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  • 12/12/2010 Fishing Report by Gethyn Owen on My Way 2 (Holyhead, Isle of Anglesey)

    12 Dec 2010 by Gethyn Owen

    Report on-board My Way 2

    Sunday 12th December saw the last of our autumn / winter fun competitions for 2010.

    Thankfully we had a nice break in the recent weather with a light easterly breeze and sunshine the order of the day. Aboard My Way for the match were My Way regulars Pete Minns, Tojo, Tony Dooney and welsh International Chris Hamblin, who vowed to avenge his second place result from the previous match in November. Making up the Motley Crue we had 3 lads new to My Way, Graham, Steve and Andy who have hopefully asked Santa for a Sat Nav and Alarm clock each for that special day. Young Harry, My Ways reliable crew man joined the lads for a festive fish.

    The plan was to stick inshore all day and scratch out as many bits and pieces from the murky and cold sea within Holyhead Bay. Our first stop was the mud banks around 1mile outside Holyhead Breakwater. With the flood tide just starting, our aim was to hook into a few dabs and whiting before the dogfish chomped on the baits. Sadly though I had forgotten to inform the fish of our visit that morning, with only the odd whiting being caught, Chris bucked the trend with a nice plaice falling to his black lug and squid cocktail. The fishing however remained very slow and everyone struggled to catch a number of fish, despite an excellent armoury of rigs and baits.

    With the winter rigs not showing signs of success, Steve attempted to turn up the heat on his fishing by swotting up with the Boat Fishing Monthly ‘summer rigs’ booklet.
    After a slow hour we made a move up to Church Bay. Again the fishing was slow, but a little more variety started to come aboard with the anglers adding more whiting along with dabs, dogfish, poor cod and a few dragonets to their tally.

    At noon a move to the Mussel beds was on the cards to take in the slack water period. With only a 25ft tide, we hoped to have a good few hours on the mark with plenty of fish.

    This moved proved to be the making of the competition as the lads started to pull in single, double and treble shots of fish, with whiting, dabs and dogfish making up the vast majority of the catches. Harry fishing the stern was happily pulling in the odd double shot to shouts of ‘watch it’ from Pete.

    Not content with the Fun Match element of the day and naturally cash winnings at the end, there was also another side bet running between these 2!

    From the first 2 marks, Pete, Chris and Harry were all within a couple points of each other, so now the ability to pull a few fish in a drop was going a long way to separate the group.
    Struggling on the first couple marks, Tojo and Tony, pegged next to each other as well, started to find their fish. A few double and triple shots of whiting between them soon lifted them to within snatching distance of the lead. Sadly Graham was not having the best of days, with just the odd single fish falling to his rigs, much to the amusement of Andy who plodded on with a wheelhouse draw, focused only on beating his 2 travelling companions. By this time though, Steve had realised ‘summer rigs’ were not the way forward and concentrated on basic 3 down rigs that did then help him increase his catch rate.

    A break for lunch was on the cards during our time at this mark, but with fish finally feeding well, everyone tucked into a bowl (or 2) of our warming chillie as they carried on catching.

    Our final move was back to the mud for the last hour and hopefully a few more fish on the ebb than was caught during the early flood tide at the start for the day. As we checked the scores it was Pete and Chris who were vying for the top 2 slots, with commendable leads over the other anglers. 3rd place though was proving a little more interesting as Harry, Tojo and Tony where all within a fish of each other; dogs, whiting and some fat dabs again the order of the day.

    As the sun set behind Holyhead it was soon time to lift anchor and head for home. After calculating the scores it was Pete that had taken top slot from Chris. 3rd place fell to local angler Tony from Holyhead, not bad considering he also found time for far too many bowls of chillie J

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