A welcome break!

Had another 2 day break from work recently and as you'd expect, I made the most of my time off with a bit.... ok a lot of fishing. Here's what went down

The first day kicked off with a 6am alarm, waking me with just enough time to get to Holyhead for a charter boat trip I'd booked with mate Steve on-board MyWay with Gethyn. Due to the time of year, we didn't deceive ourselves with high expectations, but we were both secretly hopeful of a bit of rod bending action from the spurs out in Holyhead deeps. After a hour or so steaming out to the mark, the first drops saw the majority of us on the boat pick up a doggie or two, that was all of us except the skipper of course, who decided to show us all how it was done with a spurdog of around 7-8lb. After the great start though, it turned out to be a slow day. There were a few more decent fish landed including another spurdog of around 12lbs, a thorny and a decent huss for my mate Steve. My best fish of the day was a nice whiting of over a pound, probably a new PB, but this one was lucky and went free, most likely to be eaten by a huss in the near future lol......you can see from the photo that something had already had a go at it. In all though, it was a great day out on the water and couldn't have asked for nicer weather. If there's one thing I took away from this trip though, its that Geth really knows his stuff when it comes to boat angling, when targeting spurs fish the baits just off the bottom to avoid the doggy plague! Will hopefully be out with Geth again before I head South for 7 months!

As we steamed back, I was still well in the mood to fish and decided that I wanted to challenge myself, in the end coming to the conclusion that I was gonna target a tadpole fish. Having only caught one before, I didn't really have much to go off, but after a quick check of my old blog posts from last year, I saw that I'd had my last one in very similar conditions exactly one year and two days previous, how convenient :)

Fishing with my mate magic, we braved the cold and headed to the ranges with a couple of rods each. My aim for the night was to land a few new species for the year, namely tadpole fish and rockling, although I'd also be using had my heavier duty set up for congers. I chose to use a very simple 1-up, 1-down running ledger rig with rag tipped with macky for bait and a few lumi beads just for that added attraction in the depths. To say the fishing was good would be lying, but after an hour or so, I finally got some action in the form of my first rockling of 2013, a small one of the shore variety. It was a good 2 hours before I'd see any more action but sure enough, almost dead on low tide I noticed a small tap on the rod tip. I lifted my rod off the tripod and felt the line for any more bites. It wasn't long before the tap turned into a decent knock so I lifted into the fish. Knowing it was something small, I immediately got a little excited, but nowhere near as excited as I was when I saw that I had successfully caught the fish I had been targeting, A TADPOLE FISH! My happiness was easy to see and magic was amazed that I had landed one of these, having talked about them none stop since we'd arrived. I think this was the first one he'd seen and he was in agreement that they are cool fish, although another friend of mine, having seen the pics, has funnily referred to it as...... the most miserable looking fish he'd ever seen lol.

On a real high and despite the lack of further action, I decided to pack down my conger rod, leaving just my rockling rig out. It was sods law though that the next fish I'd land (which turned out to be the last) was of course a conger, which luckily had been hooked perfectly in the top lip. Getting magic to steer it onto the rocks for me, I soon had it in my grasp, the first landed conger I'd landed on this particular mark, having hooked and lost a few really good fish previously. With no more action for a further hour we decided enough was enough and off home we went. Not a particularly hectic session but ticked off all three of my nights targets, so definitely can't complain.



The following day, a new target was made, this time to do a little LRF'ing for scorpion fish and blennies. Magic was again keen to come along for a fish and had never tried this method of fishing before, so it was great to see him catch a few fish and a new species. Although the fishing was again hard work, we did pull out a handful of scorpion fish between us, with magic getting the pick of the bunch with this fella taken on red power isome. I am particularly proud of this photo as well, really want one like this myself now.

Anyway, that's all for now,
Thanks for reading and tight lines,
Ross

Mid-February gathering : Part 1



Having planned for a 4-day fishing marathon about a month ago, myself and mates Lee Goddard and Scott Hutchison were all eagerly anticipating a nice relaxing break from work and some long hours on the rocks species hunting. Our chosen venue was Anglesey, which being my local area was ideal and would give me the chance to show off what North Wales has to offer in what most people refer to as the worst month of the year for fishing.

