Dracula isn't the only creature with teeth in Whitby!

Whitby is famous for its associations with Dracula, Bram Stoker wrote the novel whilst staying in the town. Many of the locations used in the book can be found in Whitby such as the churchyard where Mina first encountered Dracula in lupine form.

As well as the locations some of the events are based on real life. In the book, Dracula arrived in Whitby when the Demeter ran aground. Just prior to Bram Stoker arriving in Whiby the Russian vessel Demetrius had ran aground with only one survivor.

Twice a year, in April and October, the town is invaded by Goths, and one bed and breakfast even supplies garlic to hang on your bed posts!

Dracula might be fictitious but vampires are not the only things with teeth to be found in Whitby. Whitby is one of the main charter ports in the north of England and famous for its wreck and rough ground fishing where cod, pollack and ling can be targeted with the occasional haddock, halibut and even porbeagle shark being landed.

I had booked a days' wreck fishing on Shy Torque skippered by Rich Ward to target ling. On the way out we stopped at Bell Buoy for mackerel and again they were few and far between, luckily I had brought a few frozen mackerel and garfish with me as an emergency bait supply.

The sea around Whitby is littered with wrecks, most of them dating from World War 2. As the weather was good Rich steamed out to an offshore wreck 18 miles from shore.

I rigged up with a 30lb class rod as I would be working a baited pirk. To minimise snagging I replaced the pirks' treble hook with a single 6/0 adorned with a luminous green muppet. A whole fillet of mackerel provided the bait. Ling are predators with teeth and need to be targeted with big baits.

The technique is to jig the pirk up and down with short movements of the rod. As you drift across the wreck occasionally line needs to be let off to ensure the pirk continues working just above the wreck.

On the first drift I landed a small ling, and although a few fish were landed in subsequent drifts, Rich soon moved to hopefully more prolific wrecks inshore. Despite a number of moves it was a slow day, but with four ling and a cod to my rod I was well pleased with the result. I can confirm that ling make superb eating, firm and meaty, like cod but better.

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)!

Right time, wrong Plaice!

Although I failed to catch my target brill or tub gurnard, I have just enjoyed a couple of enjoyable days fishing onboard Colin Penney's Flamer 4. Two days were spent drifting the mussel beds and the Shambles Bank out of Weymouth with a short spell at anchor.

Weymouth is is the place to catch specimen plaice and Colin Penney is the man to put you onto them. Don't expect to catch numbers of fish but where else do you have a realistic chance of a specimen place of over 5lb. Whether you can catch them is another matter!

Although I improved my personal best with the 3lb 12oz plaice pictured, this was believe it or not only an average fish amongst those landed. Whilst I was there fish of 7lb and 6lb 14oz were landed along with a few fives.

Pompey and the Pop Art Ray

The undulate ray is perhaps the least common of the ray species targeted by anglers, indeed all undulates must be returned by law. Marine biologists are currently in the midst of a scientific survey of the undulate ray in the Solent to understand more about this rare and beautiful fish. The albeit limited data collected so far, suggests that these rays stay in the same general area throughout the year, much like their bigger relatives the common skate.

I travelled down to Portsmouth the night before as I had an early start ahead of me. My hastily booked bed and breakfast turned out to be a recently decommissioned care home complete with emergency night nurse alarms, that story will have to wait for another day!

I boarded Sea Juicer skippered by Rob Hicklin ready for a 6.45am sail. Portsmouth is an interesting place to sail from, as there is lots to see on the outward journey. There are a number of naval craft including the oldest commissioned ship in the navy, Nelson's Victory.

As well as the ships there are some interesting buildings. The Spinakker Tower at 170 metres in hight dominates the skyline as you leave Portsmouth Harbour. The Palmerston sea forts were built in the Solent to protect the eastern approaches to Portsmouth Harbour in 1859. One of these forts is apparently being developed as luxury apartments, presumably complete with helipad?

On the way out we stopped off to catch some mackerel for bait, however despite trying three marks only a handful of mackerel rewarded our efforts. I am convinced that substituting the lead weight for a shiny pirk improves the catch rate, especially when the mackerel are thin on the ground.

We drew lots for our fishing position and I drew a peg at the stern of the boat, generally considered the best spot for downtiding.

