Our annual September visit to Anglesey coincided with some truly horrid weather this year – payback for a beautiful 2 weeks in July maybe. In fact it was so bad that our first nights sea fishing was cut short, the wind and associated weed was so bad that even huge leads couldn’t keep the baits in the water for any length of time. It doesn’t look it in the photo above but trust me, it was horrid.

Saturday, according to the weather forcast didn’t look so bad so we arrived about 2 hours before high water and made our way to the small ‘bay’ formed by the bend in the ‘river’ between Holy Island and Anglesey proper. There were a lot of anglers fishing the beach to our left but with the tide racing in and out on such a flat beach it can be a bit of a hassle moving all the time, and since we were on holiday, we wanted something easy.

Actually we always fish this spot – it’s been good to us in the past and once again it didn’t let us down. As normal there wasn’t much action during the flood and realistically the weed was a bit more of a problem than we anticipated but we wanted to get there early to get our favourite spot.

Once the tide started ebbing the weed vanished and fishing began in earnest. An hour into the ebb my rod gave the tell tail bend, which just kept going, and I struck into what was obviously a good fish. It put up a fair scrap in the surf but eventually a lovely female Small Eyed Ray was beached, weighed at 9lb 3oz, photographed and returned to fight another day.

Unfortunately that was the only fish of the weekend and once again the weather came down, making fishing impossible for the rest of our trip but after a few days on Anglesey even the weather can’t stress you out.

A wonderful island with great fishing which we will continue to visit as long as we are able, in fact we’re already planning next years visits.

After the thankfully non-eventful journey down, unpacking more gear than would supply an Amazonian expedition and a trip to the local supermarket to stock up on food and beer we decided on an easy venue for our first nights sea fishing, hoping for Bass and armed with some fantastic peeler crab as bait from Menai Angling we arrived at Cemyln Bay a couple of hours before high tide.

The wind was a bit unpleasant and it looked like everyone had the same idea as us as Cemlyn is fairly protected from the weather. The fishing wasn’t great to say the least but we managed a few dogfish, no Bass this time…

The following few days we gradually ‘turned off’ and proceded to soak up the sun and think of nothing more taxing than ‘what shall we have for lunch?’ The weather was fantastic so we just relaxed for a few days, making the most of it.

Tuesday was a day for fishing though so with the wind in the East we elected to try a rock mark called Ty Croes, where the Anglesey race track is. On arriving at the car park there were a few cars there already but stupidly we made our way down to the rocks only to find all the available spots taken – I’m sure there are more but we don’t know the Ty Croes area well enough to find them. Plan B was put into action, go back to the cottage, chill out some more then fish Broad Beach, just South of Rhosneigr a couple of hours either side of high water into darkness.

This proved to be a great move, as we were entertained the whole evening by a contant stream of dogfish. Not the target species until I spotted the classic bang of a Bass bite on the rod I was fishing with peeler crab relatively close in and reeled in my first Bass of the year. At about a pound and a half isn’t wasn’t a monster and it swam away safely to terrorise more tiny sea denizens.

We also managed to catch a few whiting but by about midnight we’d had enough and happily made our way back to Bodedern.

The following day dawned bright and cheery once more so it was another one of those chilling out days, it’s amazing how doing nothing but relaxing can tire you out…

We did go for a stroll around Penrhos Beach and found a couple of likely looking marks to try during our summer visit as well as finding an old boat house, complete with rusty rails leading down into the sea. It must have been here ages but was long abandoned and was now just a remnant of ages past.

Thursday the weather turned a bit unpleasant but we couldn’t complain and continued to do more relaxing…

Friday was to be our last full day on Anglesey so after picking up some more peeler crab bait from Valley Baits and having a chat about likely venues we made our way to Cymyran Bay where, instead of walking over the dunes to the sea we went right and fishing a pool in the ‘river’ that separates Anglesey from Holy Island. The tide blasts through this channel and we would only get a a couple of hours either side of low water to fish it but it was worth a try.

Fishing down to low water we got a few bites but nothing to get excited about but once the tide turned and we moved ‘up’ the ‘river’ a bit to stop being cut off the place went nuts. Although we didn’t connect with anything, and I’m not entirely sure why, we both had some thumping bites for at least an hour, after than the weed and tide became too much of a problem. Why couldn’t we connect with the fish? Maybe the hooks were to big for a bait, maybe weed masked to points – I’ve not idea – but we’re definitely going back either armed with crab again or, after being to actually see the fish on the surface, armed with the fly rods and some Sandeel ‘flys’ as hopefully by summer thats what the Bass will want.

No fish from this venue but damn – it was exciting…

Saturday dawned with mixed weather so we packed the car and had lunch at the refurbished cafe at RSPB South Stack where the cliff top flowers are stunning and the cliffs are covered in breeding sea birds of all types.

