Dawn breaks over a mirror like River Mersey

Sea Fishing… it brings out the nutter in some people and last weekend I joined the crazy crew as a few of us arrived at the mark known as The Rock Channel at New Brighton on the Wirral Peninsula, Merseyside at 4:15am. Yes, you read that correctly just past 4 in the morning, I’d left the house at 3am arriving to meet a few of the guys from the Wirral Sea Fishing forum after driving South through an eerily quiet Southport and Liverpool.

This was my second assault (and probably last attempt for the year) on The Rock Channel to try and catch a Smooth Hound so after a quick chat we got suited and booted, waded across the gully and about 30 minutes later were fishing into the last of the ebbing tide as the sun rose over Seaforth Docks on the other side of the River Mersey.

The weapon of choice was a standard pulley rig armed with a Varivas 3/0 Big Mouth hook and baited with peeler crab. It didn’t take long for a greedy little Dab to somehow get it’s mouth round the bait and register the tiniest of bites. As the sun rose this was to be the standard scenario for the trip – the bait would hit the sea bed and a few minutes later the rod would give a little twitch and hey presto – another Dab – there must be hundreds of them.

Considering how many anglers turned up by the time the tide turned, if the Smooth Hounds were there, someone would have caught one but for some reason, even though they’ve been there for the past couple of weeks – they weren’t there on Sunday and after looking at the forums today – the results show they’re not there today either.

Maybe they’ve had their fill of Crabs out of the Mersey estuary this year, maybe with it being a big tide and the weather being so hot recently the waters too warm at low tide as it empties a lot more, maybe we were all just a bit crap… who knows, I know some of the guys I was with are very accomplished anglers and helped develop / discover this mark and they don’t why the smoothies weren’t there either so it just goes to show…

You can be in the right place at the right time, armed with the right bait and have fantastic local knowledge but if the fish aren’t there you’re just plain out of luck.

Anglesey for a couple of weeks in a couple of weeks so I doubt I’ll be out sea fishing till then as I’ve a load of stuff to get ready, although I may just sneak in a trip to the River Douglas to see if I can snare a Flounder or two or maybe go to Mere Beck and have a practice fly fishing before attempting to catch a Bass on the fly on Anglesey.

As I was driving through Liverpool the weather changed dramatically for the worse and by the time I exited the tunnel on the Wirral side the rain was bouncing almost as high as the car windows – I was starting to think maybe I was a little mad to attempt this until I arrived at New Brighton prom. to be greeted by a few more like minded fools. We were there now – rain wasn’t going to stop any one sea fishing with the chance of a smoothy in sight.

We waded across the first big gully about 2.5 hours before low water and set off along the bank to a spot about 1/2 mile from the shore. The sand bar and gully has changed a lot since last year and although the initial gully was over waist high the bar was clear of water which made things considerably easier than last year when we were wading knee deep for the whole treck.

Reaching the spot I baited a pulley rig armed with a big 3/0 hook with some fantastic peeler crab bought from Blackpool Angling Centre on Saturday morning and cast out eager for my first hound and waited patiently. It’s a good job anglers are patient as this was repeated many times for the next 2 hours with only a few small Dabs and a Whiting coming out – somehow managing to get the huge hook in their mouths.

Further up the bar one angler managed 4 Smooth-hounds and he was only a hundred meters or so from us but for me and my friends today was not to be a smooth hound day. Non were caught to the right of us, nearer the ‘beach’ so maybe the channel was slightly deeper where he was, we’ll know where to go next time though.

The trouble with fishing this spot is it changes every year with the sands and channels shifting all the time so the first few trips are a bit ‘hit and miss’ until you find where the deeper water is and hence, where the smooth hounds are feeding.

We called it a day about 1/2 hour after low water as the tide races in at this venue and it’s dangerous to stay any longer, sea fishing is great but it’s not worth taking risks when they’re easily avoided. In a couple of weeks the water should have warmed a little more, the tides will be ideal and we’ll know where to set up stall so hopefully, I’ll be out again and just maybe I can catch my first Smooth Hound.

The 'Rock Channel', low water a mile past the 'T' Groyne, Wallasey

Just how fantastic has the weather been this past week?

I’ve never walked our local River Douglas so much, nor seen so much wildlife – from Arctic Terns flying up the river searching for fish to Painted Lady butterflies ‘dancing’ in the evening sun, it’s just been magnificent.

I’d been looking forward to giving the ‘Rock Chanel’ a go for years and now that I’d finally got some decent chest waders from Scierra I set off at 7am Sunday morning, armed with peeler crab as bait, to meet up with a few of the guys from wirralseafishing.co.uk at on Kings Parade, Wallasey, in front of the ‘T’ Groyne. Our target was to be the early summer run of Smoothhounds, we knew they’d caught a few from the boats in the area we were to fish although obviously further out. It was going to be big fish or blank.

The trek to this mark needs to be experienced first hand, it’s not nick-named ‘The Long Walk’ for nothing. It starts off as you wait for the tide to ebb enough to get across a deep gully that will give you access to what will become a sand bar bar running about a mile and a half out towards the far horizon. We managed to get across with inches to spare from the top of our chest waders then slogged through knee to waist deep water or soft sand to the end of the sand bar for about 1/2 hour – it felt like years and I was absolutely knackered by the time we got there.

Just a quick safety note here: Chest waders are essential and you need to pack up fishing and leave an hour after low water – the tide floods quicker than it ebbs and where we were fishing you wouldn’t be able to see it coming in behind you.

Looking NW from The "Rock Channel'. Not a soul in sight - perfect...

We launched our crab laden 3/0 hooks into the rapidly appearing channel and waited…

And waited…

And waited some more. As the sun beat down on us I was thankful that I’d brought a few cans of pop to drink and that my waders were breathable – some of the guys had full rubber or neoprene waders – how the hell they managed in the 25°C heat I’ve no idea.

If the Smoothhounds had of been there we should have caught almost straight away according to Kev, who’s had them (with photographic evidence) and an hour after low water we packed up and headed back.

As we got nearer the ‘beach’ where the sun had attracted a horde of people it was good to see the life-guards getting people off the bank and warning them of the incoming tide, most of whom would have been swimming to get back to shore an hour later.

So, no hounds yet but they’ll be here soon, and when they are I’ll be doing the ‘long walk’ once again to get them.