Fishing Reports

Latest Fishing Reports: My Way 2

Back to Main Charter Page

08/2012 Fishing Report by Gethyn Owen

Aug 2012 by Gethyn Owen

So far the weather in August has been fairly decent for our small part of the country and allowed My Way to sail everyday up until 17th Aug, 30mph winds ended thoughts of a day afloat. The early part of the month was spent on fairly large tides that restricted our movements. We did however set sail with the capture of a variety of species in mind.

Many of the days would start off on the drift looking for wrasse, pollack and codling, it’s a great way to move around our coast, travelling and fishing for some extremely hard fighting species. Couple this with relatively light rods and reels and you have some great sport on your hands.

During August and September, we run many evening trips were we spend the vast majority of time drifting for these species, only anchoring up for the last hour to for a well-deserved break and enjoy our supper.

On one such evening trip we were treated to a fantastic sunset and some excellent fishing with plenty of ballans to 3lb and some extremely colourful cuckoo wrasse along with a few small pollack.

Following a hectic few hours drifting we anchored up to enjoy the last hour fishing on the bottom and give us some time to enjoy our sausage butties, the sport though was again hectic at anchor with a variety of species coming over the gunwales along with only the second ever tadpole fish to be caught aboard My Way, the icing on the cake though was yet to come!

Manchester angler Dave has become a regular aboard My Way in the last couple years and has been fortunate around his wind cancelled trips to get out and find some great sport, this evening trip was to be similar as cries of net echoed around the boat as I prepared the butties in the galley below. This time Dave has managed to land a beautiful inshore ling, a ling that took the scales to just under the 15lb mark, the biggest to be caught aboard My Way and our only double figure ling to date, well done, a fantastic fish for inshore shallow waters.

The inshore fishing has again been typically very good on most days (there are though also a few not so good ).
Some of our junior anglers have really been making the most of the time they have afloat and catching a variety of fish from hounds and rays to the ever present dogfish and a variety of gurnards. It’s always a pleasure to take the youngsters fishing, they are always keen to learn new tricks and fairly often beat the adults at their own sport!

Towards the middle of August the tides started to reduce in size and with the first viable tide size upon us and very favourable weather we were off to Holyhead Deep for hopefully a little action with some double figure species.

Our run to the mark was to be glorious, bright sunshine and one of the flattest seas I have ever sea at Holyhead Deep. Looking east, the eerily flat horizon met the early morning fog on top of which the mountains of the Llyn peninsular popped through, an awesome sight to see.

The spurdogs reported earlier in the year had all but gone, but for the next few days the lads were all rewarded with numerous double figure bull huss and many small pack tope. I lost count of the number of tope in the 10lb mark, small but also great fun from 200ft of water. We did though manage to lose a few bigger tope each day, not the best thing to happen after playing the shark for 30 tiring minutes.

Full report and more photos available at www.goangling.co.uk
21/08/2012 Fishing Report by Carl Burns

21 Aug 2012 by Carl Burns

21/08/2012: Had the pleasure of finally getting out boat fishing this year and fishing with Gethyn is always a good day afloat. We had 7 on the boat, me and 4 mates and a Father and his young son, and set sail at 8 a.m. and set off for Church Bay. There was a threat of the wind being a problem, but we were lucky in the bay as the wind held off for a few hours. The fishing was in the bay was good, a few bits first, Dabs, Dogs and a few Red Gurnard too, but I had gone with a Crab bait as Gethyn said he'd had a few Smoothies of the weekend. I didn't have to wait long and I was in to my first fish of the day fairly quickly and it was a Smoothie....Awesome. I was made up with that, so you can imagine how pleased i was to have a few more. My friends Martyn and Craddock both had a Smoothie and so did the young lad who came with his Dad whilst in the bay. My mate Dom, on his first time out, also had a Huss and although it was the smallest Huss i have ever seen, he didn't care because he was absolutely loving every fish he caught. After a Great session at Church Bay and some might fine Rib-Eye steak ciabatta's, we headed off for a drift, which i didn't think we would get away with today, but Gethyn took us in to the shelter of North Stack and it was game on. I had a Cuckoo and Ballans and another cuckoo fell to Martyn and it was great for me, because i love drift fishing. We had a move to fish the wall of the breakwater and i had another Ballan and Dom had a good tussle with his first Pollack. And, as ever, these things must come to an end, but what a fantastic day out, some good fishing, great company and fantastic Skipper....and my mate Dom has caught the Bug now, i can tell you, hahahaha!! Many thanks Gethyn. Carl Burns
07/2012 Fishing Report by Gethyn Owen

Jul 2012 by Gethyn Owen

The last couple of weeks in July saw mixed fortunes aboard My Way, mainly due to inconsistent weather conditions hindering all our best laid plans. Regardless we managed to sail most days, and with adjustments to our plans had a good day afloat catching a variety of species.

