Latest Fishing Reports: Wales
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27/03/2011
Fishing Report by David Hancock
on Excel 2 (Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire)
27 Mar 2011 by David Hancock
Report on-board Excel 2
The wrecks are still fishing well for Quality Cod and some cracking Pollock but we are travelling a fair way offshore.
Luckilly the Skate fishing inshore is electric at the moment, perfect if you prefer to fish rather than travel. Expect 10 or so on an average day and 25 plus is easilly possible. One of the local boats had 36 on Sunday. Frozen Herring as bait is the key.
Keep it tight,
Dave.
Www.kentcharterfishing.com
View Boats Page
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20/03/2011
Fishing Report by Gethyn Owen
on My Way 2 (Holyhead, Isle of Anglesey)
20 Mar 2011 by Gethyn Owen
Report on-board My Way 2
With neap tides again upon us last week and everyone chomping at the bit to throw off the small fish shackles and get to grips with the monster of Holyhead deep, in blew gales to put an end to those ideas. With a couple trips cancelled we managed to sneak out into Holyhead Bay on Sunday 13th.
The strong westerly wind restricted our movements, and the small neap tide restricted the flow of water required to help get the fish around on the feed this time of year, we really did struggle. Despite many moves around the bay, locating a sufficient amount of fish to make the day an overwhelming success was very hard work. That said, all the anglers on board My Way that day, knew what the day may, or may not hold! It’s a day out, we’re fishing and we’re also catching – what more could you ask for, ok admittedly a little more than the dogs, whiting and small codling …. the warm chilli certainly helped that day for sure though.
My Way regulars Carl & Annie, know only too well how things can pan out both for the good and sometimes the bad. Undeterred they returned the following weekend in the hope of more fish to pull their lines. But how would they and the other anglers fair this weekend fishing on top of the biggest tide for 20years.
The Moon's gravity pulls more strongly on the near side of the Earth than it does at its centre. It does though pull more strongly on the centre than on the far side. This 'differential' causes the tides that we see daily. Essentially, the water on the near side is pulled up and away from the Earth. Since the Earth turns on its axis, the bulge moves around the Earth, causing the level of the ocean to rise and fall, forming the tides. Spring tides at Holyhead are normally big at the 32 to 33ft mark, we were looking this weekend at battling the elements with tides over 34ft, this meant the water would move fast.
Saturday saw a crew of My Way regulars along with 2 guys new to fishing and 2 new to My Way. Despite the previous night giving a wind speed under double figures all day, our revised forecast before sailing was for winds of F4 to 5 from around lunchtime. With monster ebbing tides, Trearddur Bay was out of the question on that forecast as if the wind blew up early, we would be unable to find safe passage through north stack, and hence Holyhead Bay it was.
The morning started in 50ft of water a few miles north of Holyhead. The broken ground always throws up a variety of species for early season, but equally as important, a consistent supply of fish. We were not disappointed, straight into fish were the newcomers Dave and Chris pulling in dogfish and small codling, this trend then continued around the boat as many fish, including the odd double and triple shot came aboard. A My Way first for 2011 fell to Carl Burns’ fishing rod in the shape of a small plaice. Carl also pointed out that this was his first ever plaice whilst aboard My Way. We’re not renowned for our plaice fishing in this part of north Wales and sadly those we do get are rarely the dustbin lids you see in the magazines; still a great catch.
Mixed in with the codling, dogfish we were also pulling in many small bull huss. This area whilst it is accepted you can catch the odd huss, is not famous for numbers of the smaller huss we were catching today. Other parts of our fishing grounds, Trearddur Bay for example are often ear marked for competition fishing, were the reliability of small bull huss to boost a points tally is second to none; today though it was Holyhead Bay that was throwing up numerous small to miniscule sized bullies.