Once again Anglesey didn’t disappoint and we came home relaxed, a little sun tanned and with a few fishy stories, we’ll be back in a couple of months and we’re looking forward to it already…

The book, “Fishing Boats & Ports of Wales, A Way to Explore” by Stewart Lenton is about 180 pages in total, including the index and spiral bound which for an exploration type of book is a great idea as it means you can leave it open on the relevant page.

The introduction by Liz Lenton is a fascinating read and goes into a bit of history as well as guiding us gently round the coast from South to North. It shows that Liz really does enjoy these explorations and is written in a way that makes them accessible to us all.

The real ‘meat’ of the book is the Ports section. Every major (and a lot of minor) port is listed with a great introduction into the ports history, uses throughout it’s life and current condition as well as a few pictures of the port and surrounding area. This is then followed by a listing of the vessels registered at that Port including such details as registration number, name, type (eg, angler, liner, etc.), size and build year.

These details are actually quiet interesting in a geeky kind of way and I found myself looking through them even though I only had a passing interest but the main bit that caught my eye were the boats photos – I spent ages just going through Ports I’d visited looking at the pictures of boats thinking “I’ve seen that” or “I wonder if there’s a picture of…”

So overall, although it’s not a book I would normally buy I found it interesting and once I’d started hunting through areas I knew, it dragged me in. Is it worth £17.99 ? If you have any interest in boats or ports of Wales I’d say yes. Even if you just amble round the coast it would come in handy for those “I wonder what the boat is…” moments.

The Fishing Boats & Ports of Wales – A Way to Explore by Stewart Lenton  is published by Channel View Publishing, Plymouth, ISBN: 978-0-9554023-4-0 and is priced at £17.99. You can purchase it (and other books by Stewart and Liz) from the Chanel View Publishing website.

Exploring the area? Click here for places to stay in Wales

It pays to take note of the high water mark...

I wasn’t going to admit to this but in the interests of letting you know the dangers of not knowing an area very well (I’ve only ever fished here over low water) …this was an hour or so before high water… imagine if I’d been catching fish and stayed with Kev and the lads. Luckily it started and I was able to drive onto dry land… The result was an hour and half of bailing out and red-raw hands from wringing out a towel to top off my blank.

Thanks for the admission mate – just goes to show you can never be too careful.

Our final sea fishing trip to Anglesey this year coincided with what was hopefully to be a run of Small Eyed Rays feeding up in the shallows of Cymyran Bay ready for winter and although the weather forcaste looked a bit rubbish we still took every single piece of fishing gear we owned to make the most of our time on the island.

We arrived on the Island just after lunch after stopping off in Liverpool to get our POLSAF permits sorted so we can fish Liverpool docks, and after doing the normal ‘on arrival’ food shopping grabbed some bait from Valley Baits in the form of some Black Lug, Sandeel and Squid made our way to Cymyran Bay to have a quick sea fishing session for a couple of hours either side of high water.

Although the wind was fairly strong and blowing at us which is not ideal by any stretch of the imagination we still thought there may be a chance of a fish or two, and with a bit of surf running even into the ‘bay’ formed by the bend in the channel between Holy Island and Anglesey proper I set up two rods; one with small size 1 hooks baited with either strips of Squid or Black Lug for Bass and the other with a large 3/0 hooks baited with Sandeel for rays.

The weather managed to stay clear but the fish didn’t turn up until about 1½ hours into the ebb when the rod armed with the small hooks and baited with squid strip gave a violent jerk then a typical slack line bite, indicating a fish had picked up the bait and was running towards the beach. I quickly wound down into it thinking ‘only a small one’ until I managed to get it to the edge of the beach where suddenly it locked solid as the fish got caught in the backwash.

All you can do in this situation is hold on until the the wash brings it ever closer, then once beached make a grab for it, hopefully before another wave turns up. Thankfully Wendy was very adept at this and the first and only Small Eyed Ray of the session was landed – a lovely 7lb 8oz female which after a quick photograph was safely released.

It goes to show though – even a small hook can land a big fish and it’s worth noting that it’s always worth using good quality gear and strong hooks – the rig that caught this fish was only armed with Varivas Semi Circle hooks – size 1 but they certainly did the job even if the rig suffered by having a few of it’s beads shattered, easily fixed though. Typically the rod aimed at rays caught nothing…

The following day the weather was truly dismal so our next session was Sunday night, same place, same state of tide but this time into darkness.

The weather was a bit kinder with hardly any wind and we glad we got there early as the beach to the left of our chosen spot was packed with anglers. Apparently lots of rays had been caught off the flat beach on the ebb but fishing a tide down on a flat beach is tough, always having to cast at maximum range and move to follow the tide out then 10 minutes later do it all again as your bait is only in inches of water. Not my idea of fun and the little bay we were fishing in almost guaranteed a decent depth of water for a couple of hours after high water.