The inshore fishing on the medium to large tides can be fantastic when we concentrate on the great array of species that can be caught in and around the Holyhead Bay area. We’ve already struck a couple firsts for My Way this year with a streaked gurnard and also an angler fish, both extremely rare sights in our waters, sometimes you just never know what’s going to surface.

All 4 gurnards generally associated with the UK. Reds gurnards, the most common, followed by greys and tubs can all be caught during a species hunt, with the tubs growing in regularity and size the last couple years.
I mentioned in my previous report the number of rays being caught and this has continued with the spotted rays proving the most abundant once more and ticking a species off a capture list for many anglers.
Reliable double figure action inshore is normally in the form of bull huss, with average sizes from many marks from Holyhead in the 10 to 12lb area. That said, you can also find a similar amount of marks that regularly give us double and triple shots of very small huss, ones as small as 8oz, pulled from the sea sucking on a big lump of mackerel flapper!

The rays, smoothies and tope all having the potential to gate rash the double figure bull huss party.
We've been having a bit of fun lately using the 'Pen Fishing Rod', this rod is the actual size of a slightly oversized pen with a small multiplier reel to match. You are able to load the reel with around 60foot of braid and can have some awesome fun when drifting over shallow rocky areas for the hard fighting wrasse of pollack.
A good General Days fishing is seeing regular returns of over 15species for the boat, with many anglers catching over 10 species each.Additional sport inshore has come from smoothhounds in the 5 to 9lb bracket, small male fish still feeding hard in a variety of marks they are falling to mainly squid or crab bait.

Late July and we were joined by Dave Parker and colleagues from Derbyshire, the plan was for some mixed fishing inshore on one day and then offshore for a few fillets of cod and pollack for the table and then at anchor for sport with small sharks.

The wreck we choose was not too far to travel and lies due west of North Stack, within the shipping channel which was interesting as the ships made their approach to the port of Liverpool. These ships pick up the estuary pilots off the north Anglesey coast. The fishing was consistent over the wreck, nothing too big, the best pollack went 6lb, but with a fair number along with similar sized codling and a few coalies a good couple hours fishing was had.
At anchor the sport was slower than expected, however we caught a fair number of huss and also managed a couple of spurdog firsts from Andrew and Dave.
07/2012 Fishing Report by Gethyn Owen

Jul 2012 by Gethyn Owen

Brilliant fun day inshore today with Andy and his 3 lads, Tom, Harry and Freddy. The emphasis on catching plenty of fish and some new species for the youngsters to enjoy. The mission was accomplished with ticks for new species against smoothhound, whiting, spotted ray and grey gurnard along with a few others species the day was a great first time afloat in Holyhead for the young anglers.

Another day inshore with big tides restricting our movement, but glorious weather allowed us to move around Holy Island and target a few different species. With a couple anchors around Holyhead bay and then using the ebb tide to drift around toward Trearddur Bay, the final tally was 16 different species for the day :- dogfish, whiting, codling, huss, dab, pouting, poor cod, spotted ray, smoothhound, pollack, coalfish, mackerel, red and grey gurnards, ballan wrasse & cuckoo wrasse.

Sean was happy to land his first ever smoothhound and spotted ray during the trip, as was Matt, recording his first ever ray (spotted) having only just returned to angling after a break of many years.

Menai Bridge angler Mark Dolben had a target of a cuckoo wrasse for the day, having landed his smoothhound with us earlier in the year; this though was going to prove a little difficult for us with the size of tide. An area guaranteed to produce would see a very fast drift, so we agreed to give it a few drift later on just before we ended the day. After 10 minutes of fruitless attempts in a couple knots of tide, Mark changed to a heavy lead in one last attempt to stay in touch with the sea bed and catch a cuckoo.

As I called lines up & time to go home, Mark had a small twitch on rod, he lifted into the catch and the slowly retrieved his catch. Nice, not the biggest cuckoo ever seen, but when you nail your target, the success and satisfaction is equal to any catch!
07/2012 Fishing Report by Gethyn Owen

Jul 2012 by Gethyn Owen

Some nice settled weather in the middle of June and we were joined aboard My Way by a group of lads from Shropshire. The group had been fishing only a handful of times previously and were now keen to sample some of the fishing that Holyhead had to offer but in particular the smoothhound.

