Andy 1965
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2020
- Messages
- 410
- Reaction score
- 3,703
- Points
- 93
- Location
- North Wales
- Favourite Fishing
- Lure
After last week’s productive session, I decided to take advantage of a brief window in the weather on Tuesday evening to make a return visit to the same mark. This time though I was hopeful that I wouldn’t have the “pleasure” of Sammy the seal’s company 
.
The temperature was forecast to drop close to freezing, so I wrapped up well in my full winter gear, but with the promise of light winds I hoped the windchill factor wouldn’t be too bad. I arrived at the mark to find perfect conditions, with no breeze to speak of and a light swell lapping gently at the rocks, so things were looking good.
Once again, my main priority was to catch some whiting first, for use as live-bait for the conger and as dead baits for the rays and huss, but having learned from experience last week, when the seal took the whiting off my hooks if they were left out for too long, I decided this time to get a ray bait out first. Once a squid and sandeel cocktail was mounted on a pennel pulley dropper and cast out to maximum range, I then rigged up a 3-hook flapper and baited it with black lug, this was also cast out but rather than placing the rod in the tripod, I held on to it tightly. Just like last week, the whiting were on my baits almost immediately, and after a couple of minutes of non-stop rattling I reeled straight in.
Thankfully, there was still no sign of the seal and the first 2 whiting of the night were soon swimming safely in a rock pool. After 2 more casts I had enough fresh bait to be going on with, so the flapper was then swapped for a second pulley dropper, baited this time with a small dead whiting of maybe 6 inches in length.
Almost immediately after this was cast out and the rod placed in the tripod, I spotted a couple of small pull downs on the first rod, so I decided to see what might be responsible. As I swept the rod backward to break out the lead, I felt an initial resistance before things got up off the bottom, so I had a suspicion what might have taken a shine to my bait and sure enough, after a few minutes of steady reeling the first ray of the night was successfully landed
. It was only a tiddler of about a pound and a half, but I was still chuffed to catch one of my target species on the first cast 
.
After a quick picture she was released to grow bigger, and the rod was rebaited and cast out once more.
Now that I had 2 baits in the water it was time to set up a third rod and with Sammy nowhere to be seen, I was finally able to put my cunning conger plan into action
. After casting out a plain 6oz bomb maybe 20 meters or so, I then clipped a live-bait slider onto the line and after carefully nicking a small whiting just behind the dorsal fin, the whole lot was allowed to slide down the line and into the dark water. I then placed the rod out of the way in a second tripod, and turned my attentions back to the other rods.
The next bit of action came on the rod baited with the dead whiting, and this time there was no doubt as to the identity of the fish which had munched my bait, after a great scrap I had a much better ray beaten on the surface below my ledge. Next I made my way carefully down a series of safe rock “steps” until I was close enough to the sea to grab the hook length, and I could then haul my catch ashore, not my biggest ever thornback, but at 7lb 10oz it was still a cracking fish
.
Once more the ray was weighed and photographed, before being gently released, and having already baited up a spare snood, I soon had a fresh bait safely out in the water.
I didn’t have to wait long for the next bite, but this time the fight was a little different. I had my suspicions that this might be another of my target species, and sure enough it was a half decent huss of 6lb 14oz
.
This was turning into a fantastic night’s fishing and over the next 2 hours I caught a couple of nice dogs, both over the 2lb mark, along with another 6 rays of 2lb 10oz, 2lb 12oz, 4lb 4oz, 4lb 9oz, 6lb 5oz and the best of the night so far at 8lb 6oz
. Things were so busy in fact, that on one point I had rays on both rods at the same time 
.
This was keeping me so busy that I had completely forgotten about the live-bait rod, but I was just binding yet another ray bait onto a spare snood, when I heard a commotion to my left. I immediately remembered the other rod and I turned around to see it bouncing madly in the tripod!
There was no time to waste, so I raced over and picked it up, then, after feeling a couple of seriously hard pull downs, I lifted the rod to set the hook. Sadly though, I was too slow and all I felt was gear stuck solid in a snag 
. For the next couple of minutes I tried everything I could think of to free it, from applying steady pressure to allowing some slack for the beast to swim free again, but it wasn’t to be and the next time I applied pressure to my line it parted! 
Now normally I would have been devastated to miss such a cracking bite, but it’s still early days yet on this winter’s conger hunt and I’m sure I’ll get another chance before too long. I was also having such a great time with the rays, that I was just pleased to know that predators will actually take live-baits, and I will definitely be trying the technique a lot more on future sessions.
For the time being though, I didn’t have time to set up another slider rig, so I simply tied on the nearest big fish rig I had to hand, a pulley rig armed with an 8/0. This was then baited with a whiting carcass from which I had already removed the fillets for ray baits, and then lobbed to roughly the same place where I had the previous bite.
As it happened, that particular bait remained unmolested for the rest of the session, but the ray baits were another story.
Over the next 90 minutes the rays kept feeding hard and I caught another 4, at 2lb 12oz, 3lb 7oz, 7lb 1oz and another nice fish of 8lb 2oz.
As midnight approached the rays finally stopped feeding, giving the dogs and whiting the chance to get at the baits again, so after half an hour with no more rays, I called it a night.
So I’m still waiting for Congerzilla, but with 12 thornbacks including 2 over 8lb, my best ever ray session in the 17 years I’ve been fishing for them, I wasn’t bothered in the slightest
.
