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January & February |
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ABU Ambassadeur has long been a name associated with quality and reliability. This is why 12 brand new multipliers have been purchased for use with our loan rods. Strong and robust, with a gear ratio of 5.3:1, these reels are ideal for charter boat fishing. Winter weather played its part in January with us
only sailing a handful of times. Fishing was predictable for the time of year. Plenty of dogfish, whiting and the odd decent codling, with some good conger sport on the nearby wrecks to 25lb.
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February - My Way is out of the water now for 6 weeks.
I hope everyone is thinking 'thank you Gethyn' for great weather over the last couple days and this weekend. Yes, it really is all down to me. With My Way ready to sail every week the weather has been pretty damn poor throughout winter with many cancelled sails; and now that the boat has come out of the water for its annual maintenance the weather calms off and settles right down.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!
Anyway - at least the weather should be great for all the odd jobs that have piled up and the customary wash and lick of paint. |
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March & April |
  
   
  
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After six weeks with My Way out of the water and me painting, antifouling, gel-coating along with a mountain of other do them later jobs
. and getting fed up with the lack of fishing; the boat was finally re-launched yesterday. Im happy to report all went well and shes running and looking good.
Fishing on the up dogs, huss, pollack, whiting, codling with the odd coalie thrown in. Offshore a few small conger and some small spurs starting to show.
March 18th - North Wales radio station Coast 96.3 adventurer Black Thunder Katrina made a short broadcast today, live on air from aboard My Way. Sadly though strong 40mph north westerly winds stopped us from setting sail from the Marina; never the less, having listened to Coast often enough it was nice to meet up with Katrina and speak to Craig on air.
Yes I was nervous and ******* myself !
You can listen in to the encounter by clicking here |
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Mid April - With the good weather continuing we have sailed daily in search of a few bigger fish spurs, huss and conger being the main targets. Fishing has been very good with plenty of fish coming to the boat with excellent specimens of the bigger fish for the time of year. Spurdogs have reached 18lb, huss 12lb 8oz and congers 22lb 8oz. Nice settled weather over the Easter bank
holiday saw us set sail daily. Plenty of fish came aboard including dogs, whiting, huss, congers (best 22lb), coalies, codling and pollack plus a few more.
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When we have had nicer weather we have pushed a little further offshore, to the deepwater marks and been rewarded with similar fishing as reported on 14th April - congers, spurs and huss the main bags. Paul Coulthurst landed the first of the tope for us this year, only a small fish of around 10lb - but nice to see in April.
Inshore there have been some good bags of pollack and coalies with a few decent wrasse now fighting hard. |
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| May & June |
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Mackerel have moved in and we have had a good few weeks catching fresh bait and a few to go home for the pan. Didn't try for them last weekend as the weather prevented us from travelling to where they appear to be congregating at the moment. Hopefully they'll be around all summer. |
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We have had some excellent fishing. Species caught have included plenty of ballans and cuckoo wrasse, good old lesser spotted dogfish, dabs, whiting, codling, small ling (the best went 6lb and tasted great), loads of strap conger, with a few decent and the best reef conger so far going 32lb.
The staple all year round bull huss, has again not disappointed with plenty of big fish testing the rods and terminal tackle in use.
Drifting for wrasse and pollack is a favourite of mine, with the ballans touching 3lb and to date our best inshore pollack has topped the scales at 8lb with plenty of fish in the 1-3lb bracket keeping our anglers active. |
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| Main event of late though has been the smuts. Regular as clockwork the smoothound have appeared in recent years during the 3rd week of May, this year being no exception when on the 15th local anglers Nathan from Llandudno and Dils from Llanberis hooked into hounds of 15lb 9oz and 14lb 3oz respectively. Therefore over the last five weeks we have given a few hours during
most trips to target the hard fighting hounds, Im glad to say we have had some excellent results |
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All together we have landed over 100 double figure fish in the past 5 weeks, with many more in the 5-9lb range, our smallest hound this year went around 4lb which was quickly unhooked and returned to the sea with a look of shame by
. no that would be cruel wouldnt it Neil!!
