Latest Fishing Reports: Wales
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02/07/2010
Fishing Report by David Hancock
on Excel 2 (Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire)
2 Jul 2010 by David Hancock
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The fishing has been awesome inshore at Ramsgate with catches in excess of 40 Thornback rays on some recent trips. Its good to see a growing amount of anglers are keeping just a few and returning lots as these fish are slow breeders and go back quite happily.
The smoothounds seem to be slowing down at the moment but are more than compensated by the numbers of Bass. It seems at the moment that a bumper year is on the cards despite the mackeral shoals being finicky.
On one of our popular evening trips Katje and Lilly both caught nice skate of 6 to 9 lb then the boys redeemed themselves by catching a bass or two on the way back to port.
Happy Days,
Dave.
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21/06/2010
Fishing Report by Gethyn Owen
on My Way 2 (Holyhead, Isle of Anglesey)
21 Jun 2010 by Gethyn Owen
Report on-board My Way 2
Our previous report dated 20th June relayed the woes of having to change tact with or plans for the day. With boat fishing being at the mercy of the weather gods, sometimes we have to accept a change and try out best. This report shows the difference a day can make.
Following the inshore restrictions of 20th June, the win had decreased to no more than a gentle breeze; best of all, the sea had barely a ripple disturbing the reflection of the bright sunshine – the deeps was certainly on the cards for today.
As with most of our trips off to the deeper water, the day started off making away around Holy Island to the South Stack area for some mackerel, pollack, wrasse and coalies. Similar to the previous day plenty of wrasse and good pollack came to the boat along with some codling, sadly though when trying for mackerel … nothing.
We always take frozen mackerel with us and invariably the mackerel is never aound when you need it and with Holyhead Deep being an extremely tidal mark, you are under pressure to get on your mark to take in the slack water.
Whilst making the 8mile journey SW of the Lighthouse, all the crew readied their tackle and baits n preparation for some big fish action. Order for the day was to be huss, spurdog and tope. April and May had fished extremely well for us with numerous tope up to 30lb being boated, so thoughts in anticipation of bigger sharks were rife. Sadly on this occasion the tope proved elusive, thought the deeps proved yet again why it is a very popular venue with our anglers by offering numerous double figure huss and just short of 3dozen double figure spurs for the 6lads on board, with the best spur reaching little over 16lb.
What a difference a day makes, let’s hope the weather allows everyone some fantastic sport in months to come! View Boats Page
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20/06/2010
Fishing Report by Gethyn Owen
on My Way 2 (Holyhead, Isle of Anglesey)
20 Jun 2010 by Gethyn Owen
Report on-board My Way 2
With neap tides upon us, lessoning the tidal pull in 200ft of water, a trip to Holyhead deeps was the plan for today. Sadly the weather gods conspired against us and blew a very strong northerly wind most of the night. Despite the decreasing wind on getting to the boat in the morning, the sea state was lumpy and cancelled any thoughts of big spurs and tope.
A change to the day was required and after a chat with the crew, some inshore work drifting for pollack and wrasse with the chance of big huss to pull the strings was the order of the day.
We started our drifting for the day around South Stack Lighthouse and Abrahams Bosom, these rocky areas never fail to produce some excellent sport on light tackle. The crew was made up of regulars and novice anglers and fortunately before too long all were soon into some nice ballan wrasse, reaching up to 3lb and both female and male cuckoo wrasse just shy of the 1lb mark. Some of the crew were using light spinning gear and getting some amazing action from these feisty fish. Fortunately some of the pollack and codling that came onboard were in the tasty 3 to 4lb bracket, and were promptly despatched to end up on a few plates with chips that evening.
Moving over to anchor for a few hrs, it was inevitable that the dogfish were going to hone in on the big fish and squid baits lowered to the sea bed in search of huss and maybe a ray. From a variety of small fish including gurnards, codling, whiting and dabs etc the crew also managed to snare a good number of huss, the vast majority of which went double figures.
Our sail back to Holyhead Marina was again going to include a drift around the coastline – resulting yet again in more wrasse, pollack, codling and this time a few small coalies. View Boats Page
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20/06/2010
Fishing Report by Aaron Smith
on Bad Boyz VI (Holyhead, Isle of Anglesey)
20 Jun 2010 by Aaron Smith
Report on-board Bad Boyz VI
Fishing over the last couple of weeks has been up and down with the reefs producing plenty of codling and wrasse but very little else, Anchor has been exceptional on days producing up to 58 huss on our best day and plenty of rays with a bonus nice cukoo ray and a big mix bag of species incuding tope and smoothound with the count nearing 35 species for the year.
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17/06/2010
Fishing Report by dave torrance
on Goldilocks (Rhyl, Denbighshire)
17 Jun 2010 by dave torrance
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Come on boys, plese put your catches for us fishermen who are waiting for our time to come, so we can keep up to date with whats out there, Photos wouldnt go a miss either Thanks , a ready and waiting fisherman......
