GO Angling charters

April - the fish are on the move

Through the winter months both the fishing and the weather has seen many ups and downs for boat anglers. Personally a nice settled spell for a fortnight prior to Christmas, saw me sail daily, sounds great – but the 16^th December was the first sail date for over a month, and January saw only a couple days afloat - all down to the weahter. Thankfully the fish played their part in these outings, with codling, conger, dogfish and huss the mainstay of the catches.

Winter of 2006 / 2007 has been one to forget for many involved within the angling industry, especially charter skippers. The relentless onslaught of gale force winds has seen many boats tethered to their berths or mooring ropes for weeks on end.

Mid March, with the odd day of settled weather with us, the fishing was slow one day and then fruitful the next. The same can most certainly be said about the weather; blowing a strong wind for a few days then dropping off for the next few days. Charter skippers all over the UK have been pulling their hair out in despair with myself and the crews of My Way being no different, looking for the settled spell to explore the waters off our coast for the spring influx of species.

Since the beginning of April though, the winds have dropped off and despite the odd windy day, the weather gods have taken a back seat, and allowed us to sail on a more regular basis as we bask in far more settled weather than the time of year normally allows.

Inshore the fishing of recent weeks has been the typical end to winter, with dogfish, dabs, whiting and coalies making a regular appearance. Certain marks have then thrown up plentiful catches of huss to 15lb, a few small thornbacks and a few pollack averaging 3lb.

Neap tides coinciding with the settled spell, has seen us set sail for the edge of Holyhead Deep, this is a large deep hole 5miles west of Anglesey that has depths of water up to 400ft. Sailing to the southern edge of the deeps, we can anchor on some muddy banks, in 180ft of water. Here the catches have been an impressive amount of spurdogs and big huss, mixed in with the ever present Lesser Spotted Dogfish, and despite the close proximity of a few nearby wrecks, both the pollack and congers here have failed to play ball.

On the North East edge of the Deep, we have anchored in an average of 220ft of water, where once again the spurdogs and huss have kept most aboard My Way entertained during our visits, the odd conger making an appearance and the much maligned dogfish facing the normal verbal abuse for gorging itself on a delicately prepared spur or conger bait.

Hauling your lead back from 200ft of water though is not for the faint hearted. Where as during the hour before and the hour after slack water you can usually get away with 10oz weights, either side of this time span will require a lump of around 24oz be despatched to the sea bed if you are to hold bottom successfully. Though crews aboard My Way have found out on recent neap tides that quality spurdogs to 18lb certainly make up for the hard slog and offer them the opportunity to blow away the cobwebs whilst waiting for summer to roll into full swing.

Where as the winter fishing in Holyhead has not been uneventful with plenty of sport April has seen the fishing and species count grow, offering all anglers the chance of some very good fishing. Over the past month species count for a day afloat has crept up with catches regularly exceeding 12 species, with many double figure fish in the list. Let’s see what the next month brings My Way

Freephone 08000 934418

Boat direct 07971 924046

gethyn@goangling.co.uk

	GO Angling Charter Services Rigs / Baits / Methods	Holyhead Marina Anglesey
	Tel: 01248 716315 \| Mobile: 07971 924046	gethyn@goangling.co.uk