Scott was first to arrive late Thursday night but no fishing was done, instead a few pints, a takeaway and the Inbetweeners movie was looking the best option. Friday morning came round though and the first port of call was a trip pike fishing. Terry had reported to us that he'd had a number of fish that morning at the mark we were going so expectations were high, but on arrival conditions seemed against us with bright sunshine and only around 6" visibility in the water. Perhaps we should have been up earlier as we had definitely missed the best of the fishing, the only action being a small pike I'd hooked on a yellow kopyto which threw the hook at my feet, can't say I was majorly bothered :)

You have to love tompot blennies, such a cool fish!

We sacked the piking off around midday and headed to the power station for a spot of LRF. Due to the constant flow of warm water, the mini-species tend to hang around all year at this mark, so it's a good banker spot when fishing elsewhere is a struggle.
When down at the preferred spot, I first chucked in a few ladles full of chum hoping to see some mullet show up. Sure enough, they did and before long I'd hooked and landed one of the thick lip variety freelining a small piece of breadflake on a size 12 hook.
Though that turned out to be the only mullet of the day, we were both kept more than busy by the masses of Corkwing Wrasse and Shannies down below and I managed to winkle out a few tompots as well, a good way of spending a few hours :)



Scott gets 1st new species of the trip

That evening our third member arrived and was keen to get straight into some rod bending action. As neither of them had ever caught a rockling of any form, I decided to take them to a spot on the North Coast where I've had a good number of 3-beard and shore rockling, all be it usually whilst I've been fishing for eels. The tide was not ideal with what I considered to be the prime time falling at around midnight, but as they were so keen to wet a line we got there a good few hours before hand on the off chance of catching our target. I first showed Scott and Lee the most productive spots and then went a bit further down the rocks myself to see if I could tempt an eel. As it played out the first few hours were very slow with Scott managing to land the only fish, a small codling. As the prime time got nearer, the bites started coming, myself and Lee both losing Congers in quick succession and all of us missing a few rattly bites which I believed to be lobsters. Just before midnight though, Scott hit the jackpot and got his first ever rockling, a nicely patterned shore rockling. That would be it for the night, not a hectic session but we'd got what we came for so job done!

The next day I was back in work so I had to leave the guys to it for the majority of the day. When they visited me in Menai though they had nothing fishy to report, but they had caught plenty of crabs and had found that enjoyable, each to their own I guess lol. When I was finally free to go at 6, I'd had enough time to check the tides and was set on a trip conger fishing at my favourite conger mark on the island. For one reason or another though, the lads were determined to get out with the LRF gear. I did my best to convince them otherwise and pointed out that it was low water, at night in February but that just seemed to spur them on more to prove me wrong. So in the end, I dragged my mate Steve out with me, who is yet to catch an eel and I dropped Scott and Lee at Amlwch breakwater, which would be there best chance of a few fish........... they wisely took some mackerel fillets with them!
Fishing was not to bad for them, Scott turning to the bait and landing a good variety of fish including whiting, poor cod, codling and another shore rockling whilst Lee stuck it out with the lures for the majority, managing a lonely poor cod for his efforts before also switching to bait and landing a few whiting as well as a codling himself.

In the meantime, myself and Steve headed over to my mark, nicely sheltered from the wind and almost spot on tide wise, I was very confident of a few eels. I was right to be confident as well, for at the end of the night, I had landed a brace of eels, one of which already had a trace down its throat and a scorpion fish, also dropping a third eel, whilst Steve had dropped what was surely his first Conger ever and landed a cursed doggie. Not a bad night all round!

