Small Eyed Ray!

The muddy waters of the Bristol Channel are famed, both for their strong tides and the quality of fishing. August is a good time to fish for the small eyed rays so I booked a couple of days with Kevin Axtell on Seren y Mor out of Swansea Marina. As well as the rays there was also a chance of a trigger fish showing on the inshore wrecks and rough ground to the west of the port.

I arrived in Swansea the evening before the trip and spent a little time familiarising myself with the location, finding the tackle shop and Kevin's pickup point ready for the morning. Rogers tackle in Pilot House Wharf opens early enabling anglers to purchase bait prior to boarding your charter boat.

I phoned Kevin after 7pm to check whether the trip was on and although the forecast wasn't great we would be able to get out. Unfortunately Thursdays planned trip was cancelled as stormy weather was forecast to arrive wednesday evening.

After collecting some bait from Rogers Tackle I joined a mixed party of individuals on Seren y Mor. Kevin explained that we would be heading east due to the weather conditions and would be unable to get out to the offshore banks. Kevin's crew for the day was his father David.

Swansea Marina is joined to the sea via a lock and we joined a small flotilla of boats in the lock eagerly anticipating a day at sea.

We headed east out of Swansea down into the Bristol Channel. The shoreline became more industrial as we passed Port Talbot. Our first mark was on broken ground and we could expect smoothounds, eels, huss and the ever present lesser spotted dogfish that abound in welsh waters. Off Holyhead they are called Welsh Tiger Shark and here they are called Swansea Salmon!

As the muddy waters of the Bristol Channel are shallow I set up an uptider and lobbed my bait away from the boat, to get out of the scare zone.

Fish baits produced a string of LSDs with the odd small bullhuss. As smoothounds were being landed to crab, I baited up with crab and had three in three casts. The biggest hound just into double figures fell to Ray. It appears that the smoothound fishing is prolific with the larger hounds, fish to fourteen pounds being caught in May and June.

Our second mark offered a chance of a small eyed ray so I set out my stall with a large sandeel tipped with a strip of squid. It was tempting to go for the hounds as other anglers landed fish to just into double figures whilst my beautifully presented sandeels attracted a string of LSDs.

Ray joked that he had small eyes and therefore was a "small eyed Ray".

As the wind was not as bad as expected we pushed offshore to a sandbank for our third and final mark of the day. Kevin advised that this was a prolific ray mark.  We timed our arrival to coincide with the tide reaching it's peak, which is when the rays feed best on a Neap tide. On Spring tides the first and last hours of the tide provide the optimum conditions on this mark.

We anchored on the slope and fished down the bank, within minutes I had a series of slow taps as a ray maneuvered its body over the bait. I had expected the rod to pull over but the taps continued. I wound down and my first small eyed ray of around three pounds was boated. The next five casts produced a further five small eyed rays to nine pounds. I was surprised how well these fish fight compared to other rays that I have caught.

Thanks to Kevin and David for a super days sport out of Swansea. I will be back for a crack after a trigger fish.

What are you gonna do when the hounds are calling?

Smoothhound are perhaps the most sporting fish found in our seas. Although I have now caught a number of hounds I have not caught a double.

The waters off Anglesey see a run of smoothhound each year during late May and June. These are not small fish with doubles being average and fish to twenty pound plus a distinct possibility.

I had four days booked on board Gethyn Owen's My Way. Geth advised that the hounds hadn't yet arrived in numbers and sport was a bit patchy. Despite this, one twenty pounder had already been boated. My trip coincided with a spell of settled weather, a mini heatwave in fact.

The plan was simple, do some scratching until the tide was right and then move onto the hounds. This meant that everyone caught a few dogfish, dabs, codling, whiting etc before settling down to the waiting game.

Most of the lads rigged up with uptiders, not having a light uptider I set up a carp rod. In retrospect I think it was a little soft and could have done with some more backbone. I struggled to bring a small balled up hound against a strong tide! Four foot of 50lb line with a 4/0 hook baited was baited with a peeler crab. Interestingly Geth favours not peeling the crab and passing the hook through the abdomen before tying on the crab with some bait elastic. This minimises the number of dogfish (these welsh waters are paved with LSDs).

Day 1 was a little choppy and hard going, I blanked on the hounds. Day 2 I landed a couple including a new personal best at 12lb 8oz. These fish really do go and my light rod hooped right over as a hound decided to scream off on another run. Day three I added a couple of small ones and on the last day I kicked off with another double before losing a good hound when the leader knot parted. I was gutted as this was a good fish lost through bad angling. I will spend some time testing out different mono to braid knots when I get home to minimise the chances of this happening again.

Geth's usual collection of dodgy music and bad jokes kept the crews entertained whilst we waited for the hounds to oblige.

Over the four days the crew averaged 5-8 hounds per day with the best weighing 18lb plus. I was happy with 5 although I was perhaps a little unlucky with the size as the average was probably around 13lb.

Geth put on the Prodigy who sang "what are you gonna do when the hounds are calling". I just said "lose them".

RNLI Two Day Species Competition

Day 1

 I had expected to be blown off, so it was a pleasant surprise when Colin confirmed that we would be fishing, albeit with an early start as the winds were expected to build during the day. We drew for our place on the boat and had the rules explained to us before Flamer 4 sailed out to sea in the early morning light.

We started by drifting the back of the bank and experienced some superb black bream fishing with over forty between us in little over an hour. I struggled at times to get my baits down to the bottom past the mackerel.

Colin decided that we would have a few drifts across the shambles before moving inshore. The competition fanatics tried for sandeels whilst I baited with a long thin mackerel strip hoping for a brill. On each drift my rod top rattled flatty style, however the hoped for brill turned into two dogfish, mackerel and a tope (worth loads of points apparently........face, points, bothered). Dodgy Dave managed a plaice and a turbot and was pronounced a real angler by Colin.

A session drifting followed, with wrasse of all colours and sizes being boated. My male cuckoo was the prettiest, with Stephan catching the two largest ballans, both four pound plus. Rather than anchor the mud as originally planned Colin took us to a nearby reef, where bullhuss, conger and ling obliged.

A Chinese meal rounded off a very enjoyable day, however I suspect the other diners were pleased to see the rowdy party of anglers leave.

Day 2

Strong winds meant that we were restricted to Portland Harbour and the surrounding area. We started by drifting for wrasse under the cliffs before anchoring up on the muddy bit. Once again I suffered the ignominy of seeing other anglers land the dragonet and butterfly blenny I was targeting. My tiny pieces of rag worm only attracted small smooth hounds and a solitary goby.

We then anchored on the red band spot, by bouncing sabikkis around I managed to tempt three along with a raft of assorted gobies including at least black, and sand gobies.

A drifting session on the Portland entrance saw pout galore and loads of wrasse before a blast on the ships horn signalled the end of proceedings.

Richard Ferre was the winner, with Andy Collings the runner up. Other awards were given for most species, best fish and weakest link. Yours truly finished mid table.

Again to many species were caught to list on the labels as blogger has a 200 character limit for labels!