Conditions were not perfect for the hounds with late June being a little hit & miss for hounds in any great number. We started the day at anchor general fishing and the lads earned their strips catching dogs, whiting, codling, gurnards and dabs etc. 2 and 3 at a time, the odd bull huss and a couple small spotted rays joining. Once the tide was good for a try on the hounds, all the rigs were changed over to single running ledgers with prime fresh peeler crab as the number one bait.
It wasn’t long before we had the first run and after a tense 15minute battle the lads saw a quality double figure smoothhound netted at the side of the boat. We managed a few hounds during the few hours we tried for them with trip organiser Steve also getting in on the act with this 11lb specimen.

With Holyhead Marina not being tidal we are able to sail whatever time of day suits the anglers best, naturally taking into account tides and strengths to help out for a good day. Most of our sail times range between 8 and 10am. One morning though a nice an early 7am sail was required, to allow us to make the LW slack in Holyhead Deep. We could have sailed a little later and steamed straight to our chosen mark, but decided to break the journey down with an earlier sail and a fish for wrasse, pollack and mackerel along the way.
With the potential of only catching double figure fish Holyhead Deep is a great draw for many anglers. Huss, spurdog and tope are the usual suspects and it is always recommended that everyone tackles up on the big side, and goes all out to land specimen sharks. There are other species to be had, whiting, dogs and grey gurnards the most prolific, but these are also achievable inshore, no point in missing out when in the deeps.
We had 2 groups of individuals and regulars aboard My Way, Graham with family and friends from Chester and Dave with fishing colleagues from Urmston Sea Anglers. No one was to leave disappointed with the quality of the fishing they were to experience, with double figure bull huss and spurdogs averaging 12lb coming to the side of My Way with extreme regularity. You know the fishing is good and hectic when spurs fast approaching 14lb are being t-barred at the side of the boat with no call of a new PB.

Following the Streaked Gurnard featured in our last report, I didn’t think we’d have another first aboard My Way for a long while, but I was proved wrong by Scottish International angler George Bell. Whilst drifting under the cliffs of South Stack lighthouse George hooked into what could only be best described as a dead weight, calls of octopus and rock echoed around the boat until Georges catch broke the surface, an Anglerfish. Normally found in much deeper and colder water, this fish weighing at around 3lb was certainly lost at sea!

The general fishing around Holyhead and Trearddur bays has been improving daily and also as the wind and rain allows. Drifting has seen plenty of ballan wrasse and small pollack, the ballan wrasse growing in size with a few fish now reaching the 3lb mark and proving once again to be excellent sport on light gear. As we reach August and into September 4 to 5 lb wrasse will feeding well. Mackerel are as patchy as ever and nowhere near as reliable as we would like them to be. We managed the first of the black bream of the year recently for Stevie from Melthan & District SAC. We don’t get many through the year from Holyhead and most average at only 1lb in weight, never the less they are a welcome sight and especially for Steve who was fishing the clubs match and received additional points for species.

To target rays with any form of consistency requires a good steam around the coast to popular marks such as Rhosneigr and Ty Croes. However most trips into either Holyhead or Trearddur bay lately are seeing anglers land rays aboard My Way fairly regular; with a few days seeing a dozen rays landed aboard the boat. Small spotted rays are the most abundant with some thornbacks and blonde rays making up the catches.

Other species making regular appearances include the ever present dogfish, along with whiting, codling, grey, red and tub gurnards plus many more including bull huss ranging from 8oz to 14lb in weight. Some of the rougher inshore marks are throwing up congers, great straps for the area averaging 15lb in weight.
06/2012 Fishing Report by Gethyn Owen

Jun 2012 by Gethyn Owen

Over recent weeks My Way has sailed with great regularity. I wouldn’t say that the weather has been the best, far from it to be honest. But we have been able to work around most of what the wind gods have being throwing at us and taken each day as it comes.

This scenario helped out by some great crews aboard My Way, for example where our intended marks have been off to Holyhead Deep and the wind has blown, we have simply loaded up with a selection of rigs and baits including quality fresh peeler crab and enjoyed a species hunt inshore along with some great small shark action inshore.

Fortunately we have seen some very good double figure smoothhounds aboard My Way once again in 2012; sadly only 2 have topped the magical 20lb mark this year. But with many anglers reaching personal bests averaging 15lb and a few with 18 and 19lb fish it has again been a successful period for us. If our observations over recent years are followed, next year could be a return to bumper hounds for us.

As June has progressed the fishing has continued to improve, with good numbers of species being caught on most days. At anchor we have hooked into the usual dogfish, whiting, dabs and small codling along with a good amount of blonde spotted and thornback rays, in fairness though the vast majority of the rays small in size, nice to see never the less and returned to grow bigger in time.