Rob explained that we would be anchoring in sixty foot of water over an area of broken ground off the Isle of Wight, where we could expect to catch smoothhounds, thornback and undulate rays. We arrived just before slack water and were told to expect rays in the first hour of the flood and again when the tide slackened off at high water. I tackled up with 20lb class gear and a four foot trace of 80lb line with a 4/0 hook which was baited with a fillet of mackerel.

Within a few minutes I had a series of vicious bangs on the rod tip and landed a small tope. We were to land several small tope between us during the day and lose a couple through bite offs.

You can usually tell when a ray bites, as there are a few gentle knocks as the ray settles on top of the bait, followed by the rod pulling over as the fish moves off. As Rob predicted an hour into the flood I landed a specimen 16lb undulate ray. The markings are exquisite, indeed Trevor Housby called them the "pop art ray". Other anglers added a couple of small thornbacks to the bag.

Rather than stick with the rays I decided to change tactics hoping for a common smoothhound. As we all know, smoothhounds love crab. These hounds hadn't read the rule book and my crab was ignored whilst squid produced. Baiting up with squid (a la Colin Penney) I didn't have to wait long before catching a couple of starries, the largest at 9.5lb was my best to date. I had a couple more smaller hounds including my first common before the bites dried up. Despite fishing through the flood the easing of the tide towards the end of the afternoon failed to produce the expecting run of fish.

Once the tide eased I unsuccessfully fished baited hokkais hoping for a tub gurnard. Other anglers who fished light had some black bream, scad, mackerel and a red gurnard between them. It was one happy angler that sailed back into Portsmouth Harbour that evening.

I spent a few hours fishing at Brighton Marina the following day hoping for a Red Mullet or Twaite Shad. Ideally I would have liked an evening tide rather than high tide at 4pm. I fished a two hook flapper with lugworm on one rod and floatfished mackerel strip on the other. Mackerel and garfish are great sport on light tackle, and although not numerous, I caught enough mackerel and garfish to feed the family and supplement my bait freezer. One of the problems with trying to mix styles is you do neither well and I missed a couple of bream bites on the legered bait. To avoid the wrasse I fished about twenty yards out and landed four small black bream, the angler next door asked me to ID his gurnard which turned out to be a small red mullet! With the wind strengthening I called it a day at 4pm as waves were starting to crash over the breakwater.

Britain's Bonefish

Llangenith beach on the Gower Peninsula is a surfers paradise. Set between two rocky headlands this long sandy beach faces the full force of the Atlantic.

Although surf beaches are associated with bass I was after the rare golden-grey mullet for which Llangenith is famous. Golden-grey's are the smallest of our three mullet species and can be identified by the golden spot on the gill cover. They can be found between the first and second breakers in water only a couple of feet deep, here they feed on marine invertebrates dislodged by the backwash.

My research suggested that the first hour of the flood would be the best time, so my plan was to fish an hour before low water and through the flooding tide. Using polaroids I hoped to spot the mullet working along the water table, indeed I had been told that they often tail like bonefish. I headed left from the access point away from the surfers and holiday makers.

My barbel rod was matched to ten pound line. I had tied up some two hook flapper rigs with 15 inch hooklengths and size 6 aberdeen hooks which would be loaded with maddies. The first couple of maddies were threaded up the hook shank and the remainder were head hooked, so that the bait resembled a medusa's head.Using a light lead of an ounce or two would mean that the rig would only just hold bottom and occasionally the lead would shift in the tide.

Second cast in and the tip rattled resulting in a flounder which put up a reasonable fight on the light tackle. A cast just beyound the second breaker resulted in a more positive bite with the rod pulling right over. This fish zoomed all over the place at speed. I was surprised how hard a pound golden-grey mullet fights. These mullet really are Britain's bone fish, If only they grew larger.

As the tide flooded I added a further five flounders including a double shot, a pristine bass of perhaps two pounds and a second golden grey mullet, slightly smaller than the first. My final fish was a small turbot

I really enjoyed my first experience of fishing a surf beach, it is really exilerating standing in the surf with the waves crashing against your legs.

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!

Mr Skate!

Oban is the place to catch a common skate and Ronnie Campbell is the best skipper in town. Ronnie has built up his knowledge of these waters and the giant skate over thirty years.

On the way to the skate grounds we stopped off to feather up some mackerel by a small island, where some seabirds had obviously been working earlier. Despite several moves the only mackerel we caught were on the small side. Ronnie had bought some frozen mackerel along as insurance as mackerel had been thin on the ground.

