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…

I’ve not had much luck here this year either due to weed, weather or just being a bit crap but I was determined to catch. The sea was flat calm but there was no sign of the rafts of weed that have plagued us recently and the temperature was at least above zero (just).

The only drawback was lack of fresh bait due to the cold snap earlier in the week so armed with frozen Black Lug, Squid and Mackerel I set up opposite a small gap in the sandbank hoping that the smelly May 2009 vintage Black Lug and Squid cocktails would tempt a few Dabs.

Eight of us fished to the right of the slipway while the Fleetwood club, also having a match, set up to the right and the wait began. Shacky was first in with a double header of undersized Dabs  and soon everyone except Dave had caught some of these little flatties. As well as an in size Dab I managed a small Flounder on Mackerel (too small dammit) and Tom managed to snare a half decent Whiting on his last cast.

I had a great afternoon with good company which was made even better by finally breaking my run of bad luck, admittedly it was only a Dab but damn – it was good to catch a fish. I even came third and this being BLAS’s only cash match won a whole… wait for it… TEN pounds.

This is one of the reasons I love being a member of Blackpool and Layton Angling Society, there is some stunning silverware to be won and some of the anglers within the club are exceptionally skilled but being part of BLAS is all about mates, matches are realistically just a good excuse to get together and catch (pardon the pun) up.

The Fleetwood club set up to our right

Although the forecast wasn’t too bad the wind was bitterly cold sweeping down the beach from the north and by the time our black lugworm baits were in the water we were wondering if this was such a good idea after all. This was confirmed as after 5 minutes our tackle was loaded with weed and was almost impossible to retrieve. After a few more casts Wendy decided to sit it out for a while to see if the weed situation improved while I launched my baits as far a possible, setting the rod high on the tripod and hoping to keep the line out of the weed.

After a couple of hours of this, Wendy rejoining our struggle against the weed we’d had enough and just to drive home the point I lost my terminal gear on the final retrieve as the line parted under the pressure of the amount of crud on the line.

It was interesting though to be on the beach after such wild weather, there were literally hundreds of Starfish washed up with all sorts of crab including a few Hermit Crabs (I tried one as bait) and the odd Masked Crab which you hardly ever see on the beach. There were also a lot of Sea Mouse, which look like something out of a cheesy Sci-Fi movie.

It’s a shame that the conditions beat us as the report by Shacky shows the conditions and fishing improved, we probably should have stuck it out longer but after looking forward to the trip all week the weed just killed off our enthusiasm for the session and after a couple of hours we said our goodbyes and made our way home where the only cold thing I encountered was a beer while watching the TV.

Fishing is along the outside of the breakwater rocks at Seaforth Docks

After picking up our POLSAF (Port of Liverpool Sea Angling Federation) passes a few weeks ago we joined a few of the guys from Wirral Sea Fishing for our first venture fishing the rocks at Seaforth docks. As we were new to the venue we thought it better to tag along with some guys that were familiar with the mark so we met up with the guys at the designated car parking area 2½ hours before high water.

The target species was to be Cod as Kev had managed to catch a few a couple of days ago. After a quick chat about where the best area to fish was we made our way down the rocks to a place where, if we were to catch anything, would make landing a fish as safe as possible.

The bait of choice was black lug tipped with frozen peeler crab mounted on pulley rigs armed with 2/0 hooks mounted pennell style (where one hook is tied to the end of the snood line and the other is just threaded on the line futher up and hooks into the top end of the bait).

Things looked great as Wendy, on her first cast, managed to snare her first decent sized Codling of about a pound and a half, and our first of the season. This fish was obviously a River Mersey resident as it colouring was a bit blotchy so after a quick photo was released.

I was getting plagued with tiny bits that I just couldn’t connect with so I started changing baits, alternating using squid or squid wrapped lug as well as lug or lug and crab.

It wasn’t long until the Sun started to set and in the golden glow of the Autumn light Wendy managed her second species of the evening, a small Whiting.

I was getting a little concerned by this point as it looked like I was going to end up going home with another blank under my belt but not long after landing hers a Whiting fell to my lug and squid cocktail – not a monster but my first fish from this venue so I was happy with that.

We could see the guys to the left of us catching the odd fish but they were not coming out in significant numbers and a few of them seemed to be finding snags on the river bed, which is always a pain as if you are constantly loosing gear you’re spending more time messing about with that rather than fishing.

We managed to avoid snags until later in the evening when the tide started to ebb, when Wendy lost three sets on the run and I lost a couple – luckily by then it was time to go but not before the Dogfish put in an appearance.

Looking across the Mersey to the Wirral and North Wales

Once the sun set fully these plagued everyone and it was tough to keep a bait in the water long enough for anything else to find it before a Dogfish pounced on it. Now I’ve caught loads of dogfish in my time sea fishing but these fish were big, I landed 3 in total and lost a few on the way in, all of them were well above 2lb in weight so although they were only dogfish, they were fairly good specimens.

