The Trophy Room

Although I am not a match angler I have entered or been entered into a range of competitions. 

As a youngster I used to send in details of my specimen coarse fish captures to gain Kingfisher Guild Certificates from the Angling Times. An Angling Times Top Ten badge was proudly worn for a while, this was the mark of a true specimen hunter at the end of the seventies.

My allegiance then changed to the Anglers Mail, and at one stage I used to send in photos for publication. In those days the Anglers Mail paid £25 for each photo it used. Believe it or not, a 5lb 9oz Welland Chub back in 1989 won me a reel as the fish of the week. How things have changed, even a six pound chub barely gets a mention nowadays!   

Various badges from Trout Fisherman and Sea Angler Magazines have arrived in the post and like the Angling Times Top Ten Badge have briefly adorned fishing clothing. I don't recall ever entering a trout, it being good publicity for day ticket fisheries.

My match career is limited, I have entered one trout fishing match. I travelled all the way to Bure Valley Fishery in Norfolk to find that the only way I could fish that day, was to enter a competition. I fluked a four pound rainbow first cast and walked off with a trout rod for the biggest fish of the day.

Despite this glittering array of awards I had never won a trophy until a couple of years ago when I was the weakest link in a two day RNLI competition aboard Colin Penney's Flamer III. Today I finally got another trophy to accompany it after accidentially winning a Portland and Surrounding Waters competition aboard Flamer IV.

 I have entered several matches aboard Flamer, simply because this has given me access to species rich areas that would not normally be visited during a charter trip. During Colin's matches I have landed several new species including the rare Red Band Fish and the Baillions Wrasse. Whilst I admire match anglers, I have no real desire to compete and continue to concentrate on trying to catch new species. I felt that I had a chance of Trigger Fish, Dragonets and Butterfly Blennies and fished accordingly. Unfortunately I failed miserably and yet again, the angler next to me caught the only Butterfly Blenny of the day. 

I was truly astonished when Colin announced that I had not only landed the most species but was also the points winner by some way. I don't really understand why, as I am sure that Steve Clements the runner up caught far more fish than me. However I would have happily swapped the kudos for Steve's  Butterfly Blenny and the weakest link spot!

Where is my trophy room, the downstairs loo of course!

Brill!

The weatherman forecast a break in the weather, a phone call to Chippy confirmed that Wednesday's planned charter trip aboard Bite Adventure out of Penzance was on. However the wind was due to pick up again and unfortunately with 20mph winds forecast Thursdays planned shark trip was not going to happen.

I was joined on this trip by three members of the Looe Sea Angling Club and a couple of sea angling novices. As the tides were not favourable for drifting the sandbanks the plan was to anchor a reef in search of a couches bream and perhaps do some drifting later in the day when if wind and tide permitted.

The sail along the coastline towards Lands End took us past some of the South-West's most picturesque coastal scenery, not that you would have known as the sky was overcast and sea mist filled the skies threatening rain. Within sight of Lands End Chippy cut the engine and we started to feather up mackerel for bait.

 I fished mini sabikkis just in case any pilchards were swimming with the mackerel. As usual I used a shiny pirk as my weight as I am convinced that the flash attracts baitfish. Within minutes the crew had feathered up enough mackerel for bait, a shoal was located near the surface. It was noticeable that these were small joeys, a sign of commercial overfishing perhaps!

Chippy anchored the boat so that our baits would be fishing down the edge of the reef in 160 foot of water. If truth be told the fishing was slow, but gradually the species tally grew with pouting, pollack, haddock, dogfish, cod, red, grey and tub gurnards. Bob, one of the Looe members lost a decent fish that bit through his hooklength. Chippy and I then landed fish that had fresh wounds, my male cuckoo wrasse had a deep gash in one of its flanks. We speculated whether a tope or even a blue shark might be responsible. One of the anglers put down a mackerel flapper searching for an answer to the mystery, however the resulting conger was a "red herring"!

After lunch we moved off the reef, as the tide was strengthening and started to drift the sand banks. This is interesting fishing, a thin strip of mackerel on a running ledger is dragged along the bottom as the boat drifts. The reel is kept in free spool with a thumb on the spool ready to feed line when a fish takes to enable it to take the bait properly. As the boat drifts the angler can feel every undulation on the sand bank and bites can be difficult to detect but usually consist of a sharp rattle on the rodtip.

I missed my first bite and Bob landed a megrim, a rare flatfish marketed as Cornish Sole by Waitrose. A frustrating few drifts followed where I only managed a grey gurnard, whilst Bob managed a couple more megrim and an angler on the other side of the boat also managed a brace of megrim. A brill to one of the holidaying anglers added insult to injury.

Was today just one of those days?


Next drift the tip rattled and I let off some line before winding into a fish. Chippy stood by with the net as a flatty came into view. Was it a turbot? When Chippy said it was a brill my legs went to jelly. "Please stay on", I thought and it seemed an age before the fish slid over the net. After 30 months I had finally achieved my goal of 100 species from British waters.

But there was more to come. Next drift I landed a megrim, the sixth to the crew and another new species for me. I was now brimming with confidence and half expected a greater weaver, a common catch off Porthcurno but it was not to be. With the fog closing in, Chippy called it a day and we set sail for Penzance.

Thanks Chippy for a brill day about Bite Adventure!

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!

Portland Species Competition!

Today, I was a guest angler amongst the regular Friday Species League crew aboard Colin Penney's Flamer 4. Although I not personally into match fishing of any kind, you can learn a lot from match anglers. The fishing today would be restricted to the areas in and around Portland Harbour, a species hunters paradise.