 Ronnie explained that skate could be found on large flat areas of mud in depths of up to 750 feet. We anchored up in 450 feet of water in the Firth of Lorne.

The skate rods were prepared and a frozen mackerel minus the tail was hooked through the head and lowered down slowly to the bottom. Although appearing crude the end rig had been developed over a number of years, a three foot trace of 250lb mono was followed by an eight foot rubbing leader. A tube boom made from electrical piping held the 2lb lead and allowed line to run freely on a take.

 I rigged up a second rod which would target a black mouthed dogfish or spurdog, any LSDs (Lesser Spotted Dogfish) would be kept for bait. Unusually according to Ronnie, I proceeded to catch a string of LSDs. Normally spurdogs and black mouthed dogfish would outnumber the LSDs. Two skate rods were rebaited with half a dogfish and would now be safely left until the end of the session. Even retrieving a dogfish from that depth is hard work.

After enjoying a white tea without milk (in England we call it black tea!) the ritual of periodically checking baits continued.


Eventually as the tide started to strengthen I had a more positive bite and Ronnie stated that I had hooked a spurdog. It proved to be a male of around 4lb and was quickly followed by another.

Three thirty and the rachet clicked on one of the skate rods, I would like to say screamed but I would be lying. Four hundred and fifty feet below me a skate was clamped to the bottom, no doubt throwing mud over its wings to resist the pressure being applied from above.

Initially I was unable to make any line and we had to resort to hand lining a foot of line at a time to get the skates nose up. Eventually I was able to start pumping the fish up to the surface. Sometimes I would lift the rod and not even put an inch of line back onto the reel, and on one occasion the skate dived back down to the bottom.


 It was clear that this was not going to be a spectacular fight, but a brutal battle which quickly took it's toll on my back despite the butt pad and shoulder harness. After a glorious day the heavens opened and I was going to get soaked.

Ronnie warned that once up in the tide the skate was likely to go downtide of the boat and we would be hard pushed to get the fish back up to the boat. True to form the angle of the line shallowed as the Skate spread its wings and used the tide to its advantage. Fifty yards from the boat the skate surfaced, line was slowly being taken and things were looking grim. Time for that old salmon anglers trick of walking the fish, I clamped down on the spool and walked slowly back up the boat towards the cabin before running back whilst retrieving line. If you keep a constant pressure on and don't drop the rod tip the fish should start to swim against the current/ or in this case tide. It worked, I was now reeling in fast to keep pace with the skate. Eventually a huge fish surfaced by the boat. Ronnie opened the door of the boat, to land the skate a gaff was placed in the edge of the wing and together we slid the fish sideways through the door. The gaff hole would soon heal as evidenced by recaptures. This fish was unusual in that she didn't already have a tag and was covered in huge leeches.

Years ago skate would be killed and taken back to port for weighing on a gantry, followed by the inevitable big white hunter photos. In these enlightened times fish are measured and the weight calculated on this basis. Ronnie's initial estimate of 180lb proved to be well short, as the vital statistics 86 inches from nose to tail and 67 inches from wing tip to wing tip gave me weight of 202lb.

Mr Skate had made another anglers dream come true............. thank you Ronnie!

Small boat fishing on Loch Etive

I am lucky in having a wife that lets me indulge in my passion for angling, even when we are on a family holiday. I had arranged for us to rent a small boat for the afternoon on Loch Etive.

After getting some advice from Doug the boat owner, we motored out from the stone jetty at Taynuit up the loch towards a fish farm, where I tied up to a bouy.

The target species were a spurdog and a grey gurnard and I set up two rods, one with a fillet of bluey on a flowing trace and the other with small strips of bluey on a mini hokeye rig.

The weather had been changeable for the last few days, and today was no exception. We had motored out in the rain and within minutes the sky cleared and we were bathed in glorious sunshine.

It didn't take very long before the rod tip nodded on the hokeye rig and I had my first grey gurnard which was quickly followed by another. I then took a decision to change to a set of large hokeyes and larger baits to increase my chances of a spurdog.

Although I was getting bites I couldn't connect, I suspected that either LSDs (lesser spotted dogfish) or small fish were demolishing my baits without getting themselves hooked. A foul-hooked small codling seemed to back up my theory. After several missed bites I found myself connected to an obviously larger fish which I unfortunately lost in a snag. Apart from a baby thornback ray, which Jacky thought was extremely cute, that was it.