Drifting around the shallow reefs close inshore sees an almost daily increase in quantity of fish being taken, there is still a very good amount of pollack in the 1 to 3 lb mark, the odd bigger specimen and also occasional codling and rogue coalfish falling to a variety of baits and lures. Hard fighting wrasse are growing in numbers and size as we are able to drift more on our favoured marks. Ballan and cuckoo wrasse are giving the light tackle enthusiast some exciting sport and these species will only get bigger as summer progresses.
Sadly strong winds have been a constant over the recent months, more so on neap tides, the very tides that we need for a good day afloat in Holyhead Deep. When we have been able to get out there, the fishing has been exceptional. Spurdogs have been in great numbers on the vast majority of trips, they have also been averaging double figures with some specimens topping the scales at over 16lb. Big huss have also been ever present over the slack water, and getting to the baits when the smaller spurs have allowed.

What has been missing in numbers for Holyhead and My Way is the tope. We’ve not seen any yet, although guess we’ve lost a couple based on hook ups and runs, speaking to Gareth on Spindrift he’s also waiting the great arrival, however having landed a couple himself. By now we have normally had a number of small pack tope mixed in with the spurdogs? This is the general situation from as early as April with the bigger tope moving in around June time, but so far none, strange really as our usual marks are producing well for double figure sharks, sadly though with the exception of tope. I’d like to blame the sporadic appearance of mackerel, but anyone knowing Holyhead will be aware that the only thing that is consistent about our mackerel fishing is the inconsistency, so no real indicator. Hopefully this situation will improve now as we head into July and we can add the thrill of hard fighting tope to the great species list so far for 2012.

A surprise species landed recently was a streaked gurnard. These are quite rare around the UK; I’d never seen one before during my personal fishing travels. Scratching around on a species hunt, Rob Field called a gurnard to upset his fishing companion Lloyd. A quick look indicated a tub or very pale red. However on closer inspection the blue on the tips of the pectoral fins of a tub was missing and the colour was certainly not red, even the shape of the head looked slightly different.
I did have my suspicions then and took a few photographs before the gurnard was released to the sea. Home that evening I emailed the photo to a good friend who for me is second to none on fish identification, a hobby that has turned into a passion over years. The reply came back ‘tis easy- a streaked’; superb and well done Rob.

Please check the galleries on our website (www.goangling.co.uk) for up to date photos and reports of exactly what is being caught out from Holyhead and particular aboard My Way..
06/2012 Fishing Report by Gethyn Owen

Jun 2012 by Gethyn Owen

This report is by Lloyd Rush and can be found at www.shoreangler.co.uk

Holyhead, Anglesey
It’s been a while since I fancied going up to Anglesey to sample some of the best Smooth Hound fishing the UK has to offer. Whilst I live close to the Bristol Channel and just under 2 hours to the clear waters of the Dorset / Hampshire coastlines, which could also lay claim to such a title, it was the first hand reports from my fishing buddy of 20+ years (Rob Field) that put this venture at the top of our 2012 ‘to do’ list.

Boat wise, there’s one that should be at the front of any serious ‘Smut Hunters’ little black book, and that’s My Way out of Holyhead skippered by Gethyn Owen. Last year Gethyn boated 7 fish in excess of 20lb and hundreds in the 15-20lb class, for most of us a fish of a life time, but for Gethyn just part of the annual Smooth Hound Season.

Anglesey
Anglesey, particularly Holyhead, doesn’t have the diverse array of fishing that I’m used to fishing out of Weymouth. What it does have is an abundance of those species that our there. Excluding the Dog Fish, you can expect to catch most Rays, Pollock, Codling, Whiting, Wrasse, Huss and ‘Husslets’, the odd Gurnard, oh and not forgetting the Smooth Hounds. Further offshore you can expect to add Spur Dog, yes Big Spur Dog and plenty of them, a recent trip was rewarded with some 40 fish into the high ‘Teens’. The deeps add big Huss, Conger, Tope and Ling to the growing list.

Rob made the 370 mile slog from London via Bath to pick me up with his Caravan, 2 bags of Jelly Babies and the same of Licorice Allsorts. He also came supplied with a couple of cans of Monster Juice and a catalogue of bad jokes. Given the news that Rob and I were traveling to North Wales, most of the UK stayed off the roads and we made good time over the Menai Bridge and onto Anglesey, a first for me.

News was the strong tides would keep us inshore for the 3 days we had, ruling out any Tope and a trip to the much fancied deeps. On a plus side a few hounds had been showing, and although not big fish the boat was seeing plenty to 12lb in previous days.

