Knaresborough Piking. Day 1.

After hearing of Ross's success with lures on the bass, i couldnt resist trying to catch something despite being at home. So I met up with an old mate Rob for a rematch at the lakes we always used to fish.
Armed with my bass lures and the few old pike lures I still had, we went to the spot we had a lot of success for lots of jacks and some big perch a couple years ago.

Finding only one wire trace in the box, Rob  decided to dare it and tie straight onto a J9 rapala, the lure that took most of the big perch the other summer, I switched lures every 10 minutes, using everything I had from the hard bass lures to the soft lures to a savage-gear grub. after moving up and down to all our spots, with only a handful of bites for Rob, we found someone had dug out a bit right in the bottom corner of one of the bays of the lake. As the wind was coming into the bay , we figured it could produce. It was also a bit deeper than bits we'd been trying, and as it had been a bright day, we thought it was worth a chuck. after 15 mins, I had the first and only fish of the day on a 10cm pearl coloured savage-gear shad on a 6g jighead that I was twitching slowly across the bottom.  Not a monster by any means, but it was exactly the type of fish I'd grown to expect from these lakes, and was the target species and size. They are great sport, and normally get a few a session, so I was happy with that.

Going to be trying again over the next couple days after a trip to the tackle shop to get some more traces, and hopefully get some of the magical lures that never failed! Im sure they existed..

How to fish for congers: Lesson 2.

Friday night saw Lesson 2 in learning to catch a monster conger.
Met with Andy, who had a couple hours down on the straits with a doggy to show for it, at about half 8, and went up to the breaky for round 2 against the conger that we almost had last time.

This time, my conger set up was a running leger on 45lb line through, with a wire trace to a single 6/0 with a slab of fish bait on flapping around. the other was on about 60lb line as i borrowed some gear off andy so i could get 2 rods out. 1 rod was in close, the other chucked out a bit. 

Got a nice run on the close in rod, and as I lifted into it, it was a big boy again! YES!  and after a couple minutes trying to winkle it out of its hole with some huge headbangs, my line had been pushed too far grating against the edge, and ting! it was gone, to put on even more muscle weight for our third encounter. I tied on a weaklink of 15lb line now for the weight to prevent this maybe happening again, in case it was the weight that got bogged down. I will be using this every time in future, so this was lesson 2!

Meanwhile I was having fun with the scratching rod, with whiting, codling poor cod and pouting (species 15) for my first 5/6 drops down the side, and Andy having a good few whiting and a codling too.

As Andy was checking in with the boss, he said Ad your rods going, and it was the one down the side twitching ever so slightly when i looked, and for the next couple minutes i watched it intensely for a bite with nothing, until i looked at the line going into the water, and saw it gently snaking away up the wall, as i struck in it was pretty solid, (think it was tangled with the other lines a bit) so was quite surprised to see it was only a baby at 5lbs, give or take a few ounces for my magic scales. Still, target obtained again, and species 16 caught for this year!

Feel free to comment with any questions about any of my fishing, id be glad to help!

Dinas Mid-March

Monday night saw 20mph into the face of dinas. I hate fishing into the wind usually, having done it once at newborough on a foul night. it wasnt too cold however, and we'd had a cracking digging session in the straits with plenty lug to show for it, and a couple of peelers, so Dinas it was.

Literally ran out my lecture to get to the car to pick up Ed and Gav and we were on our way, reaching the end car park at 2 hours before high.

Unfortunately it was dark when we got there, but i knew roughly where I wanted to be, so we set up about 13-15 minute walk towards fort belan.

Ed and Gav managed to set up as close as humanly possible to me on the 8 mile beach, and Ed lobbed out a peeler lug pennel out as far as possible for a stray codling, and a 2 hook flapper a bit closer for the bass. Gav chucked a 2 hook flapper with lug and peeler out at a decent distance too.

I used a packeted 2 hook flapper from malcs as i was feeling rich, but i find the hooklengths very long, especially as you want a quick strike and hookup with bass, so i take the hooklengths to about 6 inches, with a couple of glowing beads put on above the hook, sparked up before each cast.