I had enjoyed my first small boat session, and the "skippering" was as much fun as the fishing.

Ever had one of those days!

Ever had one of those days when nothing goes to plan! Well this was one of those weekends. I went to the garage Friday evening only to find the front offside tyre as flat as a pancake. I returned to the garage in my scruffs only to find the nut holding the spare in place was locked solid. A liberal application of WD40 and an hours wait freed it enough to get the job done.

The forecast for the weekend was wet and windy which meant that  Saturday's boat trip was blown off. Shore fishing would be difficult as the wind would mean weed problems.


Plan B was to fish for mullet. Thin- lipped mullet travel further up river than the larger thick lipped mullet. My choosen venue was the Sussex Ouse at Southease. My plan was to fish the tide up from low. Six hours and several hundred casts later my baited spinner had failed to elicit even a follow and I left Sussex deflated and tired.

So tired infact, that I had to pull into a service station for an hours nap. After dosing myself up with caffeine I returned to the car to find that I had a flat battery, I had left the lights on! A friendly RAC man gave me a jump start, even though I am member of Green Flag!

As usual I spotted the pub I was staying at too late, so I turned round and pulled into the car park. I went into the pub and introduced myself and was shown to my room. What a farce, I was in the wrong pub and they thought I had booked the function room! If you ever go to Whiteparish please note that there are two pubs right next to each other in this little village.

Whiteparish doesn't have a mobile phone signal, so I had a six mile drive before making the courtesy call to find out that Sunday's boat trip was also blown off.

Sunday I woke up more optimistic. Wrong, on going to pay my bill my credit card was declined. Luckily I had enough cash on me. I then had to drive the by now familiar six miles to find a signal, whilst all the time assuming my card had been cloned. My bank's computer system was down hence the problem.


Rather than return to the Sussex Ouse I decided to travel over to Wareham to fish the tidal Frome for the large thin lipped mullet that hunt these lower reaches. I arrived a couple of hours or so before high tide. After trying several swims I saw a mullet follow my bait in. Every couple of casts from then on, a mullet or two would follow the spinner in and I even had a couple of taps on the end of the ragworm.

Eventually right at my feet I had a take. On such a short line the mullet couldn't get up a head of speed, but could only thrash around on the surface and consequently was quickly bundled into the landing net. Lucky as there were a lot of mooring ropes around and mullet are fast fish and can change direction in the blink of an eye. Unfortunately sport was short lived and as the tide turned the mullet disappeared back into the sea.

At 3lb 13oz this was a big fish, thin-lipped mullet do not grow to the size of their thick-lipped cousins. The trials and tribulations of the weekend were put behind me and it was one happy angler that drove back up the M27 towards Peterborough.

Search for a Sole!

The Thames estuary is the largest breeding ground in Britain for the common sole, often incorrectly known as the dover sole. Sole are a nocturnal flatfish but can be caught by day in the murky waters of the Thames. My venue was Grays Wharf in Essex, the home of the World Sole Championship. For once my other half Jacky came with me, not for the fishing but the shopping at Bluewater.

As planned we arrived just after low water and I walked the promenade looking for the soft mud  that these fish inhabit and any gulleys that might act as a food trap as the tide flooded.  Despite the industrial landscape of the area, the local council had done a good job on the promenade. However the local scum had already started to undo their good work, the base of the promenmade wall was littered with block paving and bits of railing that had been vandalised! These sub human scum must have been armed with an oxyacetylene torch!

Sole are bottom feeders so I made up some two hook flapper rigs with a difference. A small lead was placed at the top of the trace and the usual plastic rig beads were replaced by lead beads from my fly tying kit.

The snoods consisted of ten inches of twelve pound flurocarbon to a size six aberdeen hook baited with ragworm. A bb shot was used on each snood as a bait stop with a couple  of red attractor beds.





One rod was cast into a gulley behind a sandbar and the other onto a muddy bottom. As both rods were fished at a maximum range of forty yards, I needed to slacken off slightly to pin my rigs to the bottom.

One of the great things about fishing is the brotherhood of the angle. Total strangers can talk fishing for hours and I enjoyed a conversation with Bob, a local angler which stretched from the Royalty Pub to Mahseer fishing in India.

