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  • 03/2011 Fishing Report by Gethyn Owen on My Way 2 (Holyhead, Isle of Anglesey)

    Mar 2011 by Gethyn Owen

    Report on-board My Way 2

    Our first weekend afloat in 2011 following our routine winter maintenance downtime was scheduled for the last weekend of February. With the boat full and small tides upon us it was an offshore foray into the deeps on the cards. Sadly the wind gods had other ideas and with W & NW blasts of air not dropping below 20mph for a few days, I decided to leave My Way dormant for another few days. Wouldn’t really be that fair to force the lads into the shallows were the possibility of fish this time of year was all but slim!

    The following week the winds took some time off and the sun also came out to play. With plans to finish sanding and painting My Ways inside gunwales and then hopefully go find some fish following weekend. So it was on nice calm seas, though unfortunately 31ft tides that we finally got going once again for our 2011 campaign.

    Spring tides restrict the fishing at Holyhead to inshore; the tidal pulls of such prolific areas such as the Deeps are far too strong for recreational angling in anything really larger than 28ft. so for the Saturday we opted for a slightly later sail at 10am and allow the ebbing tide to help us around to our destination of Trearddur Bay, stopping to drift a few of the reefs along the way.

    The drifts however proved fruitless, with only a few nibbles from obliging pout and poor cod, our intended targets of coalie and pollack where no where to be seen, though based on the size of tide and the drift speeds we were having fun with; we’d give it another go later in the day when the LW slack was near us.

    Anchoring just out of Trearddur Bay we were soon into an array of late winter and early spring fishing from Holyhead. Dogfish, whiting and codling making up the vast majority of catches with many rigs reeling in double and triple shots, mixed in with these we also had pout, poor cod and numerous small huss.

    One angler even managing to land a triple shot of 3 small huss that had the 2 match anglers ‘cooing and awwing’ like kids in a sweet shop. Huss are usually worth far more points of the common dogfish and to catch them 3 a time, certainly good going.
    This trend of fishing continued into our second mark, nothing to set the world alight but a steady stream of fish to keep everyone happy on a day where dusting down the fishing tackle was more the priority. Lunch today was the famous My Way chillie.

    With Geoff having his 21st birthday (yeah right) another angler, Tony had brought a selection of cakes along to have after lunch with a cuppa.

    To end the day we once again decided to try our luck on the drift, this time we were rewarded with pollack, coalfish and also some early herring. We don’t tend to see too many herring around Holyhead when on the drift and those we do see tend to be a little later – so it was certainly nice to see some coming to the boat.

    We ended the day with 9 species, we had hoped to break the double figures for an early spring outing by giving Arthur the chance to land our 10th specie … sadly he never proved to be the dab hand at it!

    Sunday we decided to stay within the confines of Holyhead bay and concentrate mainly on anchor work with the lads aboard My Way relatively new to sea angling. Many of them, albeit experienced coarse anglers had never been sea fishing before, let alone on a boat.
    They were rewarded though in more fish than a carping year (not my words!) with dogs, whiting, huss a few dabs and some good sized codling falling to a variety of baits. One lad also managed to hook into a 3 bearded, specie 11 to get 2011 well under way.

    Then there is good old chicken cam, well currently known as hand cam! Poor fella, thought it was a monster!

    Let's hope the weather gods play fair this year and treat us all to some fantastic days afloat.

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