I was the only one to catch, courtesy of the glowing beads :p   with a schoolie of about 26cm, then a second at 32cm.  Nothing huge, but nice to catch the target fish!

Thursday saw the exact same plan, this time with Dave, Mark and Rick. Mark bagged himself a monster whiting, and I managed my biggest Bass of the year so far at 40cm. All fish were returned to catch again another day.

18 Hour Monster Session!!

Where to start?!?

We had an early start planned, 3am wake and get to the mark asap to bash some rays for the morning low tide. Gav (Captain Tangle) kipped at mine, so the evening was spent watching tv, making sausage sandwichs for the next day, and making ray pulleys and conger rigs (Rigs to be put up shortly in the rig section!)

A quick stop at 'late stop' in bangor for a panini and more doritos and energy drinks, and we were off!  RossiJ was joining us with Ed (Polish, as in Krakov... crack-off.....) and we thought we had set off before them to get the best side of the ledge that we were all planning to be on, but it was a nervous drive on the dark A55 thinking Ross was about to whizz past us and get there first.

We arrived to great relief to an empty car park (Woop!) and started to unpack the car, as the grinning faces of the remaining fish hunters arrived next to us, and with a quick greeting of 'what the f*** are you doing here?' we all made our way down.

We got onto our planned ledge, with Ross on the far left, then Ed, me and Gav to the right, all were planning on 2 rods, so it was to be a bit of a squeeze, especially with Eds dangerous swings and snap-offs.. but luckily gav struggled to put a bait past 50 yards all day, so there was plenty room!

First into the fish was Ross, of course, and he had 2 rays, both nice fish, but nothing monstrous...yet! I was gagging for my first ray of the year, and my second ever, and then my rod bent over slowly, and kept going!

Not much of a fighter, a bit of a pecker at 2 lb 10oz.

 My next came in at exactly the same weight just as day was breaking at low tide, and in the photo I have a massive grin as Ed had just had about his 4th crack off as the photo was being taken.

Quite soon after, Gav managed to get something other than a doggie!  and had taken over my reign of the invertebrate snarer to my delight. All I got that was interesting for the rest of the morning was a lunker of a doggy at 2lb 6oz.   

The baits myself and gav were using were snake launce, squid and mackerel, and various wraps of the three. Inside the squid iv been getting from Gaz at Menai Angling theres been interesting things inside them, almost as fun as fishing!! weve had a few of the red snapper type things pictured in the middle, and a few sprats and a weever type thing, but today, a laterally flattened fish appeared, like a jon dory, but iv no idea what it was, but all very interesting.

The rays of the sun seemed to scare away the rays of the deep, and we retreated back up to the top of the cliff away from the incoming tide. Ross went home for a sleep, but we stuck it out, me doing a bit of uni work, and Ed and Gav trying for wrasse. Ed managed his first ballan, and then a nice 3lb ballan, and then his first corkwing.

 During the day there wasnt too much action to be had, but Gav and Ed did quite a bit of much needed casting practise for them both to get some rays in the evening. After a good few crack offs later, Ross returned with cracking pasties and tea cakes with powdery stuff on, went down a right treat- Thanks!

About 2 hours before low, the rays started coming onto the feed, and I managed my third ray at 4lbs, and then a double hookup for me and Ross resulted in a nice one for Ross at 5lb 13oz and my 4th at 5lb 3oz, not my pb, but a nice size :)

 Ed finally got his first ray at this point, shortly follwed by another of roughly the same size.

As it was pretty crowded, I was just pinging both my casts aiming at the same light on the horizon each time, and putting my rods in order appropriately, but I buggered it up at one point as I forgot which rod Id just cast, so they were tangled, but I thought I may as well wait for a bite before reeling in to untangle.

However, I got a bite on one rod, and you could tell the tangle was showing a bite on the other rod, but then the other was doing the same with whiting rattles??   so I made the decision to strike the right rod and asked Gav to help me out and reel in the other rod. as it got closer, we were both struggling to reel in quickly, and i was getting some massive headbangs, and thought it was a decent codling or something as it was on a squid bait, but as it got to our feet and our headtorches shined down, it was the biggest fish Iv ever caught from our shores!  My p.b. huss at 11lb dead.