Why, well, I’m not too sure however we were anchored around 300yards off our normal mark. Where I had originally planned to drop anchor was out of bounds to us thanks to lobster pot markers. Never one to opt for the ‘near enough’ option, we had a little look around the area for a spot of broken ground that …. looked fishy ! Using the down-looking imaging on our new Lowrance HDS system, we were able to isolate a patch of ground that appeared to have fish holding capabilities; anchoring uptide, so that our baits could trot back nicely over the broken ground, the rewards where very quickly upon the boat. Could this be the reason for the sheer number of small huss coming aboard the boat today, brilliant broken kelp covered ground, ideal for small fry to shelter and small huss to feed on them?
True to the forecast the wind was steadily increasing throughout the day, a quick check at the weather station at RAF Valley and the wind was higher than forecasted. Inshore though, the tide had already turned to start flooding and now running in the same direction as the wind, our day was as comfortable as it was with the slight breeze of the early morning.
The following day, once again the weather gods had outwitted the forecasters and delivered a few more mph, uncanny how they continually do this really!!
With a forecast of around 20mph from the south, I arrived at the marina to a constant 26mph with gusts of 32mph. Not fancying the day too much, March stuck in close cannot always be the best - I called the lads around 90mins before we were due to sail. Mike the organiser greeted me with, is it safe and will we get a few fish, erm, oh yes we could do it I suppose, so off we went.
Rewards came in the way of dogs, codling and some small huss for the first few hrs. Great fun alongside the tea, coffee, biscuits and sausage butties. As the day went on and the tide ebbed away, the wind slowly decreased, as if with every 5mph decrease we managed to sneak further out from our shelter.
Our day eventually ended up on a small patch of mud around 1 mile outside the harbour, here the lads were rewarded with far more fish than in the morning and additionally 2 thornback rays, both firsts for the anglers including trip organiser Mike himself.
As I finish writing this now, the wind outside, or should I just say the puff of air outside is 9mph! Oh for 9month of 9mph. The light winds are forecasted to continue, we have individual spaces available for this coming Weds 23rd March sailing at 9am. Still a big tide, but plenty of fish and a good selection of species to have fun with for the day. View Boats Page
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20/03/2011
Fishing Report by David Hancock
on Excel 2 (Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire)
20 Mar 2011 by David Hancock
Report on-board Excel 2
A few Lunker cod reported inshore over the weekend and a few skate.
Noteable catches were a cracker of 23.5 lb on Pace Arrow and a 15lb`er on Duke IV.
Ramsgate is Rockin !
We went offshore and continued the run of outstanding catches of cod and pollock.
It may be hard graft but the results are worthwhile, over 100 quality eating fish on Saturday and an exhausted crew !
Dave.
www.kentcharterfishing.com View Boats Page
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17/03/2011
Fishing Report by David Hancock
on Excel 2 (Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire)
17 Mar 2011 by David Hancock
Report on-board Excel 2
Skate showing in good numbers inshore if you want a fun, relaxing days fishing.
Cod and pollock offshore if you want a hard days work but big results. View Boats Page
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12/03/2011
Fishing Report by Gareth williams
on Spindrift New Dawn (Holyhead, Isle of Anglesey)
12 Mar 2011 by Gareth williams
Report on-board Spindrift New Dawn
Five Lads booked a 8hr night conger trip to the Holyhead Deeps on march 12th fishing was slow to start with polack up to 3lbs and dogs until steve rod bent over with a Monster 50lbs conger that was the biggest on the trip but we did have a ray as well a good nights fishing
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03/2011
Fishing Report by Gethyn Owen
on My Way 2 (Holyhead, Isle of Anglesey)
Mar 2011 by Gethyn Owen
Report on-board My Way 2
Our first weekend afloat in 2011 following our routine winter maintenance downtime was scheduled for the last weekend of February. With the boat full and small tides upon us it was an offshore foray into the deeps on the cards. Sadly the wind gods had other ideas and with W & NW blasts of air not dropping below 20mph for a few days, I decided to leave My Way dormant for another few days. Wouldn’t really be that fair to force the lads into the shallows were the possibility of fish this time of year was all but slim!