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13/06/2010
Fishing Report by Ian Pratt
on Celtic Wildcat (Aberystwyth, Ceredigion)
13 Jun 2010 by Ian Pratt
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Enjoyed a trip out on Celtic Wildcat with my club - the Danglers this weekend. Each year we have many trips out with skipper Nick O'Sullivan and one of our favourites is the Aberystwyth weekend after tope and bream. The weather made this trip a Sunday only outing in 2010 but I was very happy to bag a PB 30lb tope in the morning! We also had huss, huge weevers, scorpion fish - a real Cardigan Bay variety. Then in the afternoon, the bream came on the feed in force on our second mark of the day and it was non stop action for the rest of the trip with everyone catching and having a few to take hope for supper. As ever, Nick kept us on the fish all day and with the speed of Widlcat we were out at the marks in no time at all and fishing in comfort on the spacious deck area. Really enjoyed the day and looking forward to the rest of the 2010 season and beyond.
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05/2010
Fishing Report by Gethyn Owen
on My Way 2 (Holyhead, Isle of Anglesey)
May 2010 by Gethyn Owen
Report on-board My Way 2
The last 5 weeks have been very busy aboard My Way, some great settled weather has seen us sail daily in search of a variety of species, all this together with the return of the Anglesey Boat Angling festival sandwiched in the centre of a hectic time afloat.
The fishing, well, on most days has been outstanding and on others has been extremely hard work. When the fish are in abundance and offering great sport, a mere 12hrs later everything switches off for a day or 2. You never stop learning as a skipper or angler – keep at it, record your results and you’ll soon have a great log of data and theories to work to. Then the odd curve ball comes and throws all your thoughts and ideas out of the window. So how has it fished?
Mid May is when we start to turn our attentions to the great welsh smoothhound packs. Most familiar with our website and fishing aboard My Way, will know only too well how fond I am of catching these hard fighting small sharks. In shallow waters, and with bodies built for electrifying speed, smoothhound fight like hell!
Normally by the middle of May our hound fest is in full swing, however this year things have been slow to get off the mark the smoothies being no exception.
On May 18th we had Dave Barham and Jim Midgley from the UK’s Boat Fishing Monthly magazine on board to film a new series of programs ‘Barham on Boat Fishing’ for the Web based Online Fishing TV . Typical, the smoothhound were in short supply, however we managed to scratch out a couple and by all accounts a very informative program is due to released soon. You can catch it via subscription or a pay per view in a few weeks time.
Still struggling the following day, a change was on the cards to offer the anglers some good sport. With neap tides and settled weather upon us the next few days where going to be spent chasing big fish in Holyhead Deep. Our chosen mark was approximately 8miles SW of Holyheads famous South Stack lighthouse in waters of 250ft deep.
Disappointment at the lack of smoothhounds was soon forgotten about as over the next few days the anglers aboard My Way hooked into countless double figure fish – huss, tope and some quality spurdogs making many a happy smile. During 2009 we had tried to get a few days filming ‘in the can’ on spurdogs for Phill Williams website – Fishing, Film and Facts, sadly weather and spurdogs conspired against us. This year though with glorious weather rand a fair number of spurs around, a quick phone call saw Phill hoping aboard My Way a mere 10hrs later. Phil wasn’t disappointed and managed some great footage with spurs to 16lb, big huss and some pack tope making special appearances. You can view the film in coming weeks on Phill’s website.
During the last week of May, I was joined aboard My Way by Ian and Matthew Burrett, father & son team from the famous Luce Bay charters ‘On Yer Marks’. Along with Family Burrett, came skippers and small boat owners from north of the border – all in search of big welsh smoothhound. The pressure was now certainly on, I have a lot of respect for Ian, not only is he a highly respected skipper, but also a keen conservationist who works tirelessly for all anglers. Spurdogs, Skate and many other sharks and fish specie all owe a little bit of gratitude to Ian and his drive and enthusiasm within Scottish angling.
Yet again the fishing was patchy, everyone managed to land one or 2 hounds with the biggest topping the scales at a very respectable 18lb 3oz; with Ian himself landing 4 great double figure smoothhounds. A special mention though to John, who left it until the last hour to get a run, whilst holding his other rod! Great smoothhound in the end! Sadly on occasions some anglers take little care when using 2 rods, or when lowering the one bait they are fishing, during this visit, along with rods off port and starboard, I counted 9 rods waiting off the stern – it works if everyone is careful and respectable to other lines … simples!
So not hand over fish action, but a great laugh with a good bunch of anglers, to be repeated next year – along with the challenge to Ian & Matty of finding a ton up skate for my son Harry and a Black Mouthed Dogfish for myself!
Following the Scottish invasion, I was joined for a couple days by a group of four anglers, including Dave and Norma Park. A very keen angler and now into his eighties Dave has fished all over the world and now has a personal species list containing 438 entries from sea and fresh waters – and our smoothies were still playing hard to get. Well, we managed a fair few thankfully, best going 17lb 3oz, played and landed by Norma, smashing her personal best – however she was reluctant to claim it as I had hooked it up on my rod. Not to be outsmarted by the hounds, Norma managed to acquire a new PB of just under 9lb before her visit was over.