Happy as pie, I then looked at the resulting tangle, as gav to the right of me had managed to get his line over mine too, and also managed to snag one of Eds cracked off rigs in the process, so i had a tangle of 4 lines and rigs, one of which was braid. About 40 minutes later I got rods in the water to try and get myself the Ty Croes Treble, a ray, huss and conger int he same night, but after an hour and a half, it wasnt to be despite runs on both rods, and we packed up to head home for a swift pint before closing time.

As I was up congering, Ross hammered through a few more rays, equaling his p.b., but he's still gagging for his double, and Im pretty sure hes back there as Im typing this.

On a bit of a downer though- whilst at the pub, we heard from our mates Ben (Ihatewhiting) and Ste (YorkshireCodling), that when they returned to their car at Mackerel rock, someone had tipped it upside down.. an odd thing to come back to, so Ross went to pick them up, and the car will have to be scrapped. So thats a warning to people going near that area, but hopefully it wont happen again. similar to when I had my car done in at Traeth Ora. no idea why it happened, probably bored chavs, as mackerel rock is a popular area for people to fish, and I cant see why people would tip a fishermans car for fishing his spot at mackerel rock?! if so, theyre gonna have a busy summer.

All in all, Ross had a steady stream of 11 rays,the biggest at 8 lb13oz to equal his p.b., Ed had 2, a dab, few wrasse and doggies, Gav let us all down by not getting a ray, but had a ridiculous amount of doggies, and an octopus.  A session very hard to beat!!

Caim on a windy rising tide

Went 7/03 to caim thinking it would be sheltered.. it wasnt..  fished the tide up, casting short to the right for the congers to no avail..

couple codling to fish baits, few doggies, and a baby huss and couple dabs for gav.
not the worst fishing to what we expected on arrival!!

How to Fish for Congers, Lesson 1.

Was feeling the need to catch some congers after ordering a load of wire and big hooks, so set off for the breaky with Andy and Mark. We arrived as darkness was falling and the tide was rising, but as we unpacked the gear I realised that in the excitement of getting ready, Id forgotten the bait..  Fortunately Andy had a few mackies sandeel and squid, so all was not lost, but my hopes of picking up minis on rag was gone.. but slivers of mackerel could get something..

So each all set up a conger rod and a scratching rod each. Iv been contemplating switching back to fixed spools recently, and was away to set up with one of those for the conger rod, but then realised I only had 15lb line on these with a 50lb leader, so opted for my trusty fladen multiplier which had either 25 or 30lb line through (cant quite remember) and it also had the clicker so I could detect bites without watching the rod.

Andy was first with a decent bite, but got snagged up after a couple of bangs from what could have been a decent fish. He was also next to reel in a fish a wee pollock which he thought was a whiting until I looked at it properly, and then he got a nice plump codling, but didnt notice the bite, but its all a learning curve, as you're about to find out..

At about an hour before high, I heard a nice smooth run of clicks and dashed over to my conger rod and struck into a solid weight. I then had the best fight from any fish Iv had in the british seas, lasting good few minutes. Eventually it hit surface, and it was a monster serpent, 'as thick as Andys leg'. Andy was on his stomach with his net on a long pole, and grabbed my line, and guided its head safely into the net. As he lifted the weight of the fish with the line to try get more of it into the net so he could get it up, the worst happened..  apparently my at least 25 lb line was not strong enough to lift out this monster and it had snapped.. to say im gutted is an understatement, but, iv caught the congering bug, and shall return every day or two until I get that fish, or one bigger!

At least I now know the rest of my tackle, and the way I played it,  and the way I made my traces can stand up to a monster fish (I will be putting my conger rig up in the rigs section when im not as tired and attempting to do work in the library in the morning),  and i now have about 30ft of 60lb shock on every reel I own. there was also a bit of method optimisation in the way to net them, as we also had a dropnet with us, but not set up as we were all too busy trying to catch fish, so preparation is the key, and Im sure we'll net the monster next time and have some excellent photos..