Doing it My Way, or Gethyn's way . . .
Having traveled the best part of a day and looked forward to Smooth Hound Heaven for much longer, I wasn’t best motivated about drifting the North Stack in 20-30ft water for Wrasse and juvenile Pollock. However, as I explained earlier the Holyhead fleet has to make best of a full tide and My Way has a routine that will excite even the most negative of species hunters - if it’s fish for the table you want then go to Sainsburys, it’s cheaper.

Our first drift produced small Ballan Wrasse and juvenile Pollock in slightly coloured waters (given the bashing the coast line had take in the previous week the colour wasn’t too bad) Our second drift introduced us to ‘Colin’ an overgrown fish munching Seal. An attempt to feed him off with endless supplies of Mackerel failed as Colin continued to munch his was through anything we hooked. I did take a very decent fish only for Colin to convert it into ‘Brunch’ after a few interesting moments on my Conoflex QT Jedi Kayak rod (a great rod not just for little yellow plastic tubs, but a brilliant Bass and Wrasse rod, only wish it was a foot longer)

A Quick Streak from Rob
We moved grounds in an attempted to evade Colin the Seal and put a few different fish species on the boat. I took a Dab, Codling and endless Dog Fish to nudge ahead in a species bet with Rob. His repost was to equal my Dab, much to his and most the of the boats amusement, later he took what looked like a small Red Gurnard but a closer inspection raised a few questions and the fish was duly photographed. We’ve had it confirmed as a Streaked Gurnard, a first on My Way and indeed the first I’ve seen. I’ll certainly look at any small reds much closer in the future! Well done Rob. Incidentally, Rob went on to beat me 13/12 in that competition and I was delighted to be beaten by such a fish.

Onto the Smooth Hound
Shortly after we move onto grounds known to hold bigger more solitary Smooth-Hound, the downside was there are much fewer fish, a risk we all agreed worth a go.

Rig wise the fishing couldn’t be more simple. A running ledger with 6ft of 30-40lb fluorocarbon to a Size 3/0 or 4/0 Sukuma Manta. Some other anglers, including Gethyn have recently moved to Tronix Big Fish in 2/0s, a heavy gauged hook that is less prone to the hook point going blunt or turning in having been pushed through the shell of the Peeler Crab. I’ll certainly consider using them in the future for Tope and Huss, I just don’t catch big Hounds and I use plenty of Mantas for my general fishing.

Bait, simple. Peeler Crab but not cut up and entombed or mummified in ribbons of elastic, but simple hooked from underside into the middle of the shell and if you wish lightly bound onto the hook. Although the elastic was not mandatory it was the preferred presentation of the skipper, I personally chopped and changed depending on how ‘popped’ the peeler was e.g. if the shell was ‘hanging off’ then elastic it was.

Rod & Reel. I opted for a light approach to get the most fun I could out of the fishing. My Tubertini F1 Atlantic was fitted with a Tubertini AP Power 8000 fixed spool reel. The reel has an unbelievably smooth drag, which is good as it has no back wind! Once you’ve used the drag once you don’t ever worry about the fishing running too hard. The ‘in fight’ adjustment is precise and for a front drag I honestly haven’t used a better reel.

Rob opted for a Tubertini Tatanka Hyper and the same AP Power 8000 reel as myself. Rob’s doing a review of the Tatanka at the moment and I’ll not steal his thunder other than to say it’s one of the best rods produced for general UK fishing by the Italian ‘tackle tart’s’ for many moons!

Bites started slow, but before long we had a small near double on the boat. I think it was Ann on the middle of the stern that took the first fish (female pheromones work again!) Ann knows her way around a rod and reel and out fished most of us most of the time, Ann preferred to dig out the ‘Fighters’ in the box of peelers which would give here a bait with extra movement. It seemed to work as I think she had the 3rd fish too!

I took the 4th fish (or as I remember) and soon mighty glad of the silky smooth drag as the fish hung low in the water and continued to dive just as I was making good ground and the bright sunlight became too much. It wasn’t too long before Gethyn promised Rob he’d knock it off and approached me with the net and a smile that made me nervous [see utube video] Moments later the fish was in my arms and being snapped by the netsman, who’s also a decent photographer. Although blessed as a brilliant skipper, angler, photographer the good Lord had sense to give him a shinny head and a funny accent, so don’t be too jealous.

The following 2 days we ventured onto different grounds in search of more consistent smooth hound sport, although I wasn’t complaining about day 1 with new PB and about 8-10 fish on the boat. Each of the remaining days we started with an inshore drift for ‘species’ and then onto the mussel beds which are a short steam into Holyhead Bay almost due North West out of the Breakwater, whilst they offered a bite a chuck for Whiting we’d hoped for the bigger Huss and Rays.