We had high hopes as darkness usually helps beach fishing but again only one Small Eyed Ray was landed, another female weighing 5lb 5oz, this time on a beefed up two hook rig armed with size 3/0 Varivas Semi Circle hooks baited with Sandeel about 2 hours into the ebb.

We also caught Whiting and a small Flounder but this was to be my weekend for catching Small Eyed Rays with non falling to Wendy’s rod although we were casting the same distance using the same baits and almost identical rigs.

Monday was even windier and forcaste rain so we decided against fishing although we did have a look at a mark called Lily Ponds which looks promising for the future but I’m not a big fan of fishing rocks in 25 mph wind and rain, fishing is great, but not great enough to take that sort of risk.

We left Anglesey on Tuesday after calling in at the Pilot House cafe at Penmon Point already talking about our return visit in the Spring of 2011. Not that we’re addicted you understand…

Rainbow over Penmon Lighthouse - right place, right time, not the best photo but lucky eh?

Cemlyn Bay

A few more photographs from our recent visit to Anglesey which include our first visit to Abermenai Point

Llanddwyn Bay - looking NW from Abermenai Point

Sea Holly (Eryngium maritimum)

The protected dune plant, Sea holly (Eryngium maritimum) is native to most European coastlines and resembles a metallic blue flowering thistle growing to a height 60 cm. In Elizabethan times in England, these plants were believed to be a strong aphrodisiac and in 2002 Sea holly was nominated the 2002 County flower for the city of Liverpool.

Looking south from Abermenai Point towards the Lleyn Peninsula

"Where Sand Meets the Sea" - Llanddwyn Beach

Looking towards Rhoscolyn Beacon

We might not have done very well in the sea fishing stakes during our summer visit to Anglesey but we managed to get out and about a few times so here are a few of the better photographs I took while we were there.

Helicopter from RAF Valley practicing over the headland

Looking South West from Aberffraw Bay towards the Lleyn Peninsula

Six-spot Burnet Moth

All of the photographs in this post are taken using the Canon EOS 450D with most of them using the standard ‘cheap’ 18-55mm lens. To enhance the skies I used a hoya circular polariser which also cut down on the glare from the sea in some of the shots.

They were all taken in RAW format so if I need higher resolution versions or need to enhance them further the detail is stored within the file. All of them were cropped to size in photoshop and sharpened a little as they tend to blur a bit when you take them down in size so much.

The only other thing I tend to do is straighten the horizon on the seascapes as no matter how hard I try, when hand holding the camera I can never get it exactly horizontal.

I’m really enjoying my photography at the moment and Anglesey gives anyone the opportunity to visit some truly beautiful, almost deserted, areas which for any amateur photographer is great.

Saint Cwyfan Church, Porth China nr Aberffraw

Small Tortoiseshell butterfly

It was good to see a few Small Tortoiseshell butterflies feeding on all the flowers – these have been hit with a disease in recent years and I’ve not seen anything like as many as I used to as a child – but they seem to be doing OK on Anglesey.

Penrhos on Anglesey as the tide floods

We’ve just returned from a couple of weeks sea fishing, walking and generally relaxing on Anglesey, one our favourite places to unwind. We stayed in a cottage at Ty Cristion which as usual was excellent and as the schools hadn’t broken up was very quiet so when we needed to just sit in the sun and watch the Buzzards circling overhead or read, our rest wasn’t shattered by the screams of “can we go to the beach now” from hordes of kids.

To say the weather was unkind would be a slight understatement as halfway through our break Anglesey and the North Wales coastline was battered by winds of up to 84mph and more rain in a couple of days than usually falls in an entire month but we still managed to get out a couple of times to wet a line, as the saying goes.

One of our favourite beaches on the island is Broad Beach (Porth Nobla) just South of Rhosneigr, where we fished a couple of hours either side of high water in darkness hoping for a Bass.

The sea was was almost flat, for once, and although it looked like weed may be a problem it only became an issue as you wound back in to re-bait.

Unfortunately no Bass were showing even though we tried every bait under the Sun (or Moon) – ragworm, sandeel, lugworm and crab, and it was looking like even Wales’ most infamous denizen of the dark, the Dogfish, wasn’t going to play until Wendy managed to land a small one then proceed to repeat the feat not much later while I was still staring at my motionless rod like a fool. Finally, about a half hour before we packed up, I managed my own Dogfish – not the target species but a fish is a fish and anything is good when you’re a bit desperate.

We had a few more trips out to various places including Penrhos to fish from low tide up, using ragworm to tempt a Bass but on this occasion even though we saw the odd small fish splash about near the surface the Bass were not to be tempted – outsmarted by a fish – again…

Before the chaos that the wind brought we had a quick go at Fly Fishing in the inland sea, a large tidal lagoon that separates Anglesey from Holy Island and although our skills and techniques are definitely improving the fish weren’t impressed and obviously found something better to eat rather than a hook covered in feathers and fluff.