Dave though was finding the smoothhound hard to find, watching a few come over the gunwales for the rest of the crew must have been disappointing even for the most hardened of anglers. Entering the last couple hours of the 2 day jolly, Dave was sat in his deck chair, happily enjoying a cup of tea and chocolate mini roll, when the ratchet screamed off with the best run of the day. Putting his tea and cake down carefully, Dave stood up, raised the rod carefully into the fish ensuring a good hook up. With drag set, he then sat down and finished his chocolate roll ( Norma won’t let him have too many, so this smoothhound was not going to interfere with that), after which Dave landed a PB hound at 9lb 10oz – fantastic to watch, thanks guys for a great couple days.
The end of May saw out attentions turn to match fishing and the 6th Anglesey Boat Angling Festival
Following the festival we turned our attentions back to the smoothhound, this time, they were back on form for us, with 3 20lb+ fish coming to My Way in as many days, with plenty of other double figure fish giving our 3 day run an average smoothhound size of 16lb. My PB on the hounds was a cool 19lb 8oz, caught during a great day afloat in May 2008. I t was always going to be a long haul to break that one, whoever I even managed to snare myself a 20lber early June – with a beautiful smoothie of 21lb 12oz.
More trips on the smoothies followed; however as if someone had turned the switch off, from 10 with the smallest 13lb one evening, the next day we landed a big fat 0. Poor old Jim Midgley, desperate to break the 20lb barrier and maybe bag a new WFSA record at the same time received a text from me during this trip, it went along the lines ‘Get your sorry ars* up here – it’s electric’. Well the 5hr drive from Peterborough the following morning and no smoothhounds was uhm, a little bit of a low point for the Sunday for both Jim, myself and the crew aboard My Way. But that’s fishing; Jim did manage to bag one in the end – 15lb’s and nearly 36hrs after arriving. That said a great couples days once again, big fish in the deeps day 2 and with some good anglers and copious amounts of banter I’m sure the pain was eased a little.
Drifting inshore, the wrasse are coming on nicely with ballans reaching 3lb and both male and females cuckoos making a regular appearance. Mackerel are joining in the fun but still not in large numbers. During the drifts we are also seeing some good numbers and sizes of Pollack with plenty of coalfish and codling, with the odd fish going home at around 4lb in size. General anchor work has seen a fair number of blonde rays, the bigger few going 15lb, some of them caught during the Anglesey Festival, at only 3 points reward, it’s funny to see a 15lb blonde ray cursed! Plenty of small blondes taking mackerel strips. Thornbacks to 12lb and 3lb spotted rays are making for some good sport at anchor along with our usual suspects of dogfish, whiting, dabs, gurnards and huss along with many other species.
Hopefully my next report will not take so long, if it does – we must be busy and enjoying the continuos calm weather and exciting sport, so please bear with us. Our availability has recently been updated for both boat and individuals, hopefully we’ll see you soon aboard My Way – either way, enjoy your fishing in the weeks to come View Boats Page
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09/06/2010
Fishing Report by David Hancock
on Excel 2 (Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire)
9 Jun 2010 by David Hancock
Report on-board Excel 2
weds 9th,
A beautiful flat calm day.
Off to drift for mackeral, soon find enough for baits for the day and a few school bass in amongst them.
Set the anchor in 45 ft and relax in the sunshine.
Sure enough the skate start, 11 before lunchtime.
Off for a bit more drifting, sure enough a few more mackeral but also a better stamp of bass, all 4 to 7lb, nice.
Back to the harbour for 430, All 3 anglers Happy.
Dave.
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08/2009
Fishing Report by dave torrance
on Goldilocks (Rhyl, Denbighshire)
Aug 2009 by dave torrance
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went out on this boat what a fantstic day, a bit choppy but ok caught loads including 3 big tope wich i caught. have booked to go again this aughust will take camera this time. Thanks for a great trip skipper did know exactly what to do and showed us novices .......
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07/06/2010
Fishing Report by Carl Davies
on SeaGem2 (Rhyl, Denbighshire)
7 Jun 2010 by Carl Davies
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THE TOPE ARE FINALLY HERE FOR ALL YOU TOPE LOVERS HAD MY FIRST FORE 2010. COUPLE YESTERDAY 34 POUND AND 40 POUND PICTURES WILL FOLLOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 14 POUND BULLHUSS 5 POUND TUB GURNARD . FISHING JUST GETTING BETTER !! D DAVE POOLE THE MAN ON THE RIGHT WHO CAUGHT THE TOPE LEFT A REPORT SAYIN IT MADE IT MORE SPECIAL BECAUSE IT WAS HIS FIRST TOPE >HOPEFULLY NOT THE LAST DAVE !!!!!!!!!!!
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