The first fish was a flounder which was soon followed by a bootlace eel. I must admit I absolutely hate catching small eels, but with their numbers having reduced by over 90 percent over the last decade it was nice to see that this little eel was lip hooked and would hopefully someday return to the Sargasso Sea to breed. With less than an hour to go before being picked up I was relieved when the next bite produced a slip, the term for an undersized sole. My final bite of the evening produced a decent sole

The Grass is greener the other side of Northampton!

Brickhill Farm in Northamptonshire contains a viable stock of grass carp to target. The smaller lake contains six and the larger lake around thirty. Even so they are vastly outnumbered by the king carp varieties. With the weatherman forecasting that Saturday would be a warm sunny day, I knew that the time had come to target a Brickhill grass carp off the surface.

There was a gusty breeze and as I wanted to visually select the grassies I set up on the shallow more sheltered end of the larger lake where the water's surface was calm.


As nothing was showing I set up one rod on a method feeder with artificial corn and the other float fishing either corn or meat in the margins. The morning was uneventful apart from a string of small crucians and a few bits.

After lunch I followed the advice of Brian the fishery owner and moved to the smaller pool, where grass carp were spotted a few days earlier under some overhanging vegetation. As the wind was behind me I fed half a dozen pellets every couple of minutes for around half an hour after which time I had a number of fish competing for the freebies.

Over the next couple of hours I tempted four carp before the swim died. I hadn't spotted any of the six grassies present despite regular circuits of the lake. I then saw an angler on the larger lake land a grass carp on floating crust. It was an easy decision to return to my original swim where over the next few hours Fred (the grassie expert, it was his second of the day) and I landed a string of king carp up to just shy of thirteen pounds on floating crust. The ripple made it difficult to select individual fish but as the evening wore on conditions improved.


I enjoyed the banter with Fred and was genuinely sorry to see him leave. The first cast after Fred's departure saw a grass carp nose the crust without taking. I was beginning to think that time was running out when once again the crust disppeared in a swirl and the controller float zipped accross the surface. Like every other grass carp I have ever hooked it came quietly to the net before going beserk on the bank, hence my pained expression in the photo. At 7lb 2oz it was less than a third of the size of my biggest grassie, but I was over the moon to catch my first from British waters.

I had enjoyed a lovely day, catching around fifteen carp off the surface. True, most were small but on my barbel rod and ten pound line it was first class sport in lovely surroundings with not a baitboat or bivvy in sight!

The grass truly is greener the other side of Northampton and unlike Elphicks, the grass was real not made out of astroturf!

The Most Dangerous Fish in British Waters!

What is the most dangerous fish in British waters?

In freshwater the pike is renowned for taking ducklings, but doesn't pose any threat to man. Catfish on the continent have been known to occasionally drag a man down to his death, but our catfish are relatively small and no such instances have occurred here.

Britain has a surprising variety of shark species, most are small like the welsh tiger shark (a.k.a the lesser spotted dogfish).

Mako, porbeagle, thresher and blue shark have been caught in the hundreds of pounds, but no man eaters have been recorded here. Despite sightings of supposed great white sharks being reported, not one has turned up to fisherman, and surfers remain unmolested. Stingrays are present in our waters but encounters with humans are rare, even abroad Steve Irwin's tragic death is an isolated freak incident.

After yesterdays warm up on Trefor pier I was ready to face danger. In fact the most dangerous fish in our waters is the lesser weever fish. True at six inches long it doesn't look scary, and is quite pretty in it's own right, but the dorsal fin contains a particularly nasty venom.

Each year hundreds of people accidently stand on the lesser weever, which has a nasty habit of lying in shallow water covered by sand apart from its top facing eyes and spiky dorsal. Anglers also get spiked.

There is no anti venom, at best you can expect an hour of agony, only mitigated by immersing the affected part of your body in the hottest water you can stand. Those sensitive to venom are in real trouble and unless immediate medical attention is sought could suffer paralysis or even death.

After being soaked yesterday I fished at Barmouth where I was sandblasted for much of the day. Who needs an exfoliation beauty therapy? The third mark I tried finally saw me land a lesser weever on a small strip of mackerel. As you can see I survived to tell the tale!

Charlene - I've been to paradise and have also been to me!