After a short sail we arrived at Colin's secret muddy mark where the rare red band live. These unusual fish live with their heads sticking out of the mud grabbing shrimps and the like. A set of mini sabikkis were baited with tiny strips of squid ready for the first of several short drifts. By the time we moved we had acounted for more than twenty red band fish between us. They are truly stunning looking fish being a pinky orange colour with electric pinky purple edging the fins. If Barbie was a fish she would be a red band fish. I also managed a goby or two including a Jeffreys Goby (it has an elongated 2nd ray on its first dorsal). Unfortunately I managed to drop it back in before getting the photo.

We spent some time drifting a range of marks including the harbour entrances. The rocky areas were wrasse city and a wide variety of species were caught including ballan, cuckoo, goldsinney and the rare ballions wrasse. Tompot blennies, gobies, mackerel, scad and pollack also showed.

Gurnards manly tubs showed, I only managed to catch reds........again! Several anglers caught dragonets which again evaded my hooks. Andy Selby from Weymouth Angling even managed a couple of red mullet, the first Andy had ever caught. Two trigger fish were also landed.

In retrospect I should have fished short flowing rigs to keep all three baits on the bottom, rather than a paternoster rig. I am back for a two day competition in October which will allow me to test out my hypothesis. Most of the anglers on board had homemade bait containers divided into sections and hung on the boats rails, which immediately means less time is spent baiting up and more time spent with a bait in the water.

The planned drifts over the wreck of the Hood had to be abandoned due to the presence of divers.

Our final mark was at anchor over a muddy patch where I targeted butterfly blennies and dragonets on tiny hooks baited with slivers of ragworm. I became a smoothound pup magnet landing four of them along with some dogfish.

Richard, the angler next to me landed the only butterfly blenny of the day. Again I suffered the indignity of seeing others landing dragonets and tub gurnards.

What an enjoyable day in good company. I added three species to my challenge total and missed out on five others (butterfly blenny, dragonet, red mullet, trigger fish and tub gurnard). In excess of tweny species were landed by the crew and I ended the day with 14 species, in fact too many to record as labels on this blog item (blogger has a limit of 200 characters)!

You are Absolutely Topeless!

Gethyn Owen is one of Wales best skippers and I recently enjoyed four days fishing aboard My Way. After talking to Geth I decided to target a cuckoo wrasse, tope and spotted ray for my species hunt. Rather than recounting on a daily basis the fish I caught I thought that I would take the opportunity to give the reader a flavour of what the fishing is like off Holyhead.

With the exception of the superlative smoothound fishing available in late May the fishing here falls into three main categories.

I have a soft spot for wrasse fishing and most days will see an hour or two spent drifting over a variety of rocky marks around south stack or behind the breakwater. The lead should be heavy enough to keep the line vertical, every rock can be felt through the braid and line should be given or retrieved as necessary to maintain contact with the bottom. Expect to lose some tackle but lifting the lead a couple of inches every five seconds miminises snag ups. Resist the urge to strike the rattles and merely lift into the wrasse when the tip pulls right over.

A section of ragworm is the best bait, I added a three quarter inch strip of mackerel to increase the chance of a cuckoo wrasse. After Geth demonstrated how to catch a cuckoo wrasse on the Monday, I finally caught a female cuckoo on the Tuesday. Mackerel strip results in pollack and coalies. During my trip the crew caught ballan, cuckoo and corkwing wrasse, poor cod, pollack, cod and scorpion fish on the drift. Although we spent some time feathering up mackerel they were thin on the ground, I managed a sprat (literally), others added codling and the largest launce I have ever seen.

Colin the seal has visited the boat on a regular basis over the last few years and associates Geth with a free meal. Talking of free meals a trip on My Way includes lunch, sausage butties, chilli, cake and cheesecake were on offer during my visit.

The banter on board is excellent. Don't leave a rod unattended..... you never know what you might catch. Young Ryan's running commentary on the fight with the rubber chicken that Geth had put on the end of his line was priceless.

During neap tides if the weather allows, it is possible to fish the Holyhead Deeps for a few hours around slack water. According to Geth the fishing was poor, despite this on the Monday most anglers aboard managed a double figure bullhuss. A couple of spurdog and three pack tope were also landed. Tuesday was slower, again three few tope were landed. I was still waiting for my tope leading to Geth commenting that I was absolutely topeless at fishing. On Wednesday I was part of a three tope tangle, mine was the smallest by far. We all had plenty of bites although the dreaded LSDs abound.

Ever noticed that when ladies are on board they usually outfish the blokes. I am sure Annie's huss is bigger than mine. Geth had a photo of a huss with the number 17 on it's flank which I refused to accept as genuine, after seeing the number 3 on another huss I am now not so sure!

When the wind or tide doesn't permit a trip to the Deeps there is a variety of inshore fishing at anchor available. As I was aiming for a spotted ray I fished with a three hook flowing trace with size 4 aberdeens baited with a three inch thin strip of mackerel.

As well as a couple of spotted rays, I managed red and grey gurnards, LSDs, codling, dabs, whiting, bulhuss and a starry smoothhound. I had thought that I had jammed out a common but on closer investigation it had faint spots. Other anglers added plaice and thornback rays to the bag. After the rays I scaled down and fished baited size 12 sabikkis hoping for a dragonet.

A light boat rod covers the inshore work, I used a boat quivertip which both maximises fun and gives great bite indication. A twenty pound class rod covers the deeps where up to two pounds of lead are required to hold bottom.

I would recommend a trip out with Geth to anyone, as even a poor day's fishing is entertaining aboard My Way!