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Our concentrated efforts in smoothound fishing paid off for Wigan based Hindley Hare and Hound SAC Member Brian Taylor who landed a starry smoothound of 25lb 6oz, which smashed the current WFSA record for a starry, which has stood for a few years at just over 23lb |
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Offshore we have seen, rays, congers some early tope to 30lb and also some excellent spurdog fishing still. Sadly not in the plague proportions that thrilled anglers many years ago, but enough to allow us to target them. Last April Trevor Lockwood from Warrington Sea Anglers broke the current WFSA record of 17lb 15oz with a great fish of 18lb, this triumph though was
short lived when a fortnight later James Coffet from Sefton Sea Anglers fought and landed a big female spurdog of 19lb.
So that was 2 record breaks on the spurs in as many weeks, with the seas warming up that I thought was our lot until later winter time.
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How wrong I was, on the 08th June Manchester angler Damon Brierly eclipsed the potential record of 19lb by landing a fish of 19lb 2oz. Will the 20lb seen sometimes off the Scottish coasts venture down to our North Wales waters, only time will tell.
A quick point for everyone reading is that the WFSA changed the rules a few years ago for record fish. You no longer have to kill the fish and weigh ashore for a record claim. You need only take plenty of photographs against a relatively sized object and as many measurements as possible. After submitting your claim to the WFSA, it will be heard by the Executive committee who will either except or decline your stake for a record depending on the
evidence produced. |
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| July & August |
Fishing has been excellent of late
on one day, and then extremely poor the following day.
Despite being in a fortunate position in that we have been able to sail most days in recent weeks, the weather has often restricted our plans. Where we often want to find ourselves out in Holyhead Deep on the tope hunt, we are restricted inshore on occasional tope along with the usual standard consisting of plenty of dogs, huss, congers, gurnards etc at anchor and then ballans, cuckoos, pollack and wrasse on the drift.
Along with the odd tope inshore, the smoothies are still knocking around nothing in comparison to late May and early June this year, but still something to put a nice sporting bend in the rod. Talking to Gareth on Spindrift, by August 2006, we had recorded each over 120 tope at 35lb+, but this year weather playing against us all the time the figure was a very sad 50 or 60 fish between us!! Never mind, hopefully we can rectify that in 2008.
Fortunately this doesnt dampen the enthusiasm of most anglers, and a really enjoyable day afloat can be had by all. But where has the British summer gone are we going to get the Indian summer predicted |
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| September & October |
What can I start this next instalment with? A little about the good old British weather maybe, or the distinct lack of it to be precise. Rain, wind with the occasional burst of sunshine.
Fishing has been a similar mixed bag of excellent days, good days, reasonable days and bloody awful days. Sadly there doesn't appear to be a trend to the fishing, the unsettled weather playing havoc with the fishing. Locating the fish is one thing, actually hooking them another one.
All that then soon forgotten when we have a nice settled spell with the fishing equally rewarding. Smoothound making the traditional return for a couple weeks in September brings the shallow water fishing alive once again with hard fighting action.
When the weather has allowed, we have made our way out to the deeps and been rewarded with some excellent tope fishing, catching plenty but also dropping far more. Even these tope seem to be very fussy when feeding. Our second run of smoothies has seen some good fish coming aboard the boat, with the average size this time a little smaller than earlier in the year at
8lb's.
Some of my favourite fishing is whilst on the drift over shallow water for pollack and wrasse, luckily neither fish has been disappointing, offering anglers some great sport on relatively light gear. |
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| November & December |
| This is the time of year when we are left in the laps of the weather gods. November was once again a washout, despite bookings were only able to sail on a handful of occasions. Never the less, congers to 25lb, a few tope to 30lb mixed in with huss, dogs, pollack, whiting a few rays and the odd codling have most people smiling. |
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| Happy fishing in 2008
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Freephone 08000
934418 Boat direct
07971 924046
gethyn@goangling.co.uk
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