On count back the mussel beds turned up better Huss, a nice blonde for Billy and a Spotted Ray for a couple of local lads on their first ever boat trip, Gethyn has since told me they’ve booked on again, a good judge of the fun had. Also on this mark Billy took a very decent Thornback Ray having taken a bit of stick for being slow of the mark on day 3. We event took a 8lb+ Huss that threw up 2 whole Whiting giving value to the tactics adopted.

The last part of the day was all about the hounds as the tide turned and we moved inshore a little to the green Buoy that marks a drop into the deeper water we’d previously fished earlier in the day. A popular area for Hounds in good numbers if not the the big near 20lb fish. That said the best fish around 16lb went to the skipper on day 3 as he made one of his many brews for the anglers.

Rob didn't quite managed to beat my 14lb 1oz, although this 13lb+ fish came close, his PB remains 4lb+ bigger than mine. I must try harder.

I went on to nudge my PB to 14lb 1oz and lost count of the LSDs that would take our crab baits. I even took a greedy LSD on a whole whiting bait put down for Huss! Gethyn, Rob and fellow angler Billy kept me in stitches with a range of fun activities such as ‘knock my best smooth hound off with a landing net’ as played by Billy and ‘Stealth Bumming’ apparently something popular in North Wales when the sheep are too far up Snowdonia. Many people get the Holyhead ferry to Dublin that sits due West just for the ‘Crack’ but I reckon they’re waisting the money on the ferry crossing. The real crack is on My way.

On trips like these the fishing sometimes takes back seat to the new friends we make. Gethyn, Billy and Ann all fell into that bracket this week and I hope to fish will all 3 again in the future. Gethyn as skipper of My Way provides a brilliant service, including all bait and lunch. I’ll be doing a review of My Way and pop a link here. Best value for money charter I’ve even taken.

Billy the Vampire Slayer.
Billy spins a yarn like no other, often getting his words confused and often key words to within the story, which in themselves are priceless moments between bites on the boat. Billy was telling us how he’d wandered though is local allotment after a long night in his local boozer. He recalls loosing a moccasin and waking to some discomfort in his leg.

A trip to 2 hospitals (first one too busy) resulted in the doctor informing Billy he’d been - in his own words ‘Bitten by a Vampire’ - I think Billy meant reptile (Adder) but in Billy style put the wrong word to the right story. Laugh, I think we could be heard roaring with laughter back on shore. Billy went on to reveal he found the shoe almost a year to the day in the allotment and it was as good as the day he lost it, which was a good thing as he’d not thrown away the other one! He claims the ‘Vampire’ had kept it for a while before returning it to it’s rightful owner.

Priceless.
06/2012 Fishing Report by Gethyn Owen

Jun 2012 by Gethyn Owen

Following the success of our Smoothhound challenge competition in 2011, this year’s event was extended to 2 days and run over the bank holidays of the Queens Jubilee celebrations. The aim of the Smoothhound Challenge is to simply catch the heaviest hound of the trip.
The main prize each day was a Fladen IM8 sensor tip rod, perfectly matched with a Fladen Maximus 444 sized multiplier reel. These prizes, along with baseball caps were kindly donated to us by Fladen UK.

2nd and 3rd places each day were to receive baseballs caps and a selection of fishing rigs from both Fladen and GO Angling.

With the event being well received last year, the 2 bank holidays were booked fairly quickly, so we decided to also lay on an evening trip for the hounds, with the heaviest caught being eligible to win the ‘overall’ prize of 2 Gift Vouchers for a fully inclusive day aboard My Way.

Day one and we set sail in calm seas and bright sunshine, not the best of weather when hunting out the hard fighting small sharks. It was a good few hours before we struck into the first of the day. Kev had never landed a smoothhound before, so a 10lb 7oz specimen was a brilliant start to the challenge and a specie for Kev to tick off his list.

Colin was the second to call for the net, this shark looked to be a lot bigger than Kevs as it swam deep in the water and refused to come to the surface. After a powerful struggle, Colin’s hound was netted, with the weight coming out at 16lb 9oz.

A further 3 smoothhounds came to the boat, with only Dave coming the closest with a great double figure hound of 16lb. This was made all the better for Dave as his pb hound currently stood at around 8oz, having landed a tiny starry whilst beach fishing on the each coast.

That evening we set sail for 4 hours with a mixed bag of both experienced regulars and anglers out for the first time afloat. It wasn’t long before Tom hit into his first hound, followed closely by his mate Dave, both recording hounds of 12lb 8oz. Paul Coulthurst was next with a hound just sneaking into double figures.

