After eagerly watching the weather and ordering 20 peeler crab and 20 black lug from Blackpool Angling Centre on Wednesday I woke up Saturday morning to find the wind hadn’t died down as expected and with the Westerlies blowing onto the Lancashire coastline the chances of catching a Smooth Hound sea fishing from Cleveleys, between Blackpool and Fleetwood, was slim at best.

But I’d got the bait and armed with a few extras from the freezer we made our way to the beach to be greeted by a surf that could only be described as ‘Bass like’. Good job we’d brought the lug, maybe a fish was on the cards after all.

After a bit of trouble initially with our two hook rigs getting tangled in the surf we both elected to fish single hook pulley rigs, armed with a 2/0 wide gape hooks, Wendy using Black Lug, me with Black Lug on one rod and Crab on the other.

Casting over the weed that the wind had brought into the shallows we left our baits for about 15 minutes before changing, any longer than that and the tide would have washed out any scent. It was getting a bit difficult to tell a bit from the movement of the rods due to the waves but suddenly there was a  thump on Wendy’s rod and a small Bass was landed, her first this year.

As high tide drew closer the wind did drop a little until on the ebb you could just make out some calmer water past the breaking waves.

I fired out a crab into what I hoped was a weed free zone, into this smooth water and left the other rod closer in, hoping for a Bass from the surf, then it happened, a bite that in no way could be mistaken for a wave. I wound down onto a solid weight, fish on! The line started kiting to the right and then I saw it in the last of the waves – a Smooth Hound! Carefully I lifted the rod high to avoid the weed and at that moment it went weightless as the fish either let go or wasn’t hooked properly.

I was gutted! To miss a fish is one thing, to actually see it then it get away is almost heart breaking.

Shaking I baited both rods up with crab and launched my baits into the same area as before, this was to be the last cast as the tide was ebbing quickly now and soon there wouldn’t be enough water to fish into to make staying any longer feasible.

Fifteen minutes later it was all over, no fish for me this time so I packed away one rod while leaving the other out as long as possible. Wendy had packed up a few minutes before as it was getting a bit chilly now but as I wound in the last rod I felt a slight weight on the line and as it got closer in again it started going right.

Odd, this doesn’t seem heavy at all I thought, and then it broke the surface, the world smallest shark…

Yes, once again fishing during the summer on the Lancashire coast I had caught a tiny Tope, I think they’re getting smaller.

When you consider these fish, a top UK predator, can grow to over sixty pounds in weight this one was minute, it must have been one of this years young. After a quick photo (I’d shouted to Wendy to witness my fish…)  I slipped him back into the sea to start his reign of terror and after packing up and checking that we’d not left anything behind I made my way up to the car.

So, not a total disaster by any stretch, out of a lot of anglers on the beach that evening I only saw our two fish landed and although they were not the weeks target it was great to be out and we’d made the best of the weather we’d got.

Young Tope - I'm sure they're getting smaller...

Blackpool, North Wall - Looking a Bit Like Rain

After a weeks worth of truly dismal weather we joined the guys from BLAS (Blackpool and Layton Angling Society) for an evening sea fishing match, fishing a couple of hours either side of high water at Blackpool North Wall.

We met at the boat club on the prom where the weather looked like it was preparing to throw a few suprises our way, but the forcast was for the wind to drop so we set up and got on with it just as the incoming tide hit the bottom of the wall. The swell was fierce and although we had initially been hoping for Ray or Smoothhounds it was looking more and more like Bass were going to be coming out – conditions looked perfect, the bottom being churned up nicely and a nice big surf.

As it turned out no Bass were caught by us although we heard of a few coming out either side of our group – typical.

My First Shore Caught Tope

About an hour in I managed to snare a small flounder that had engulfed my crab bait and impaled itself on a size 2/0 hook intended for slightly biger quarry. I decided to try something different and as the swell seemed to drop slightly I cast a sandeel fairly close in to try for a dogfish – not something I’d usually target, but this was a match and a fish is a fish after all.

While preparing my next rig with a crab I noticed my line go slack and start to move downtide, assuming the lead had been broken out by weed or the surf I wound down only to find it continuing to move at a very odd angle.

A little thump told me something was on but I had no idea what it could be until I landed my first ever shore caught Tope. Not the biggest specimen by any stretch of the imagination but still a perfectly formed mini shark, forget the match – this was brilliant.

After chatting to a few of the guys who fish the wall regularly during summer (they live in Blackpool) apparently this is fairly common and you can usually catch them using baby squid as bait.

We didn’t have and squid but you can bet that Wendy launched a sandeel bait seaward in her effort to snare one of these little beauties.

Wendy's Second Whiting

That was it for me although Dave got another small Tope on crab, Millsy a Whiting, Sparky a Whiting and Wendy, after trying every trick in the book managed to land a couple of Whiting.

As per usual with these matches the weather played a huge part in our lack of success and no one managed to land an insize fish but the evening was great, with good company and, much to our relief stayed rain free even if the wind didn’t drop as we’d hoped.

That’s probably going to be our last sea fishing session until we go to Anglesey but we are going to try and get out and do some fly fishing next weekend as all the new goodies we’d ordered after our lessons at Mere Beck arrived last week.

We’ve sorted everything out (as you do) and have got a couple of 8 weight rods for salt water fly fishing and a couple of cheaper 6 weight ones for normal fly fishing – for those times when no matter how hard you try time, tide and weather are against you. I’ll chat more about the gear once we’ve tried it.

So next weekend the plan is to go back to Mere Beck for a bit of practice on a lake before we attempt fly fishing in the sea and maybe, just maybe, catch a trout.