Jonah strikes again! A fishing weekend once again coincided with strong winds, which resulted in Sunday and Monday's planned boat trips being "blown off". To rub salt into my wounds Geth informed me that smoothounds had been taken to 20lb plus on the Friday.

 I arrived in Wales around lunchtime on Saturday, and after picking up some bait it was time to put Plan B into operation.






On my last welsh adventure I had visited Trefor on a reconnaissance mission and the photos of Trefor are from that visit . Plan B was to target coalfish from Trefor pier.

This weekend I would be living dangerously! There is a warning sign advising that the pier is dangerous. Clearly access to the pier is at your own risk and at the end of this session I realised quite how stupid I had been to ignore the signs, as a number of the pier legs were missing! The local council, strapped of cash appear to be waiting for nature to take its course so that they can save on demolition costs.

I would like to say that the session was pleasurable but with driving horizontal rain and strong winds it was an endurance test. The gusts not only threatened to knock me off balance but could potentially bring the pier structure down from under me.






To target the coalfish i fished a small strip of mackerel on a cut down set of sabikkis. This worked a treat and a succession of small coalies were landed along with a couple of small pollack. It is not until you catch both in the same session do you realise how different they are.

In Yorkshire immature coalfish are known as billet and I remember fishing for them in Scarborough
harbour, float fishing with light tackle and mussel as bait.

Trefor is famed for the variety of mini species it produces and by substituting the mackerel for a piece of ragworm I hoped to attract a dragonet or goby. Unfortunately I could not get through the small wrasse.

After three or four hours of fishing the tide down from high I was relieved to get back to the safety of the main harbour wall. Trefor is a stunning venue, being backed by Snowdon and its neighbouring peaks.

I would once again re-iterate that I had been somewhat foolish fishing off the pier and would advise others not to follow my lead. If I return to fish Trefor Pier in future it would be from a kayak!

Unlike Charlene I've been to paradise and have also been to me!

Modern Carp Angling - A Rant!

 Where to catch a grass carp? I have never caught one in Britain although I have had several from France to over twenty pounds. Few waters hold grass carp, and most of those that do, only hold a handful. Elphicks Fishery, a commercial water in Kent has a reasonable stock and the staff advised me to fish their Prairie Lake.

Ideally I would have liked to surface fish to try to select a grassie, however the conditions were against me so I would have to fish blind. The lake was packed to capacity and I slotted in between two long stay anglers as the wind was blowing into that bank. Once the long stay anglers left I figured that the carp would follow the wind and come into the edge. I fished method feeder with popped up corn or white boilie and also float fished the margins. 

Things went to plan and I landed four of the six carp that I saw landed during the day with the biggest a common of around fourteen pounds. 

This is no criticism of Elphicks but I was reminded why I don't often target carp nowadays.

1. I fished a two and a half acre lake today which had nearly thirty carp anglers on it, with swims every ten yards or so. Carp fishing is too popular!

2. Apart from me, to a man two rods were fished to the Island, the tight lines effectively pinning the spooky carp to the island margin. Carp anglers are unimaginative!

3. Why do carp waters have dug outs filled with bark or gravel, not grassy natural banks. Elphicks even had astroturf lining each swim! See no. 6

4. When did the Koi and Ghost Carp escape the pet shop!

4. Does nobody know how to floatfish or use leads under three ounces? Why drop three ounces of lead in the margin and spook fish when a float will get your more bites. Carp have long forgotten what a vertical line means. If I can cast to the island with an ounce why use more?

5. Wheelbarrows.....are they moving house or going fishing?

6. Bivvies the size of double decker buses, I am sure that the carp leap to check out whether there are any carp houses set up before feeding. In years gone by we would have been sat behind screens or reedbeds hidden away.

7. Why on a snag free lake where the maximum cast is perhaps sixty yards stocked largely with singles and doubles do you need three pound test curve rods. This is all about fashion, if you are fishing a weedy lake at range maybe, hoever both Dick Walker and Chris Yates landed record carp from Redmire (a weedy lake) on Mark IV carp rods (1.5lb test curve). 

8. Boilies are not the only bait!

9. Baitboats..................after pushing the barrow presumably they are to knackered to cast!

10. Mallets............aaaarggghhhh

11. Why are there two number 4's in this blog article!

Rant over. 

Such a shame as carp are lovely fish, shame about most carp anglers! At some stage I am going to have to target a grass carp again.