Goodbye Visit to Penmon

"Dipping Your Toes"

Penmon Lighthouse

And then it was time to come home.

After packing the car and leaving Ty Cristion behind until late our next visit late September we spent a few hours at Penmon where we had our lunch and our fairwell slice of cake from the café, The Pilothouse.

This was one of the best holidays I think we’ve been on, not due to any spectacular sea fishing achievements, but because we got to do all the things we say we’re going to do instead of fishing 24/7 for nearly 2 weeks. Walking, bird watching, just plain old relaxing and watching the world go by – and fishing obviously – it was fantastic!

I’ve only been back at work 2 weeks and we’re already looking forward to going back to the island at the end of September, hopefully to bag a few Small Eyes Rays, but if we don’t get them we know that Anglesey will once again be the venue of a great break.

Angling on Anglesey, May Bank Holiday

Dogfish from Caim Head

We set off last Friday (just over a week ago) for our first trip to Anglesey this year, looking forward to a bit of fishing and a long weekend away. Our first stop was at a new tackle shop in Menai Bridge owned and run by Gareth, the founder of the fishing4u.co.uk sea fishing forum, where we picked up some bait and as usual bought some bits and pieces.

We spent our first evening targeting Bass out of the Menai Straits but all we could catch was weed as the wind was blowing strongly down the Straits, even if we’d had a bite I doubt we’d have seen it! A shame really as last year this venue produced my best ever Bass.

The following day (Saturday) the wind was very strong which made it impossible to fish anywhere on the West of the island, which is what we had planned so after a quick trip to see Gareth again for some advice we ended up on the East side on a beautiful headland called Caim Head.

Caim Head Dogfish, Anglesey

The place was magnificent and very sheltered from the wind so we proceeded to empty the area immediately in front of us of Dogfish. No matter what bait we put out the call went up – Dogfish! We had a fantastic time and probable caught about 10 or so in total, some up to about 2lbs and we stayed until the light started to fail – another great venue on this beautiful island.

Sunday arrived and with it came the rain…

Rain doesn’t really matter to sea fishing but the wind hadn’t dropped at all so a very lazy day was had by us both, doing nothing except a bit of reading and watching the snooker final of all things.

Monday – time to go home. We stopped off at Penmon Lighthouse cafe for tea and a lovely slice of lemon sandwich cake and just sat, read and watched the birds and the boats go by. Not many fish this time but who cares – in such fantastic surroundings catching fish is almost a distraction.

Sat 27th May: Trwyn-y-Penryhn, Anglesey

Trwyn-y-Penryhn

Another fine day dawned and today we woke with the anticipation of a few good fish. We elected to fish a little bit more towards Penmon Point in a bay called Trwyn-y-Penryhn than we did last bank holiday, when i caught a lovely Bass, not through choice but because of the Beaumaris Craft Festival all sorts of small boats were out in force in the area we’d previously fished. We soon made the discovery that the channel was a lot further out than in the previous area the area was a lot more ’snaggy’.

We spent a fruitless couple of hours fishing into the rocks, over the rocks, around the rocks but nothing showed even the slightest interest in our baits – what could be going wrong we wondered? Same tactics as last time, almost the same terrain but nothing!

Egg Sacks Maybe?

One strange thing did stand out though. Although we went with bait we always search the beach for more – you never can tell when you’ll need it – and every crab we found was either angry and therefore not peeling or a dead peeler! Very strange.

I did spot these egg sacks hanging under a rock but I’ve no idea what they are so if anyone knows can they let us know.

We called into ABC for a word with Malcolm and to replace the tackle we lost and he let us know that they’d had the ‘Red Tides’ – I wish I’d mentioned to him the previous evening what we were intending – it would have saved a lot of hassle. The ‘Red Tides’ as they are called is the annual algal bloom which kills of the crabs and most bait fish around the island but most dramatically on the South and East coasts – no bait to eat and the fish stay out to sea so it wasn’t us being useless – this time even the algae was against us.

Malcolm suggested that there was still time to fish Newborough beach high water so we blasted back to the cottage to get out normal beach fishing gear and a quick brew…

Saturday 29th April – A ‘Reccie’ on Anglesey

Llandwyn Island

After Friday nights adventures we got up for a late (very late!) breakfast and on opening the curtains were greeted with another fantastic day. Blazing sunshine and hardly any wind at all.

We decided that we were well overdue for a bit of a walk so got together a rucksack of light fishing gear and another of sandwiches and drinks and headed to the South East corner of the island to Llanddwyn Island. We payed the £2 to park near the sand dunes at Newborough and headed along a track onto the island. As we suspected we’d completely missed the tides and the sea was going out by the time we got there so we had a wander around then sat in the lee of the lighthouse for some lunch.

It was great just to sit and do nothing except watch the Rock Pipits darting around, trying to find every last bug in the area.

Llandwyn Island Monument

After making the decision not to do any fishing we slowly meandered our way back, stopping every so often to watch the Wheatears dart from rock to rock, arguing angrily about territory.

Needless to say after carrying even the light tackle all the way from the car and back I was glad when we got to the car park which, is very well equipped with good toilets for all and an information point.

I don’t think we’ll be going to Llanddwyn to fish though – it was just too busy – we prefer ‘out of the way angling’ and anyone thinking to ave a ‘good time’ on the ‘Island of Lovers’ as Llanddwyn is known had best be prepared for some company!

Before coming to Anglesey we’d had an idea of a good looking spot to try some new tactics for Bass fishing so we headed through Beaumaris towards Penmon, the beach we were looking for needed to have a few large rocks at low water, plenty of cover for crabs but not enough to snag the tackle on every cast.

Lleiniog

Anyway, we found a likely spot and had a wander around only to bump into Gareth from fishing4u doing the exact thing we were planning on doing tomorrow so after a quick chat about the following days plans and a couple of suggestions for the midday high tide fishing session we headed back to the cottage for some dinner and to get things ready for tomorrows midday session at Porth Trecastell or “Cable Bay”.