The following week the winds took some time off and the sun also came out to play. With plans to finish sanding and painting My Ways inside gunwales and then hopefully go find some fish following weekend. So it was on nice calm seas, though unfortunately 31ft tides that we finally got going once again for our 2011 campaign.
Spring tides restrict the fishing at Holyhead to inshore; the tidal pulls of such prolific areas such as the Deeps are far too strong for recreational angling in anything really larger than 28ft. so for the Saturday we opted for a slightly later sail at 10am and allow the ebbing tide to help us around to our destination of Trearddur Bay, stopping to drift a few of the reefs along the way.
The drifts however proved fruitless, with only a few nibbles from obliging pout and poor cod, our intended targets of coalie and pollack where no where to be seen, though based on the size of tide and the drift speeds we were having fun with; we’d give it another go later in the day when the LW slack was near us.
Anchoring just out of Trearddur Bay we were soon into an array of late winter and early spring fishing from Holyhead. Dogfish, whiting and codling making up the vast majority of catches with many rigs reeling in double and triple shots, mixed in with these we also had pout, poor cod and numerous small huss.
One angler even managing to land a triple shot of 3 small huss that had the 2 match anglers ‘cooing and awwing’ like kids in a sweet shop. Huss are usually worth far more points of the common dogfish and to catch them 3 a time, certainly good going.
This trend of fishing continued into our second mark, nothing to set the world alight but a steady stream of fish to keep everyone happy on a day where dusting down the fishing tackle was more the priority. Lunch today was the famous My Way chillie.
With Geoff having his 21st birthday (yeah right) another angler, Tony had brought a selection of cakes along to have after lunch with a cuppa.
To end the day we once again decided to try our luck on the drift, this time we were rewarded with pollack, coalfish and also some early herring. We don’t tend to see too many herring around Holyhead when on the drift and those we do see tend to be a little later – so it was certainly nice to see some coming to the boat.
We ended the day with 9 species, we had hoped to break the double figures for an early spring outing by giving Arthur the chance to land our 10th specie … sadly he never proved to be the dab hand at it!
Sunday we decided to stay within the confines of Holyhead bay and concentrate mainly on anchor work with the lads aboard My Way relatively new to sea angling. Many of them, albeit experienced coarse anglers had never been sea fishing before, let alone on a boat.
They were rewarded though in more fish than a carping year (not my words!) with dogs, whiting, huss a few dabs and some good sized codling falling to a variety of baits. One lad also managed to hook into a 3 bearded, specie 11 to get 2011 well under way.
Then there is good old chicken cam, well currently known as hand cam! Poor fella, thought it was a monster!
Let's hope the weather gods play fair this year and treat us all to some fantastic days afloat.
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12/02/2011
Fishing Report by David Hancock
on Excel 2 (Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire)
12 Feb 2011 by David Hancock
Report on-board Excel 2
Lots of quality cod and pollock showing on the wrecks at the moment .
And prices held from last year, £400 for the whole boat or £50 as individuals.
Saturday 12th Feb we had a nice hit, 120\140 cod and 12\15 pollock.
Happy Anglers ! View Boats Page
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08/02/2011
Fishing Report by David Hancock
on Excel 2 (Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire)
8 Feb 2011 by David Hancock
Report on-board Excel 2
Tides are dropping off this week and forecast settling.
C`mon, lets get out to them wrecks . . .
Dave.
www.kentcharterfishing.com View Boats Page
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02/2011
Fishing Report by Aaron Smith
on Bad Boyz VI (Holyhead, Isle of Anglesey)
Feb 2011 by Aaron Smith
Report on-board Bad Boyz VI
I do not know whether you have seen in the news that the Goverment is
>> trying to close down and get rid of over half of the Coastguard
>> stations and staff around the country.
>>
>> Basically at night time there will be two stations open, 1 in Aberdeen
>> and 1 in Southampton and of course Dover who will primarily be working
>> on the Channel Navigation Information System.
>> They are also plans to get rid of over 200 full time operations room
>> staff and
>> all the local knowledge that they possess.