Wendy snares a Three-bearded rockling at Cemlyn Bay

Another of our favourite beaches is Cymyran Bay, on the North West side of the Island, this beach has been fairly good to us in the past but our timing was off and we arrived at low water and looking back at it there really wasn’t much depth to the water. We’ve been told (local knowledge is everything) that the state of tide doesn’t really matter here, it’s more to do with the time of day as the Bass move in as the sun sets.

This was not to be and we’re now convinced it needs to be fished over high tide into darkness.

The Dogfish were quite obliging once the sun set and Wendy managed a couple of other species; a Five-bearded Rockling and a larger Three-bearded Rockling (her first) so although my tally was more Dogfish a new species was caught and a pleasant evening was spent watching the sun set over the headland.

And then the weather arrived and the fishing went on hold. In fact everything to do with outside went on hold for a few days until the sky cleared.

The wind had made the West coast beaches almost un-fishable due to the amount of weed in the water and the rains made rock fishing a little dangerous as the paths were now slick with mud so we spent the rest of our break going for walks around the island.

We didn’t get anything like as much sea fishing done as we’d hoped and for once never did any fishing off Anglesey’s  rock marks but we did, as always, have a great time and there’s always next time…

"Oy, you with your wings out - get off my rock"

Anglesey is a fantastic place for any nature lover, in fact anyone who just likes being outside so while we weren’t fishing or just lazing about we did manage to go for the odd walk, more of a stroll really – didn’t want to tax ourselves after all…

You can tell spring is finally here though as a lot of our avian friends that spend the winter months somewhere a bit warmer are finally arriving.

Walking around the inland sea just to the southwest of Penrhos, on the other side of the main road there were all sorts of small birds, most of which were to far away to identify – or at least by me.

The Wheatear were very obliging though – sitting nice and still on the rocks to get their portrait taken.

There were plenty of the usual subjects, waders of all varieties and in the distance, diving for small fish we could make out a few Sandwich Terns – a beautiful bird with a voice that just doesn’t match the grace of this summer visitor.

A lot of the birds were paired up including Cormorants on almost every exposed rock and a lot of Red-breasted merganser. I’d never managed to get close enough to these sea going, fish eating ducks but on our last day, while having our final lunch on the island this pair swam right in front of us.

Yep – Spring is certainly in the air and everything is paired up – I wonder how many young these birds will produce and if we’ll see them when we go back in a couple of months.

Saturday we did much the same thing except forced ( oh how tough it was!!!! ) ourselves to have a bash at the Bass entering the Menai Straights at one of our favourite locations just North East of Beaumaris. As the sun set you could certainly tell that the seasons are a bit late this year with snow still on the mountains of Snowdonia opposite us and a distinct ‘nip’ in the air – in fact it was bloody freezing. The Bass obviously thought so as well as our wonderful peeler crab baits came back in untouched so after a couple of hours we called it a night.

The following day we did much the same, a whole load of relaxing.

Towards the evening we again got ‘that itch’ that sea anglers get towards dusk and we headed of towards Cemlyn Bay, a place that has never thrown up a big fish for us but there’s always a chance.

We arrived just as the sun was setting and the tide starting to flood but damn, was it windy, blowing straight at us and making it feel even colder than the previous evening.

I’d brought my light rod but that stayed in the car and my normal beach caster went onto the beach with us. We tried all sorts of bait combinations, lug, rag, mackerel and crab but the first hour was mainly spent trying to keep our hands warm.

Finally a tell tail nod on my rod indicated a fish and I brought a tiny codling to the shore. Not long after Wendy had a more substantial bite and we both had the thought, BASS, but the tell tail glow of yellow eyes coming through the surf revealed the first of a couple of Dogfish for Wendy that evening.

With the Dogfish feeding I changed to a single hook pulley rig as they can really mess up clip down multi hook distance rigs as if you don’t see the bite they’ll swallow the bait and you’ll end up cutting the hook off rather than trying to remove it – the hook will eventually rust where as removing it will almost certainly kill the fish.

I lashed a big crab onto a size 2/0 hook and placed the cast just behind the breakers, or my approximation to that anyway – it was dark after all. A few minutes later and thump! the tip arches down and then springs straight as a fish picks up the bait and runs with the lead – this had to be a Bass! But no, another Codling, slightly bigger than before but still no monster – back he went and after a final coffee we left Cemlyn and headed back to the cottage.

And that was all the fishing we did – we were just far, far too relaxed to clamber over rocks or do anything remotely strenuous over the few days we were on the island but that was exactly what we both needed, a few days doing nothing at all.

We did do a bit of exploring and I’ve a few photos to download yet but they’re on the other camera which is currently under a load of other stuff.