So with two days down, we'd notched up a total of 10 species but there was more to come!
Thanks for reading and stay tuned for part 2,
Tight Lines All,
Ross

Jersey adventures part 2 with the LRF guys

First of all, the LRF guys team shot

Awake at 3.30am after around 90 minutes sleep, we were finally boarding and things were looking up. The predicted swell soon became apparent and the boat was moving around quite a lot. Whilst I tried to get my head down Lee disappeared to the toilet, I wouldn't see him again until 3 hours later. It's fair to say that he hadn't enjoyed his ferry ride along with 85% of the passengers on the boat. Fortunately, I am very good on boats so retained the contents of my stomach for the duration. It was a relief for everyone though when we arrived in Jersey for part 2 of my Jersey adventures.

As is customary now on my visits to the island, first stop was MrFish to see Mick and Bob who were also joined by Lee Birch and Mike Hayes this time around. We had a good chat about all things fishy and were also joined by Steve Mullins who kindly offered to help me on my hunt for a red mullet. After a good hour, myself and Lee decided to go and meet up with Scott at the hostel. The 3 amigos now together we thought up a game plan for the remaining hours of the day and got the rods ready for action. I had told Lee about the abundance of Giant gobies found in the rock pools all over the island so the first thing on our list was to get him one. I took them to a mark on the North coast I'd caught tonnes of them at on my previous trip including the beast and it wasn't to long before I found the first giant of the day. Scott was soon getting a few as well whilst I switched my attentions to the tiddlers in the pools hoping some of them would be two spot gobies. Switching to one of Scott's size 26 hooks I soon found out that they were in fact a mix of tiny rock and giant gobies. Lee then called Scott over to have a gander at one he'd landed and it was confirmed that he had his first giant goby and already his 4th new species of the trip. (The other fellas will add some photos)

Mission accomplished, the next effort saw us fishing for the rays which both Scott and Lee had never caught before. I'd made up a load of rigs in anticipation and chucking out sandeel and squid wraps (my favourite ray bait) we were soon getting bites from the doggie population which seem to plague everywhere nowadays. Scott however did get our target landing an Undulate ray of around 3lb. Even better was to come though for Scott all be it through some good luck. Whilst he had been reeling in his ray he'd caught his other line, pulling it right into the rocks. After photographing the ray he noticed his other rod knocking away and proceeded to bring in his first ever topknot and his 2nd new species of the night. Myself and Lee had to make do with dogfish and Pout though, I hate dogfish!

Our second day saw us hit St Helier harbour where we had hoped for another hoard of species. We did have plenty of fish throughout the session, the main culprits being the mass of black and rock gobies. In between the hoards of gobies though we did winkle out a few corkwings and a single ballan wrasse but it failed to produced anything exciting. At around 12ish, we headed over to MrFish once again to meet up with another LRF nut, Andy Marquis who had made the trip over from Guernsey to have a fish with us as well as to pick up his rather nice new red rod. Lee was suffering from the previous days boat trip and decided to give the next session a miss so whilst he got some kip, I went off to dig some lug leaving Scott and Andy to have a session on the rocks nearby. An hour later I went over to see how the guys were doing and still fishless, Scott tempted me to get out my LRF gear once more by showing me a pool with a few 2-spot gobies in, a species I'm yet to catch. 30 stressful mins later, defeat was admitted and even the size 26 hooks seemed to big lol Scott did get a single sand goby, but that was it. The evening saw us part ways, myself heading off with my smelly stuff in hope of a red mullet whilst Andy, Scott and the now recovered Lee headed out in search of a Scad. I'll leave the lads to tell there part of it but I failed to get a red mullet, catching a number of rockling and pout instead. My highlight was this double header of rockling, one a 3-beard, the other a shore rockling.

Day 3 : After the disappointing previous day, the Sunday was a day I was looking forward to, mostly due to the fact we'd be having an afternoon session with Steve Mullins. During the morning we headed to the North West coast to get out of the wind and hopefully hit into some wrasse and bass. It was very hard work again with Lee managing a single wrasse on a stick bait and myself hitting into a few small bass on my newly acquired mad shads mounted on a Xorus jighead. As is usually the case though after calling Scott and Lee over, the fish had disappeared. Then the time came to meet Steve on the beach to get some lug and try once again for the reds. We were also joined by Roger Mortimore, who I thoroughly enjoyed chatting to and listening to all his fishing stories, including his recent Oman adventure, very jealous. After digging plenty of worm we headed off to a few of Steve's marks, where despite our best efforts it wasn't to be on the red mullet front. The second mark he put us on did produce a steady flow of doggies and pout though which Lee and Scott were all to happy to catch. A huge thankyou to Steve though for his time and effort, sometimes it's just not to be and when the fish aren't playing nice there's not a lot you can do. With Roj keen to join us again the following morning though, it left me with one final chance to get my target.

