Wednesday 9 January 2013

Striking gold on the Lleyn

For a few weeks now, myself and mate Lee Goddard have been contemplating meeting up for a days fishing. After dismissing pike fishing due to unfavourable conditions, the suggestion was made to go hunting big Pollack at one of my more successful marks on the Lleyn. Meeting Lee in Pwllheli for 7.30ish we were soon on our way to the mark with some high hopes of a productive session. The weather was spot on, couldn't have asked for a nicer day, a huge contrast to the last time we'd fished together, in which I avoided a blank by resorting to catching sand-gobies, desperate times lol. Anyway, as we finally stepped onto the mark it was time to get the ball rolling, or not as it seemed, for after 40 minutes of chucking the lures around, neither of us had managed a touch. The Pollack can be very finicky at this mark and often feed at random intervals throughout the tide, so I decided to have a small break and watch as Lee kept going. As fortune would have it, it was as soon as I opened my mouth and blurted the words 'maybe they're just not on yet,' that Lee's rod suddenly bent over and the first Pollack of the day was landed.

Not wanting to miss out in case this just happened to be happy hour, I jumped up and got my lure in the water quick time. That cast, bang, that's my blank avoided and my first Pollack of the year. A couple of casts later, another one, only a tiddler but always welcome. After landing half a dozen or so, we both decided to have a change of tactic. If there was any bigger ones down there, we were gonna search them out with some much more manly and heftier lures. Wasn't to be though, didn't matter what was thrown on, the fish had lost interest, maybe another lull in their feeding. Reverting back to my previously successful deep spinning rig, I was soon banging them out again like no-ones business, even managing to get another short video done. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiDLaYZrMg0&feature=youtu.be One after the other, they seemed to just throw themselves on the hook, whilst Lee watched on in slight disbelief.

Lee instead opted to continue with the larger lures for a while before eventually deciding enough was enough and changing method. This time he had an ace up his sleeve and started using a Jika rig to see if there was any willing customers lurking on the bottom. Not long after starting with the method, he soon found himself into a powerful fish, well at least for 5 seconds as it unfortunately chucked the hook a moment after the hook-up. This would kick start an hour of misery for Lee, as rig after rig kept getting snagged up with no gear coming back, it was getting expensive for him. As his frustration grew, I just couldn't resist adding fuel to the fire by giving him a rolling commentary on my tally, it's funny when he gets angry lol. He soon cheered up though, when after a gargantuan effort, he finally hooked another fish on the Jika and this one wasn't coming off. Not exactly sure what it was, the thought's leaned towards ballan and this was confirmed as it hit the surface, quite possibly the first lure caught wrasse in North Wales this year, a top result. This one had a lovely tiger like pattern with vivid green spots on both its dorsal and caudal fins, a real stunning fish.

Now tired of Pollack, I spent my last half hour chasing blennies round a rockpool, catching 3 of them in the process, before I snagged a rock out of my reach and lost the lure, this was a sign to pack up. So session over, I could gladly say it was a far better outcome than the previous time we'd fished together, my finishing tally being 26 Pollack and 3 blennies. Lee had struggled with the Pollack landing just 3, but did manage a well earned ballan wrasse that he will say was worth 20 Pollack, so we both left more than happy.

Hope you enjoyed reading and until next time,
Tight Lines All,
Ross

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