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10/2012
Fishing Report by Gethyn Owen
on My Way 2 (Holyhead, Isle of Anglesey)
Oct 2012 by Gethyn Owen
Report on-board My Way 2
September 2012 – has gone and good riddance – from a full month of bookings we sailed on a mere 7 occasions so bad was the wind. Additional to my last September report we did manage a couple days afloat in the middle of the month. With choppy seas to contend with we stayed inshore and managed to lift out a fair number of species with the biggest specimens coming from the many bull huss in Holyhead Bay.
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During the first weekend of October the weather started to settle down, fortunately we were going to get a good few days afloat. Over the weekend we remained inshore and were rewarded with a good variety for species including more huss than I’ve seen in a long time on the mussel beds, with anglers pulling in at least 5 or 6 each.
On the drift we managed to locate some great inshore sport with pollock averaging 3lb for all the anglers with codling and poor cod mixed in. This was all great fun until our friend Colin the seal turned up and proceeded to remove the fish from the hooks without asking permission first, leaving just heads and gills attached to the traces.
Moving into the week, I was joined aboard My Way by some good friends from down south, Lloyd, Mike and Rob, all of whom make the 300 mile journey to fish aboard My Way a couple times of year. This month, the deep waters to the west of Anglesey were our chosen marks and we had been watching the weather change with immense regularity.
Owing to an increasing forecast the Monday was spent in the northern half of the deeps our reward was a good number of bull huss. Spurdogs was though what everyone wanted and they remained painfully absent for our valiant 4hour effort. We returned to Church Bay for the latter half of the day and just in time as a NE 20 blew through the bay.
Thankfully the weather forecast was to settle and with a sea predicted to flatten off nicely we decided the following day was to be spent in the southern part of Holyhead Deep, mid-October can be a great time of year for big bull huss, spurdog and the last of the big tope.
We were joined on the Tuesday by My Way regular Annie, who was going to show the boys exactly how to catch a few spurdog and after a couple hours playing with pollack and Colin the seal we made our way off to our chosen mark. On anchoring the tide was running hard, but this undeterred everyone fished through the tide retrieving bull huss and the occasional dogfish through the 130ft of water.
As the tide slackened we had a few irregular bites, a few thrashes of the head and the fish was lost, so tactics were changed slightly to encourage more bites from our intended target - the spurdog. It wasn’t long before Annie was into something big, pulling back and taking line from her reel and it was at this moment she reminded me that she was yet to catch a spurdog, despite numerous trips out! Today she wasn’t to be disappointed, managing to land 5 in total with a pb set at a very respectable 14lb!
Ann also went on to land a double figure spurdog and double figure bull huss on the same rig, from 130ft of water, great angling. The biggest of the day and another PB fell to the hook of Rob Field and topped the scales at an ounce of 17lb, again another superb spurdog.
The following day was again weather perfect for a venture to the southern half of Holyhead Deep. With a small group of My Way regulars from the Wirral, our day started once more trying to retrieve pollack underneath the nose of Colin the seal …. He won. Huss obliged and spurdogs obliged and yet again, it was another day of fun, fish and very dodgy jokes aboard My Way. The best spur so far for 2012 fell to Graham Ellis, until this point a spurdog virgin. At 19lb 12oz it was a mere 1oz under the current WFSA record, also caught and released aboard My Way a few years ago.