Day 4 (the final one) - I have to say, with just the one day left and still no new species on my list, I was starting to get a little frustrated, but I was going to put in all my effort to this one last attempt. We all met with Roj at 8.30am and after a quick coffee and breakfast bap we headed off to a deep rock mark. Scott and Lee fished lure only whilst myself and Roj targeted the reds with some of the left over lug. The weather was awful, raining for the majority of the morning and hailing as well. Roj was first in with a small bream and then we both had dogfish to add to the mix. With all hopes of a red gone, I saw a small tap on my rod tip and immediately thought bream. I let it develop and eventually hit it connecting to something small. On the way in I picked up some weed but when I finally saw the fish surface and I had it on the rocks, I realised I'd got something a little special. It was my first ever Baillons Wrasse, a cracking looking fish and this one I believe is a specimen. My 64th species of the year, very happy chappy! At this point we departed from Roj, who had to shoot to work and decided to have another bash in St Helier harbour. Apart from a small dragonette I had on a huge bait it was yet again a 

goby fest with Scott getting loads of the little blighters on his LRF gear. I did try my best again to tempt a few 2 spot gobies I'd seen but once again, they were just to small for my hooks. 

With only a few hours remaining we decided to have one last bash at a North coast breakwater. Lee tried his best to bag a topknot whilst Scott and I raided the rock pools with the LRF tactics whilst Dan Ferguson who had come to join us watched on in disgust. When we got a few unfamiliar lookng gobies though we got excited. They may have only been a few cm's in length but were fairly confident that we both ticked of another new species. This time it was a painted goby. The blue tinge to the first dorsal was a giveaway feature as well as the clear markings on its flank and the number of rays in both its dorsal fins. Here are a few pictures I took. From these you can clearly see the distinctive markings and colours on the fish. 

 Both myself and Scott tempted these little stunners on a size 26 hook and a slither of Power Isome. So another species ticked off, 65 and counting. With that done we had to leave for the ferry, saying our goodbye's to Scott and leaving him in the very useful hands of Dan who was gonna take him to one of his marks in the search of a ray or conger. Read Scott's report for the details.

Thanks alot for reading and thanks once again to all those who helped us in any way, it's always a pleasure to come to Jersey and I'm planning another trip before the year is out. Jersey adventure part 2 is over, but part 3 is soon to come.

Tight Lines,
Ross

The missing link to gareths report : tricky mark success

 28/04/2012

Gareth has done a cracking write up of the events before and after my dodgy secret mark, so I won't bother repeating those parts of the session. Here's the bit in between though!

We arrived at the mark around midday and it was looking good, the 17mph winds were off our backs at my mark so we could get a bit of

much needed shelter. I explained to Gareth that it was a bit sketchy to get down to but perhaps on reflection, that was a little bit of an understatement. However after Gareth had successfully climbed down and up the othe side I thought he'd be ok. That was until we reached the final descent. It was obvious that he wasn't comfortable in the situation, so he rightly decided to turn back and head for one of his marks close by. I had said I would come back with him, but after 5