After which Robin, on his first fishing experience persevering with smoothhounds as his girlfriend Danielle reeled in dogfish and small codling, struck into the biggest of the night with a hound of 14lb.

It looked to be in the bag for the evening for Robin and as I called lines up & started My Ways engine, Gareth P called fish on and proceeded to play and eventually land the biggest hound of the evening and a new pb at 16lb.

Day 2 and we were greeted with a damp and miserable day; light rain was going to be with us for the majority of the day. Still, with what we considered to be better conditions than the previous day, we set sail with great anticipation. In all we managed to land 12 smoothhounds during the7 hrs we were fishing, however from the crew of 8 the day was real owned by Dan and Paul who between them landed 8 of the fish, taking 4 apiece.

3rd place went to Gareth P, who couldn’t better his 16lb smoothie from the previous evening with a hound of 9lb. In second place was smoothhound expert Paul, again fishing the Tuesday following a try the previous evening. A hound of 12lb 8oz saw Paul walk away with a baseball cap and selection of rigs from Fladen and My Way.

The actual 2nd place fell to Dan, however he bettered his hound of 16lb 11oz with a cracking specimen that topped the scales at 18lb 130z, winning Dan the 2nd IM8 Super Sensor Rod, 444 Maximus reel and with the heaviest fish of the challenge 2 fully inclusive Gift Vouchers for a days fishing aboard My Way.

Not electrifying fishing this time around, but given the changeable weather conditions we were all happy to get afloat and catch a few hounds over the 2 days.

The My Way smoothhound challenge will return once again next year during the Spring bank holiday and the following Tuesday, book now to avoid disappointment.
05/2012 Fishing Report by Gethyn Owen

May 2012 by Gethyn Owen

Our last report detailed the great smoothhound fishing we have been experiencing in recent weeks. Many anglers have been fortunate to catch some quality double figure hounds, with the vast majority also smashing personal bests.

All said though, the smoothhound fishing has also been patchy and hard work when compared to the reliability of recent years. Where one day we can go out and bag a dozen large double figures it will be followed by a day with just 1 or 2. An example of this was a couple weeks ago, when amongst the crew of 7, we had 4 anglers visiting from Newcastle Upon Tyne. Having found Roy, this month’s Boat Fishing Monthly cover boy a first ever tope in 2011, the task this year was for a smoothhound.

The hounds though had other ideas, leaving the baits for a constant stream of dogs and small codling to devour. Through the day despite trying a couple of our more consistent marks for the hounds, the return was a paltry 2. That said Dave had a cracking time fighting his double figure specimen and Roy managed to bag himself a 6lb starry hound, small but a target species ticked off the list.

With the tides dropping for the following day, we decided that a trip off to Holyhead Deep was called for and then try for the hounds later in the afternoon. Our day started drifting for small wrasse, pollack, codling and coalie for an hour. As the tide dropped we made our way off to a mark offshore, which would see us anchored in around 180ft of water, with the drop off laying the baits around 220ft.
Roy was first into a fish, a nice spurdog just short of double figures; we won’t mention how the skipper knocked it off with the net though. For the next 3 hours, all 7 anglers were treated to a big fish bonanza and from 200ft of water, they certainly felt it afterwards. Every 5 minutes there was call of net as double figure spurdogs were accompanied by double figure huss! Everyone aboard was playing a fish with =in minutes of their leads hitting the sea bed. With only the odd photo shot, the majority of fish were released quickly back into the sea, from chatting after the hectic 2.5hrs fishing, we’d estimated over 50 double figure spurs or huss between the 7 lads, along with the slightly smaller sharks and also dogfish. Sadly the tope failed to turn up to this particular party, but just means we’ll have to try again!

