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North Wales Too close for comfort.

Andy 1965

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 18, 2020
Messages
357
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3,320
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93
Location
North Wales
Favourite Fishing
Lure
After last week’s combat fishing, I promised myself I would avoid returning to the same mark again this week, but unfortunately a series of reports of poor fishing at other spots forced me into a re-think for my first session of the week. The forecast wasn’t great for Tuesday evening, with increasing onshore winds promised by 22:00, but I didn’t really have much choice of where to go.

Keen to dodge the crowds, I arrived nice and early to find just 2 guys already there, 1 using bait and the other on lures, so it could have been a lot worse. After a quick stroll along the shoreline, I arrived at my preferred spot and immediately waded out into the calm, clear water. Almost as soon as I’d waded out, I spotted a small shoal of sandeel swimming by, and this gave my confidence an immediate boost (y). With an idea of what the bass would most likely be feeding on, my first lure out of the box was a Line-Thru Sandeel but with it being slack water there was no current to speak of, and so I wasn’t able to fish it as effectively as I would like. 20 minutes later and I had seen no signs of interest in my lure :( but I wasn’t too disheartened, as I still had plenty of time to go and I fished on.

Over the next 90 minutes I tried a variety of lures without success, and my lure angling neighbour was obviously having the same problem, as he eventually left, leaving just me and the guy fishing bait. The relative solitude wasn’t to last though, and over the next 20 minutes I was joined by 3 more lure anglers. Thankfully, my new neighbours all positioned themselves a decent distance apart and we all had plenty of room to fish.

For a short while, things continued to be quiet for us all, but belatedly the tide started to push and the current gradually picked up, then just as the light began to fade, my Ruf Manic was finally hit. The culprit was only a schoolie and was beaten in a minute or two, but I was incredibly happy to get my first silver fix of the week :giggle:. Having waded out quite far from the shore, I didn’t want to waste time heading back to dry land for a picture, so the basslet was simply shaken free of the hook, and allowed to drop back into the water and swim away safely.

Wasting no time, I got straight back to the fishing and incredibly my lure was hit again just a few casts later ?. Annoyingly though, after a matter of seconds it threw the hook and made good its escape ?. Not to be beaten I fished on, and over the next 30 minutes I caught 3 more schoolies, plus the obligatory small pollack, all great fun to catch and all shaken off the hook with the minimum of fuss (y).

While I was catching steadily, my neighbours seemed to be struggling and apart from 1 fish hooked and lost, I didn’t see any of them catch anything. Eventually even my luck ran out, and as darkness proper descended, we were all biteless. It was around this time that the wind started to pick up as forecast, and by 30 minutes after sunset there was quite a stiff breeze blowing. This continued to increase in strength and as it did, the water got gradually rougher and rougher ?. Conditions were still fishable, but with a fresh onshore breeze blowing it wasn’t ideal, the fish tend to feed at maximum range at this particular mark but my casting distance was now seriously curtailed ?.

As conditions continued to worsen, my neighbours had finally had enough and one by one they headed for home, until I was left all alone. I still had almost 2 hours to go until high water, so I decided to battle on but shortly after this I was surprised to see a pair of headlamps heading my way! As they got closer and closer, I was dazzled several times by the beams as they shone directly at me but I tried to ignore them until they had passed. With a mile or more of coast to choose from, I assumed the latest newcomers would at least set up a good distance away from me, as the others had done, but I couldn’t believe it when they started fishing less than 10 meters away! ? Now this might be ok at some venues, but at this particular spot there can be quite a strong lateral flow across the mark. The ideal tactic there is to cast diagonally uptide and to work the lures down and around in the current. Even in perfect conditions, this requires a decent space between neighbouring anglers, but with a strong onshore breeze blowing, 10 meters was too close for comfort ?.

10 minutes or so after they arrived, the inevitable happened when the guy standing nearest me cast over my line ?, giving me no choice but to narrow down the arc of water I was covering, but thankfully that was the only incident. As it happened, they only stayed for an hour, meaning I had the place to myself for high water after all. Sadly the weather had deteriorated even further by now, and the fresh breeze blowing directly onshore, along with a moderate surf was severely impacting on my casting range and my ability to work my lures properly. As all that wasn’t bad enough, it had also started to rain! ?

Determined to add to my total, I persevered for another 30 minutes but despite choosing some of my heavier lures, to try and punch them out into the headwind, I could only manage one more missed hit before I was forced to finally admit defeat ?.
 
Hopefully get to your favoured spots when the conditions change for you. Good effort anyway
 
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