of him assuring me he'd be fine getting back, I continued down the final drop to the mark. Thinking that Gareth would be ok, I started fishing with a small soft plastic and after a few chucks I had a little ballan wrasse of about half a pound. After another 20 mins I decided to switch tactics and use a home made 2-hook flapper armed with size 4 hooks, a few luminous beads and lovely fresh wriggly rag as bait. I was getting a wrasse a chuck for 20 minutes, nothing of any size but alot of fun. Then I had a tiny rattle and brought up a little LS scorpion fish. Back on the ballans then for a few chucks before species 3 came up, a little corkwing. I stayed happily pulling out these wrasse for another 45 minutes and finishing with around 15 ballans, 4 corkwings and 2 scorpion fish before I thought I best go and join Gareth now at his spot. I packed the gear up and climbed my way back over the tops. As I peered over the crest of the hill though, I was shocked to see Gareth stood about 2/3 of the way up the other side. I must admit, at this point I felt a tad guilty and when I reached him I apologised profusely for not coming back sooner. He was fine about it though and said it was his own fault for convincing me he'd be ok. Nevertheless we now had to get up to the top with Gareth way out of his comfort zone. He was adamant that he was going to swim round but I had to stop him doing that, the current is deceivingly strong round this spot and the last thing I wanted after leading him down there, was for him to go disappearing out to sea. So after 10 minutes of calming his nerves, I gave a samaritin like speech (Gareths words, not mine) to boost his confidence in the climb and showed him a number of ways in which he could go about it. It was really a case of mind over matter and after another short calming nerves period he went for it and sure enough had no problem whatsoever. Once up top, I again apologised for putting him in that situation. For anyone that wanders why some marks are kept secret, then here is your answer. Being a confident climber myself, I don't appreciate how difficult it is for others to get to some of these marks I fish and I'd hate to put anyone in that position again. Also Gareth rightly pointed out after his ordeal that if I had of broadcast this mark to everyone, then no doubt people would try and reach it thinking, 'ye, i'll be fine' and someone would end up getting badly injured.

As you know from Gareths's report we then had another couple of hours wrasse and mini bashing at his spot which was alot of fun and produced a fair few fish. 

I went back in the evening to see if I could get a conger, but only managed half a dozen small pollock, a solitary poor cod and this beasty shore rockling which just about makes the record list weighing 270g (roughly 9.5oz) and measuring just shy of 30cm. All fish came on my scratching rig to rag/macky baits.

Cheers for reading,

Tight Lines,

Ross

24 hours of fantastic fishing part 2: 5pm 2/3/2012 - 10pm 2/3/2012

 Stop 3: South Stack Area

Having had a cracking morning session, hopes were high for a good evening bash at my pollock mark. I had promised Ad a few fish to make up for his mornings disappointment so pressure was on to produce. We arrived at the mark after the climb down for about 5pm, which was around high tide. Using baited sabikis we dropped the baits down the side no more than a foot from the ledge we were stood on. I had told Ad it was deep but as his lead continued to sink taking metres upon metres of line from his spool his face went from amused to confused within seconds. It was Ad who struck first though instantly after his lead had touched bottom with a pollock of 12oz (top right). We were underway!

The first couple of hours I got outfished by Ad and he was bringing in a nice steady line of fish. His species tally took a nice boost when his second bite lead to this double header (Up Right), of a LS scorpion fish and a corkwing wrasse. I still havn't had a wrasse this year so he's beat me to the ball with that one :) Ad went on to add a couple more pollock and another corkwing to his tally whilst I struggled and managed just a single LS scorpion fish from the innitial ledge. As we moved mark though, I came into my own and started to claw back some fish. This ledge drops off into some shallower water but seems to hold a much larger variety of fish and also the better size pollock. My first few fish from this spot were smallish pollock around the 3/4lb mark but I did after some persistance manage this better fish of 2lb 11oz (Up right)

I was set on catching these all night with the hope of another biggie but the big ones remained inactive for the duration. Instead however it was shore rockling that came out in numbers. Ad managed 2 of them in consecutive casts (top left) and I pulled one out shortly after. The highight of my night though came in the form of this wee beastie (pictured right). A tadpole fish! (Species 17) Yet another 1st for me in a year that seems to be planning out very well. It was only about 9oz but I didn't care, just an awesomely cool fish. The last of the days action came from another few pollock, one for each myself and Ad before it was time, after nearly 24 hours solid fishing to pack up and go home for some much needed sleep. The fishing has picked up brillaintly over the past few weeks all round the island so if you get chance, get out! You might get a nice surprise :p

 

Hope you enjoyed part 2,

Tight Lines,

Ross