>> There are also to be day stations
>> working nine to five in Swansea, Humber, Falmouth, Liverpool or
>> Belfast,
>> Shetland or Stornoway. All the others at Milford Haven, Brixham,
>> Holyhead,
>> Clyde,Forth, Solent, Yarmouth and Thames are to close.
>>
>> We as Coastguards are extremely worried about this for a number of
>> reasons:
>>
>> 1. How is somebody in Aberdeen going to know where the person on the
>> beach in Wales is, especially if the person cannot spell the name of
>> the beach. This analogy also covers loads of places around the country
>> where the place name is the same as somewhere else. I heard the other
>> day (in a Parlimentary debate, where the MP's across all parties are
> up
>> in
>> arms), a place name in Scotland that occurs in five different areas of
>> Scotland.
>>
>> 2. The MCA state that they are going to get busier, yet they think
> they
>> can cope
>> with half of the staff.
>>
>> 3. One of my main concerns (as fishing is close to my heart) is for
> the
>> anglers using our shores, boats etc. If God forbid somebody fell into
>> the sea off a rock or boat, the 999 call would go through to
>> Southampton. They would then have to work out where the call
>> came from, then start looking through databases to find the right
>> lifeboat and the right rescue teams to send, by this time I fear it
>> would be to late.
>>
>> Currently, the call is directed to the closest station and the
>> operations staff's local knowledge kicks in and the boat and team are
>> dispatched immediately. They would know that rescue team A (that is
>> nearer) is no good because it is market day, so it would be quicker to
>> send team B. This is the knowledge that is going to be lost.
>>
>> The MCA have written a consultation document that implies a radical
>> change to the way the service is delivered is the only possible way in
>> which to bring the Coastguard into the present. They then go on to
>> offer the opportunity to comment on the proposals - but insist upon
>> adequate evidence being presented to support the claims of the
>> respondent.
>>
>> However, the document provided by the MCA itself appears to be lacking
>> in supplying the salient details to back up the assertions made. For
>> example, it suggests that having two large Coastguard stations
> covering
>> the UK at night would be more resilient than the current number. This
>> would seem to ignore the fact that one station failure would cause a
>> 50% decrease in capacity to deal with incidents. Things may be
> quieter
>> at night, but that statistic ignores the fact that a major incident
> (or
>> two) could happen at any time. It is a simplistic and flawed way to
>> measure workload.can respond to.
>>
>> Our union the PCS has developed a letter for people to send
>> electronically to their MP. All people have to do is fill in their
>> name, email, and address, then press submit and it is automatically
>> sent to their MP, so no letter writing or posting is necessary and
> they
>> will get a reply from their MP.
>> The link to the page is http://www.pcs.org.uk/sos
>>
>> There is also a Facebook page (that is really to save Holyhead
>> Coastguard, but the link to the PCS is on the info page) View Boats Page
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30/01/2011
Fishing Report by Derek Williams
on Supreme (Rhyl, Denbighshire)
30 Jan 2011 by Derek Williams
Report on-board Supreme
Hi my name is Derek Williams and my colleague is Jan Van Deventer, we are both school teachers at St Mary's College Crosby. Today we have had an amazing trip aboard this boat. We took ten school children aged 12 - 16 and spent 10 hours today fishing for Cod in the river Mersey. We caught 47 fish, cod, whiting and dab and the skipper ensured that no child blanked. We run a fishing club at the college and have used charter boats before however, we have never encountered such hospitality, and patience as we received today. The boy's were taught how to fish today by the Skipper Steve, he was also extremely patient with them when they endlessly got snagged. He was always giving us tea and coffee...kids too! He provided pies and biscuits for the kids and his hire equipment equipment was top draw. I would whole heartedly recommend this boat as he is a genuine nice guy who isn't just after the cash but cares about the 'young or old fishermen' on his boat regardless of their fishing ability. Thank you very much Steve and we will see you in the summer.
DEREK Williams
(Head of Boy's PE & Games)
EVC Co-ordinator
St Mary's College Crosby View Boats Page