My confidence in live-baits has been well and truly boosted though, and with any luck I will finally get to meet that 20lb snake sometime over the next 3 months
.
.The temperature was forecast to drop close to freezing, so I wrapped up well in my full winter gear, but with the promise of light winds I hoped the windchill factor wouldn’t be too bad. I arrived at the mark to find perfect conditions, with no breeze to speak of and a light swell lapping gently at the rocks, so things were looking good.
Once again, my main priority was to catch some whiting first, for use as live-bait for the conger and as dead baits for the rays and huss, but having learned from experience last week, when the seal took the whiting off my hooks if they were left out for too long, I decided this time to get a ray bait out first. Once a squid and sandeel cocktail was mounted on a pennel pulley dropper and cast out to maximum range, I then rigged up a 3-hook flapper and baited it with black lug, this was also cast out but rather than placing the rod in the tripod, I held on to it tightly. Just like last week, the whiting were on my baits almost immediately, and after a couple of minutes of non-stop rattling I reeled straight in.
Thankfully, there was still no sign of the seal and the first 2 whiting of the night were soon swimming safely in a rock pool. After 2 more casts I had enough fresh bait to be going on with, so the flapper was then swapped for a second pulley dropper, baited this time with a small dead whiting of maybe 6 inches in length.
Almost immediately after this was cast out and the rod placed in the tripod, I spotted a couple of small pull downs on the first rod, so I decided to see what might be responsible. As I swept the rod backward to break out the lead, I felt an initial resistance before things got up off the bottom, so I had a suspicion what might have taken a shine to my bait and sure enough, after a few minutes of steady reeling the first ray of the night was successfully landed
. It was only a tiddler of about a pound and a half, but I was still chuffed to catch one of my target species on the first cast .After a quick picture she was released to grow bigger, and the rod was rebaited and cast out once more.
Now that I had 2 baits in the water it was time to set up a third rod and with Sammy nowhere to be seen, I was finally able to put my cunning conger plan into action
. After casting out a plain 6oz bomb maybe 20 meters or so, I then clipped a live-bait slider onto the line and after carefully nicking a small whiting just behind the dorsal fin, the whole lot was allowed to slide down the line and into the dark water. I then placed the rod out of the way in a second tripod, and turned my attentions back to the other rods.The next bit of action came on the rod baited with the dead whiting, and this time there was no doubt as to the identity of the fish which had munched my bait, after a great scrap I had a much better ray beaten on the surface below my ledge. Next I made my way carefully down a series of safe rock “steps” until I was close enough to the sea to grab the hook length, and I could then haul my catch ashore, not my biggest ever thornback, but at 7lb 10oz it was still a cracking fish
.Once more the ray was weighed and photographed, before being gently released, and having already baited up a spare snood, I soon had a fresh bait safely out in the water.
I didn’t have to wait long for the next bite, but this time the fight was a little different. I had my suspicions that this might be another of my target species, and sure enough it was a half decent huss of 6lb 14oz
.This was turning into a fantastic night’s fishing and over the next 2 hours I caught a couple of nice dogs, both over the 2lb mark, along with another 6 rays of 2lb 10oz, 2lb 12oz, 4lb 4oz, 4lb 9oz, 6lb 5oz and the best of the night so far at 8lb 6oz
. Things were so busy in fact, that on one point I had rays on both rods at the same time .This was keeping me so busy that I had completely forgotten about the live-bait rod, but I was just binding yet another ray bait onto a spare snood, when I heard a commotion to my left. I immediately remembered the other rod and I turned around to see it bouncing madly in the tripod!
There was no time to waste, so I raced over and picked it up, then, after feeling a couple of seriously hard pull downs, I lifted the rod to set the hook. Sadly though, I was too slow and all I felt was gear stuck solid in a snag . For the next couple of minutes I tried everything I could think of to free it, from applying steady pressure to allowing some slack for the beast to swim free again, but it wasn’t to be and the next time I applied pressure to my line it parted! Now normally I would have been devastated to miss such a cracking bite, but it’s still early days yet on this winter’s conger hunt and I’m sure I’ll get another chance before too long. I was also having such a great time with the rays, that I was just pleased to know that predators will actually take live-baits, and I will definitely be trying the technique a lot more on future sessions.
For the time being though, I didn’t have time to set up another slider rig, so I simply tied on the nearest big fish rig I had to hand, a pulley rig armed with an 8/0. This was then baited with a whiting carcass from which I had already removed the fillets for ray baits, and then lobbed to roughly the same place where I had the previous bite.
As it happened, that particular bait remained unmolested for the rest of the session, but the ray baits were another story.
Over the next 90 minutes the rays kept feeding hard and I caught another 4, at 2lb 12oz, 3lb 7oz, 7lb 1oz and another nice fish of 8lb 2oz
.As midnight approached the rays finally stopped feeding, giving the dogs and whiting the chance to get at the baits again, so after half an hour with no more rays, I called it a night.
So I’m still waiting for Congerzilla, but with 12 thornbacks including 2 over 8lb, my best ever ray session in the 17 years I’ve been fishing for them, I wasn’t bothered in the slightest
.My confidence in live-baits has been well and truly boosted though, and with any luck I will finally get to meet that 20lb snake sometime over the next 3 months
.