Just a darkness fell proper and I was starting to think that it was not to be, I managed to land a fresh run Cod of about a pound and a half, not quite big enough to take but a fantastic result. You could tell it was a fresh rather than resident fish as its colouring was a lot paler and it just looked ‘nicer’ – not a blotch in sight.

And that was that, first outing at Seaforth Docks for Cod and we managed to catch the target species plus a few Dogfish and Whiting. Needless to say we’ll be coming back, it’s an easy place to fish once you find a comfy rock, with good parking and being part of the docks, your car is secure.

We’ve been informed that once we get into November it’s not unusual to bag fish of 3 or 4 pounds with the odd fish of 10 pounds falling to the lucky angler. With the venue being less than an hour away we’d be daft not to go…

Sea Fishing at Seaforth Dock – Venue Information

Seaforth Docks is part of the Port of Liverpool complex on the River Mersey and you will need a valid POLSAF permit to fish here. The best fishing is anywhere within about 100 metres of the car park and the area can be fished either from the concrete walkway above the rocks (easier footing) or by making you way down the rocks (easier to land your catch). Long casts are not required, anything around the 40-50 metre mark is fine and the bait of choice is black lug with or without peeler crab.

Target species is Cod during the winter with Dogfish appearing once darkness falls. The further from the car park you go the shallower it is and you will get Whiting and Dabs if you fish here.

The area can be fished on anything up to a 26 foot tide (liverpool tide height) as weed and holding in the current becomes a  problem in anything larger. The venue is usually fished a couple of hours to hi-water and 1 hour down.

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?

Wind whipping the sand along the beach at Perch Rock

Met up with a few of the guys from Blackpool and Layton Angling Society for an afternoon sea fishing match at Perch Rock, New Brighton, and to get details of how to get a Port of Liverpool Sea Angling Federation (POLSAF) permit to enable us to fish Liverpool Docks Alex Wall in time for the winter Cod season (I can always hope).

As BLAS matches aren’t exactly serious I elected to alternate casting fairly close in with a two hook rig baited with frozen Lug / Squid or Sandeel sections for Dabs or Whiting with another single hook up and over pulley rig baited with Sandeel or Squid for Thornback rays.

The wind was a lot stronger than forcaste, blowing down the estuary, out to sea which endeavoured to cover everything in sand, I’m still finding it in my eyebrows the following day after having a shower.

The fishing was poor with only Kev and Simon managing to catch anything of match worthy note; a Whiting and Dab to Kev and a Mackerel to Simon, the first I’ve heard of coming out of the Mersey. I managed a half decent Whiting that was just to small to count plus a few other ‘pin’ Whiting while the other guys had similar results to me.

So, after a run of blanks, although my fish didn’t count in the match, I did finally manage to catch something.

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.

Good Sized Whiting for me from Cleveleys

With the high pressure dominating the weather and the rain finally giving way we manged to get out on Sunday night for a spot of sea fishing with a few of the guys from Blackpool and Leyton Angling Society (BLAS). Along with all sorts of seasonal running about I’d picked up some Black Lug from Wayne’s Tackle in Preston which although a bit lazy saved me having to pump any in the freezing cold at Formby so money well spent.

We arrived with about 3/4 hour to spare until the start of the BLAS match so had a good chance to catch up with friends we hadn’t seen for ages. After surveying the beach from the car park for any likely gulleys before the tide covered them up while wrapping up in almost every layer we had we made our way down to the waters edge.

With the sea almost flat we cast our Black Lug tipped with Mackeral baits into the darkness. It wasn’t long until the Whiting started to show, small at first but getting progressively larger throughout the evening. We swapped baits around a bit to see what else was there, using Squid to tip the worms or just on it’s own and managed to catch a few small codling (all undersized) as well as a just in-size Dab for Wendy.

Small Codling for Wendy

Moving up the beach as the tide continued to flood the fish just kept coming and one one occasion I felt my bait get ‘hit’ twice while winding back in to re-bait only to find a couple of Whiting had jumped on the bottom and top hook of a Pennel bait that was hopefully going to catch me a Cod.

It was one of those nights where no matter what bait you put out you were going to get a Whiting or two, regardless of what end tackle was used, the trick was going to be if you could manage to catch an in-size fish before the small army of little ones found the bait.

For once I was the lucky one and managed to come second in the match, admittedly out of only eight people but still, after not being out for a while it was good to catch anything and getting a few ‘points’ was a bit of an added bonus. Wendy, although catching the same number of fish as me, only managed one in size, the Dab, but still, 9 fish each more than made up for our freezing extremities.

The major revelation of the evening wasn’t anything to do with sea fishing though, as we’d be fishing from 6pm till 10pm we’d bought some food flasks and loaded them up with soup. Why we hadn’t done this before is a mystery as we usually take sandwiches but with it being a little chilly we thought something warm would be better. It was probably the best idea of the weekend.

Hot soup, a roll to dunk in it and a few fish being caught – who cares what the weather’s like…

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.

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.