Mark had the best session with a steady stream of whiting and doggies, but nothing much else happened for me, apart from a little Poor Cod which brings my species tally to 12. so the night was not completely unsuccessful!!

The rest of the night was spent with Andy laughing to himself at the fact I went congering without shockleader, but my thoughts were iv never seen a conger over about 10lbs, and let alone hooked one myself, with my p.b. at 7.5lbs! And so I thought 25lb line would have been enough to be able to tame a conger. but it seems im not going to be sleeping tonight with the thought of, 'why didnt I choose the other reel????' going through my head..

So lesson 1 of congering is to always have very strong shock leader cos you never know what you might hook!!  I know i wont be making the same mistake ever again!

March 2nd. Sun, Rays and Pollock!




My 3rd octopus in 2 Ty Croes Sessions!

  View Ross's version of Events at http://fishingfanatic2012.blogspot.com/


An early rise at 6am to catch the calm weather and low tide at Ty Croes saw a beautiful sunrise and an empty car park when we got to the mark. Rays were the target species, and Ross and myself blasted out 2 rods each with mackerel, squid and sandeel and all combinations. Unfortunately my 2 beachcasters were in for re-ringing, so I was on society gear, and so my casts were about 10 yards short of ross's all morning. It was a slow start, with the first bite to me and after striking I knew exactly what the culprit was- an octopus. My last session at ty croes bringing 4 between us and 2 whiting had learnt me to know exactly what it felt like! shortly after Ross was into his first ray. He ended up with 4, the biggest being 7lb 11oz (Edit: 7lb 13oz, Sorry!), and was a nice fish indeed. I also got a starfish and a whiting. This is to be expected when fishing with Ross though, but he promised to give me a good session on the pollock that night after stealing all my thornbacks!!

How could a ray resist such a beautiful looking bait?!   only Ross will know..

Ross with one of his rays

Made it back to base at half 1, and a quick nip into the labs to finish my disertation work and a bite to eat, then off again to South Stack to Ross's top secret pollock mark. After the most lairy climb to any mark iv been to, we got down to the rocks just before high tide. As it was such a beautifully hot day (15 degrees!!) I took off most of my layers and sat cooling down while Ross set up.

As I finally chucked in a shrimp rig with bits of rag on, I could see him grinning away at my face of astonishment at how deep this place actually was. He'd mentioned it was deep, but line just kept peeling off the reel until finally touching the bottom, and then arching over again with a cracking bite, literally no more than a second after touching the bottom. After a nice little scrap a good size pollock surfaced.Not massive at about 40cm long, but that was tomorrows dinner sorted, and made the climb down more than worth it. My next cast brought a Scorpion fish and a corkwing wrasse as a double header, making that 3 new 2012 species in 2 casts!

Next cast brought up another corkwing, and another couple of smaller pollock were brought to the surface to be returned to grow up. It turned out that I was stealing all the fish this time as Ross had only managed a scorpion fish at this point, it wasnt to last much longer of course!

As the sun set, we moved round to a slightly shallower bit, but I was promised this is where the bigger pollock hang around at low water. Before Id set up again, Ross had a nicer pollock at about 1.5lbs. Over the next few hours I had a few more pollock, but all of a similar size of my first, so all went back to fight another day. Ross was into a couple more big uns amongst 5/6 smaller, the biggest at 2lb 11oz at 2 hours before low tide, Not anywhere near the monster at nearly 7lbs he had at the same spot a couple weeks before, but a promising fish..

Amongst the pollock, I had two of species number 4 of the day for me and another for the 2012 hunt which was shore rockling, so I was chuffed after a slow start to the day, as my species hunt for the year was starting to tke some serious form!

Ross however played his golden touch card and pulled out a tadpole fish, weird looking things, the mouth looking like a cods mouth at the time made me think it was related to the gadidae, and after a quick google now, it turns out I was right!!

Karma had its way as we were packing up tho, as whilst Ross was filleting his biggest pollock, the tiredness and fading headtorches caused him to throw the fillet of pollock back into the water instead of the carcass, much to my amusement!

Overall it was a cracking day out and good to get out again after a couple months being cooped up. Cant wait to get my rods out of Gareths shop in menai bridge and go after the rays again!