine weather I went walking around the Marshside RSPB reserve, near Southport, Merseyside. The drive took about 15 minutes and as I approached the car park down the coastal road I spotted a few bright white shapes on the seaward marsh. I quickly parked the car and raced back to the spot and got out the binoculars in time to see 4 Little Egrets, a first for me! To far a way for a good photo – I took a few but the birds were far to small in the images to make out.

Ducks Hiding

I slowly walked back down the coastal road, enjoying the huge flocks of Lapwing and Starlings until I got to the nearest hide. By now the wind was getting stronger (thank goodness I wasn’t fishing after all) so it was good to be in some shelter for a while.

Marshside is an amazing place if you stop for a while and look carefully at what you perceive to be empty fields. Most people will see the flocks of Lapwing flying overhead and the Pink-footed geese arriving in huge numbers to feed but look carefully and you will see thousands of small ducks; Widgeon, Teal, Pintail and Shoveler to name a few.

I spent a good hour just watching, being somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of winter visitors to our coastline.

Godwits at Marshside

At the second hide, which is about 500m further down the coastal path, the land is more open shallow water with the odd island. This is a favourite roosting patch for the many wading birds that visit our shore line as it provides a good safe refuge when the tide is too high for them to feed.

Again the area was covered in small ducks with many of the larger Shelduck present but as the tide reached it maximum height for the day huge flocks of Black-tailed godwits arrived. These will stay here until April when they travel to continental Europe to breed.

There are, however, a few breeding pairs that stay in the UK, three pairs on the Fylde Coast on the River Ribble estuary at Newton Marsh. These are the most northerly breeding birds in the UK out of a total of about 50 so are nationally very important to the species.

I made my way back to the car after a very enjoyable couple of hours doing nothing but watching birds – great!

I’ll leave you with a couple more shots just to tempt you into a visit.

Black-tailed godwits arriving as the tide pushes them off the beach.

A mixed flock of Lapwing and Starlings.

First Cod of the Season, Fleetwood, Lancashire

A Fleetwood Cod

After checking out the weather we decided on joining some of the guys from Blackpool and Layton Angling Society (BLAS) on Blackpool North Wall to fish in a competition. On arriving (after driving through some sleet!) the choice was made to move the match to a more sheltered venue at Fleetwood, known as the Cadet Base, where the Sea Cadets have a building as the wind and hence the surf was too fierce.

The match was started at 8pm and scheduled to finish at 11.30pm. Wendy and I had been looking forward to the first Cod sea fishing session of the season and on my third cast I managed to snare a plump little codling of 1lb 12oz (42cm long), using a big lugworm as bait.

The weather stayed fine for most of the evening except for a very heavy hailstorm halfway through the session. I was the only one to catch a Codling but a few large Whiting came out as well as a small Rockling.

Two Whiting for Dave

The top rod of the evening was Dave who was managing to pull in Whiting 2 at a time towards to end of the match using big chunks of Mackeral as bait.

The top bait for us was Blow Lug as we were primarily after Cod but we experimented with using Mussels as well which seemed to catch Wendy a few fish. It’s difficult to know if this was due to the Mussels or not so we’ll keep trying until we figure it out. The top bait for the night and the match was fresh Mackerel.

To catch the first Codling of the season during the first Codling session was great and it’s currently being prepared and cooked for tea – fantastic!

A Plan for Cod, Fleetwood or Blackpool?

Well finally we’re getting a bit of cooler weather and this coming weekend the signs are good for our first proper Cod hunt up at either Fleetwood or Blackpool, Lancashire.

Three different weather websites are giving almost the same forecast of strong westerly winds dropping slightly on Saturday night with no rain. The tides are going to be high and the peak of high water is at about 9.30pm. Westerly winds, lo-pressure and a night time high tide – a Cod hunters dream on the North West coast.

We’ll make the final choice tomorrow after checking the weather so hopefully on Sunday I’ll post a few pictures of some Cod!

Winter Approaches and a Few Cod Arrive

Autumn Colour

With it being the Guy Fawkes celebrations during last weekend we didn’t get out sea fishing or fell walking as we spent a very enjoyable time at my parents.

I did manage to go out on Sunday with my father, his two labradors, my youngest brother and his girlfriend. We went for a gentle stroll around Beacon Fell which as always was wonderful while Wendy and mother prepared a feast for our return. A very relaxing weekend.

There have been some signs in both Lancashire and Merseyside that the cold weather is finally bringing the Cod and the larger Whiting down from their Northern summer feeding grounds with Cod up to about 3 pounds being caught around Fleetwood and a few almost the same size coming out of the River Mersey in last weekends sea fishing matches.

Hopefully next time we’re out I’ll be writing about Cod and chips!

A Riot of Swans at Martin Mere, Lancashire

Whooper Swans

The tides were not suitable for sea fishing at any of our favorite marks last weekend so after a lazy Saturday we woke on Sunday to glorious sunshine. After having a quick look at the days weather forecast we decided to brave the crowds and go and give the Wildfowl & Wetland Trust reserve of Martin Mere a visit.

This is where last months BBC programme, Autumn Watch was broadcast from and as it’s only a short journey from our front door after packing a flask, some snacks, binoculars, new camera and a good bird book we set off and arrived at about 11am.

Even though it is only a few miles away we’ve only been here a couple of times and pulling into the car park we remembered why, it was packed! We quickly entered and made our way as far from the crowds as possible.

Red Crested Pochard

Martin Mere consists of 2 main areas; the ornamental wildfowl section which is all fenced off and contains many different birds from around the world and the ‘meres’ which is where the main action is.

Every year tens of thousands of wildfowl use this area as their wintering grounds and the reserve is well know for the huge numbers of Pink-footed Geese and Whooper Swans that can be seen from the hides.

Even though we are still in Autumn the numbers of wildfowl is still impressive and as the colder months approach these number will steadily increase.

On our walk from hide to hide we managed to see all the usual suspects that are listed on the Martin Mere website but the most spectacular thing about this reserve is the sheer quantity of birds.

They were everywhere. From the smallest wading birds such as Ruff, tiny Teal and Widgeon, massive flocks of Lapwing through to the hundred plus Whooper Swans and the thousands of Pink-footed geese. It’s impossible not to be moved by such sights.

We managed to coincide one of our hide visits to a feeding session where grain is put out for visiting Whooper Swans.

Feeding Time

It was hard to believe that these were completely wild birds that only a few days ago were in Iceland. As the girl approached with a barrow full of grain they were almost climbing in to get at the food and it wasn’t long until it was almost impossible to see the ground beneath the feet of so many different birds.

We saw that quite a lot of cygnets had arrived since Autumn Watch and it was amazing to watch what can only be described as a riot break out amongst the birds as they squabbled to get a good feed.

We made our last circuit of the hides and thanks to some very helpful people who let us use their telescopes we saw a Merlin perched on a fence, a Buzzard on a gate post and then right at the end we saw a Marsh Harrier effortlessly patrolling the area.

To see three species of birds-of-prey only fifteen minutes from our doorstep made the entire trip worthwhile. We’ll certainly be going back but maybe when the crowds have died away and winter has set in.