Walking Cemlyn Bay to Carmel Head

Racing the tide infront of The Skerries

As the wind continued to be a little severe we sacked sea fishing off for and went for a walk along the cliffs between Cemlyn Bay and Carmel Head. The scenery was stunning, with great views of ‘The Skerries’ over the sea to the north west.

There was an amazing variety of wildlife on show not least being a huge number of Green Veined White butterflies, feeding on the cliffs out of the wind. At least I think that’s what they were – I don’t think ‘Small Whites’ show the veins in their wings as much (I saw some today in Bolton in the park) and ‘Large Whites’ are, well, larger.

We past a couple of huge concrete / stone pillars called “The White Ladies” which are used as a navigational aid as when they are lined up with the marker on the small isle offshore, “West Mouse”, help get a bearing into Holyhead.

As well as the usual sea birds we saw a juvenile Buzzard but as per usual it stayed just out of camera range – damn thing.

The walk was about 6.5 miles and was fairly easy going and easy enough to navigate, although the paths are a bit vague towards the end of Carmel Head. We started at a car park just east of the National Trust owned farm of Mynachdy, headed north east(ish) to Hen Borth then went anti-clockwise along the coast to Porth y Dyfn, came back over Penbrynyreglwys, and headed along the track, through the farm and back to the car park.

An Evening Walk at Cemlyn Bay

Cemlyn Bay Lagoon

As the wind got up to ‘dangerous’ speeds and made a lot of our favourite marks unfishable we decided to have an evening walk around the headland at Cemlyn bay. This is turning into one of our favorite spots as it seems to be virtually deserted and area is blessed with wildlife of all types.

The last bit of daylight lights up the cliffs at Hen Borth

We picked up a book on circular coastal walks around Anglesey, “Coastal Walks Around Anglesey” which is very good and the short walk we did started at the western (left) end of the reserve, wound it’s way along the coast in an anti-clockwise direction to Hen Borth then headed inland and back along seldom used country lanes.

Dramatic sunset at Hen Borth

We timed it perfectly, for a change, and managed to get to see the sun set over the Irish Sea just as we headed inland. Even this small section of lanes was wonderful in the evening light and all sorts of insects made an appearance as the light began to fail.

This small spider is a female Candystripe (or Polymorphic) Spider (Enoplognatha Ovata) I think although I’m willing to be corrected, and was guarding her eggs which were in the base of the roled up leaf.

A lovely stroll of only about 3 miles or so but still well worth a visit if you’re in the area.

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.

Garden, House and New Toys

We’ve not been fishing for what seems like ages, not through any drastic reason except that we finally got round to doing some much needed DIY round the house.

The main part of this is finally getting the rear garden, which floods all the time, paved with sandstone so we can actually do something with it rather than just watch the weeds get ever taller. This should hopefully be finished this week so we spent all yesterday painting the fence before the new stone is laid.

I did manage to get out during lunch a few times in Bolton and wander round Queens Park where there has been a huge hatch of Common Blue Damselfly (Enallagma cyathigerum), Large Red Damselfly (Pyrrhosoma nymphula) and a few beautiful Banded Demoiselle (Calopteryx splendens).

Common Blue Damselfly

Can you tell I like Damselflies?

There is a great website for The British Dragonfly Society which I always go to so that I can positively identify what species I am have seen.

On the fishing front, although we’ve not been out, we have purchased a couple of fly rods each. One for heavy / salt water and the other lighter for lakes etc. They all arrived this week with new reels, lines, flies, everything!!!! I was just like Christmas. There are few things better than getting a load of new kit to try out and it took a lot of willpower to do the DIY. I’ll write a new entry about it all once the rest of it gets here and we’ve had chance to play with it all.

And just to close this post I’d like to say how much we’ve enjoyed Springwatch this year – there’s been great chemistry between the presenters (Chris Packham had some big boots to fill but I think he did very well as a replacement for Bill Oddie), some fantastic photography and stories, and I’ve learnt a few new things about the wonderful wildlife in the UK. To say we were jealous of  Simon King filming at Cemlyn Bay, Anglesey, would have been a slight understatement – we’ve fished there (and caught Bass) , seen those Terns and chilled out almost exactly where he was sat – the jammy bugger!

A Very Odd Year – Part 1

Pollack for Wendy

Not entirely sure why I stopped blogging, a few other things going on but no particular reason but I’m back now and hopefully I’ll get some more fishing done and some walking done. So without any more mumbling what have we been doing fishing wise.

Well, to be perfectly honest, not a whole lot, we went to Anglesey for a week at the beginning of June and stayed at Ty Cristion, was fantastic.

We didn’t really catch much but as it was going to be the end of September when we had our main summer break we needed a week’s break just to get away.

Anglesey is a fantastic place and the weather was stunning. I don’t know how we manage it but once again it was shorts and T-shirts weather and we spent almost as much time just relaxing in the sun as we did fishing.

We caught a few of the usual suspects. Namely Dogfish, Wrasse, Pollock and an early Spider Crab and as always, I was out fished by Wendy although I did manage to grab a few Bass from a beach we’d always tried but never before had any luck at.

A Sunset Bass

Cemlyn beach is the seaward side of an important nesting site for many types of seabirds which, as we waiting for evening to fall and to start fishing, were a fantastic sight to see diving into the bay after fish. We fishing an hour before and an hour after dusk using simply gear and peeler crab as bait and managed to snare a couple of Bass before the dogfish turned up – at which point we left.

We fished to the right of the bay, just in front of the car park, casting no further than 20 feet out.

As usual we either got bait ourselves or from Gareth at fishing4u who’s website seems to change more than the weather on the island. If your thinking of going to Anglesey fishing I thoroughly recommend giving the forum a look and maybe popping into the shop at Menai Bridge.