Andy 1965
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2020
- Messages
- 410
- Reaction score
- 3,705
- Points
- 93
- Location
- North Wales
- Favourite Fishing
- Lure
After some good mixed fishing recently, including lures, sharks and a club match, it was time yesterday for a trip to the island with 2 of my boys. They would actually have liked to go lure fishing themselves, but the strong South Westerly winds meant that we had to seek shelter at a leeward rock mark instead.
After stopping off at Telboys in Amlwch for some cracking rag, we arrived at our mark about 90 minutes after low water. First off we all set up with 3 hook flappers, baited with lug, squid and sandeel, either fished alone or in cocktails and then we waited for the action to begin.
Sadly the rods remained motionless for the first 30 minutes, so I set up a small rod with a 2 hook boom rig, armed with size 8’s and baited with small sections of rag, but even this failed to get any interest, so things weren’t looking good
. It was still early days though and eventually things started to pick up.
The first signs of improvement came when the wrasse began feeding and we missed several rattling bites, but the first fish of the day came on the big baits, when I noticed some slack line on Josh’s rod ?. I urged him to pick the rod up and take in the slack and then at the next pull down he struck to set the hook. The fish put up a decent struggle but Josh was up to the task, and after a nervous few minutes he safely landed his first ever smoothhound of just under 3lb ?.
The last time I took the boys fishing, Josh actually blanked but that day was now completely forgotten about and he was absolutely buzzing ?.
After this burst of excitement, the big rods went quiet again but the wrasse were well and truly on the feed now and we all landed a steady stream of them. They were mostly small ballans, but we found a few better fish among them,
and we also caught a few corkwings too, so the boys were happy ?.
Sport on the big baits did eventually pick up slightly and I caught a solitary doggie, along with my own smoothhound of 3.5lb
while Sam caught a small pollack
but the majority of the fun was still to be had on the small baits.
Apart from the hounds, the most interesting catch of the day came on my turn with the scratching rod, when rather than the rattles of small wrasse, I felt a gradual increase in weight on the line. To begin with I thought it might be a crab, or even a bit of weed but we were all amazed, when a small strap conger broke the surface ?.
After the conger, and another half decent ballan to Josh, we started to packed up and I reeled in my big rod to find a greedy dragonet had taken a liking to my rag bait,
this was the first time the boys had ever seen one and it took us to 7 species in total ? .
That was also the last bit of excitement of the day and we called it quits just after high water, but though sport had been slow at times, we had caught at least 40 fish between us, so all in all it had been a very successful outing ?.
After stopping off at Telboys in Amlwch for some cracking rag, we arrived at our mark about 90 minutes after low water. First off we all set up with 3 hook flappers, baited with lug, squid and sandeel, either fished alone or in cocktails and then we waited for the action to begin.
Sadly the rods remained motionless for the first 30 minutes, so I set up a small rod with a 2 hook boom rig, armed with size 8’s and baited with small sections of rag, but even this failed to get any interest, so things weren’t looking good
. It was still early days though and eventually things started to pick up.The first signs of improvement came when the wrasse began feeding and we missed several rattling bites, but the first fish of the day came on the big baits, when I noticed some slack line on Josh’s rod ?. I urged him to pick the rod up and take in the slack and then at the next pull down he struck to set the hook. The fish put up a decent struggle but Josh was up to the task, and after a nervous few minutes he safely landed his first ever smoothhound of just under 3lb ?.
The last time I took the boys fishing, Josh actually blanked but that day was now completely forgotten about and he was absolutely buzzing ?.
After this burst of excitement, the big rods went quiet again but the wrasse were well and truly on the feed now and we all landed a steady stream of them. They were mostly small ballans, but we found a few better fish among them,
and we also caught a few corkwings too, so the boys were happy ?.
Sport on the big baits did eventually pick up slightly and I caught a solitary doggie, along with my own smoothhound of 3.5lb
while Sam caught a small pollack
but the majority of the fun was still to be had on the small baits.
Apart from the hounds, the most interesting catch of the day came on my turn with the scratching rod, when rather than the rattles of small wrasse, I felt a gradual increase in weight on the line. To begin with I thought it might be a crab, or even a bit of weed but we were all amazed, when a small strap conger broke the surface ?.
After the conger, and another half decent ballan to Josh, we started to packed up and I reeled in my big rod to find a greedy dragonet had taken a liking to my rag bait,
this was the first time the boys had ever seen one and it took us to 7 species in total ? .
That was also the last bit of excitement of the day and we called it quits just after high water, but though sport had been slow at times, we had caught at least 40 fish between us, so all in all it had been a very successful outing ?.
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, the boys certainly enjoyed themselves and it's great to see them doing more for themselves each time we go fishing ?.