Returning to the deeps the following day I was joined by a group of good friends, Boat Fishing Monthly duo Dave Barham and Jim Midgley, Anglers Net Supremo Elton Murphy and the MD of World Sea Fishing Mike Thrussell jnr. Our plans were to have a ball in the deeps with the double figure spurs and huss, maybe even snaring a tope for our efforts. Everyone caught well from a variety of species, however despite, the mass of angling super talent aboard that day, the honours were well earned by My Way crewman Harry, who had bought a £7 kiddies play rod from a shop in town; coupled with a small Abu 6000, Harry was determined to land big and have fun whilst doing it!
Drifting a couple wrecks on our way out to our chosen mark, Harry caught consistently on most passes, with pollack averaging 3 to 5 lb, this little fishing rod bent double as the pollack hit hard and made the occasional dive for freedom!
In over 200 foot of water, the fun really started , a spurdog was the target species for Harry, despite having been fishing these waters for many years, the spurs always eluded his hook, congers, huss or dogfish usually getting to the bait first. It wasn’t soon after dropping anchor that his rod was bouncing with a nice take from the depths. During the fight, Harry often had to hold the 4foot, 2 ring masterpieces straight down to allow the fish to take line without the risk of snapping! Eventually after a gruelling 20 minute battle, a …. Conger broke the surface! Were as we laughed at this initial capture given the spurdog fishing of recent days, we then realised that a good 20lb conger had just been hauled from the deep water on what could be best described as a twig! Excellent fishing, I am though pleased to report that Harry got his spurdog, again on the small rod it was a fantastic double figure specimen.
The following day we set out with the Boat Fishing Monthly smoothhound trip competition winners. How did they fair? You can read on these exploits in a forthcoming issue of the magazine.
In shore the general fishing is fairly reliable for the time of year with mixed bags including dogfish, whiting, codling, small rays, huss and gurnards and many other species keeping the anglers busy whilst at anchor. On the drift the wrasse quantities are picking up with every passing day. Mackerel are about but proving patchy when wanting to quickly bag enough up for fresh bait.
Hopefully more settled weather will follow on from the gales that are currently blasting along our coastline.
05/2012 Fishing Report by Gethyn Owen

May 2012 by Gethyn Owen

With the first few weeks of May turning out to be a major disappointment owing to consistently high winds, we were feeling fed up having cancelled far more trips than we had actually sailed. The only highlight was our first smoothhound of the year, topping the scales at over 20lb in weight; we certainly wanted to catch more!

As the 3rd week of May approached, so did a far better forecast, north Wales was finally going to receive some settled weather, allowing us to set sail more often. Sunday 20th May was an individuals day aboard My Way and included 3 members of the Wirral based Rafa Sea Angling club, whose current club record for smoothhound was set at just over 22lb last year by Graham, who was after even bigger in 2012.

Sadly this wasn’t to be Graham’s day, but fellow cub members Nige and Ian both acquired new PB’s with hounds of 17 and 18lb respectively. Check out a video of Ians 18lb hound here More hounds including a pb 16lb’er for Terry made for a great day afloat.

A few trips recently were made up with individual anglers, all regulars and all looking for some great sport from big Holyhead smoothhounds. Wirral angler Kev Pye was on a mission to bag a smoothie, a specie that had so far eluded him on his fishing exploits. The angling gods were looking down on Kev and not only did he land a smoothie but also managed his fist ever ray, only small but a tick for rays, spotted in particular.

The same week we were joined aboard My Way by members of the north Wales Environmental Agency. More used to the rivers and waterways of north Wales the guys wanted a crack at the big smoothies regularly caught aboard My Way. It was though proving to be a quiet day with only a couple small ones falling to the bait of organiser Joel that was until young Matt, making up the numbers on his dads work trip started fighting what looked to be a very good hound. After a 20 minute struggle that saw the smoothhound make many dives away from the boat a big smoothie was safely in the net. A few photographs and a weigh in the sling and Matt had landed a 22lb 12oz beauty.

One of the many football adversaries that I have made over the years is Curly a true blue Manchester City fan, loves to mention the ascendancy ‘Citeh’ have found themselves enjoying in recent years. The fact it is all down to charitable donations from an oil rich sheik and not true footballing genius as when LFC conquered home and European football is apparently irrelevant … ! Never the less, we helped Curly bag his first smoothhound with a hard fighting hound on light sensor tackle weighing 12lb 8oz. Not to be out done, Dave also a Manc, but quieter, landed a 12lb 6oz first!

Sticking on a footballing theme, Colin Hughes, a hardened Evertonian was determined to catch a double figure hound. Having already blanked on the hounds a couple days earlier, this was to be the day when the bitter and twisted blue nose (really he is, even Ketchup is banned in the Hughes house) landed a quality 16lb smoothhound ……. and kissed me on my cheek to say thank you … would everyone please note that this is not a requirement when catching anything!

The same day we had 3 generations of the Keegan family fishing aboard My Way and all wanting PB hounds … we succeeded with Mr Keegan snr also catching the most smoothhounds :)

Some of the days have been a struggle with the hounds. One day can see many double figure small sharks come aboard My way and the next only 1 or 2. That's fishing as they say .... when afloat there is always that chance!. More photos please check out Gallery 90 and also watch the video Windy Smoothhounds.

Our June day sails are currently full, if spaces become available they will be listed online as soon as possible, so please keep checking back. We do also offer anglers the opportunity for various typos of fishing during our popular evening trips. Sailing from 5.30 pm we return to port usually for 10pm. Please call or email if interested.