Andy 1965
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2020
- Messages
- 376
- Reaction score
- 3,442
- Points
- 93
- Location
- North Wales
- Favourite Fishing
- Lure
With mission conger kyboshed for another year due to the lockdown 
, I’ve really been missing my fishing, so on Thursday evening I decided on a session at my local beach to blow away the cobwebs. I wasn’t expecting much apart from pin whiting and rockling, but it would get me out of the house and the exercise of walking there would do me good.
After a brisk stroll, I arrived at the beach an hour after low, where my plan was to fish the rest of the flood and the first hour of the ebb. After some fairly rough seas in the morning, conditions were settling down nicely and with a moderate surf running, plus some nice colour to the water, I began to think that I might even be in with a chance of maybe a winter bass, codling or a ray after all.
Hedging my bets I fished a 2 hook flapper on one rod, baited with lug, squid and sandeel, fished either alone or cocktailed together, while the second rod was set up with a pulley dropper and bigger baits, hoping for bigger stuff. Of course this turned out to be wishful thinking, and for the first 3 hours the baits on both rods remained completely untouched.
I kept trying though and about 90 minutes before high water my patience paid off, when I finally had the first bite of the night. A series of sharp rattles suggested that a whiting had found my bait, so I gave it plenty of time to develop but annoyingly, when I eventually reeled in my bait was barely touched. Assuming that the culprits were just too small to swallow the baits, I decided to scale down my gear but as I already had another rig baited up, I cast that out to keep a bait in the water while I got myself sorted.
Fortunately I always carry a variety of rigs with me so I dug out one of those I use with the lads while scratching in Caernarfon, a 3-hook boom rig armed with size 6 hooks, which I baited up with small pieces of lug and sections of sandeel fillets.
While I was setting this up I noticed several bites on the other rod, but expecting the same result as the previous cast I didn’t pay much attention to it, so when I reeled in to change rigs I was I was very surprised to actually feel a weight on the line. As this could potentially be my first and only fish of the night, I reeled in slowly and steadily until the identity of the bait nibblers was revealed and blank was beaten with a 5-bearded rockling. On closer inspection it turned out that the fish wasn’t actually hooked, but had managed to shove so much of the bait down its throat that it couldn’t spit it out, but I wasn’t complaining .
Before casting out again I switched rigs and after 3 hours of no action whatsoever, it was like someone had flicked a switch, as my baits were now under constant attack and the rod barely stayed still! For the next hour I caught a constant stream of fish, mainly pin whiting
but I also caught another rockling, a cracker this time of 26cm, equalling my PB on size but sadly, at 5oz it was an ounce lighter than my best, I was still chuffed though.
With the big baits still coming back untouched, I tried something completely different now, and I baited up with one of the smaller pins I’d caught. It appeared that there just weren’t any big fish around though, as still no bites were forthcoming.
Regrettably, by an hour after high water the small fish also went off the feed, so with the time fast approaching 1am and with an uphill walk ahead of me, I called it quits and headed for home.
So my evening had turned our pretty much as expected, with nothing but small stuff to keep me busy, and though I was happy with my rockling, the evening hadn’t been a patch on a conger session. I can’t do without my fishing though and no doubt I’ll be back down the beach again before too long, but with only small stuff to catch, it’s going to be a looooong couple of months before I can get back to some proper fishing again .
, I’ve really been missing my fishing, so on Thursday evening I decided on a session at my local beach to blow away the cobwebs. I wasn’t expecting much apart from pin whiting and rockling, but it would get me out of the house and the exercise of walking there would do me good.After a brisk stroll, I arrived at the beach an hour after low, where my plan was to fish the rest of the flood and the first hour of the ebb. After some fairly rough seas in the morning, conditions were settling down nicely and with a moderate surf running, plus some nice colour to the water, I began to think that I might even be in with a chance of maybe a winter bass, codling or a ray after all
.Hedging my bets I fished a 2 hook flapper on one rod, baited with lug, squid and sandeel, fished either alone or cocktailed together, while the second rod was set up with a pulley dropper and bigger baits, hoping for bigger stuff. Of course this turned out to be wishful thinking, and for the first 3 hours the baits on both rods remained completely untouched
.I kept trying though and about 90 minutes before high water my patience paid off, when I finally had the first bite of the night. A series of sharp rattles suggested that a whiting had found my bait, so I gave it plenty of time to develop but annoyingly, when I eventually reeled in my bait was barely touched
. Assuming that the culprits were just too small to swallow the baits, I decided to scale down my gear but as I already had another rig baited up, I cast that out to keep a bait in the water while I got myself sorted.Fortunately I always carry a variety of rigs with me so I dug out one of those I use with the lads while scratching in Caernarfon, a 3-hook boom rig armed with size 6 hooks, which I baited up with small pieces of lug and sections of sandeel fillets.
While I was setting this up I noticed several bites on the other rod, but expecting the same result as the previous cast I didn’t pay much attention to it, so when I reeled in to change rigs I was I was very surprised to actually feel a weight on the line
. As this could potentially be my first and only fish of the night, I reeled in slowly and steadily until the identity of the bait nibblers was revealed and blank was beaten with a 5-bearded rockling. On closer inspection it turned out that the fish wasn’t actually hooked, but had managed to shove so much of the bait down its throat that it couldn’t spit it out, but I wasn’t complaining .Before casting out again I switched rigs and after 3 hours of no action whatsoever, it was like someone had flicked a switch, as my baits were now under constant attack and the rod barely stayed still! For the next hour I caught a constant stream of fish, mainly pin whiting
but I also caught another rockling, a cracker this time of 26cm, equalling my PB on size but sadly, at 5oz it was an ounce lighter than my best, I was still chuffed though
.With the big baits still coming back untouched, I tried something completely different now, and I baited up with one of the smaller pins I’d caught. It appeared that there just weren’t any big fish around though, as still no bites were forthcoming
.Regrettably, by an hour after high water the small fish also went off the feed, so with the time fast approaching 1am and with an uphill walk ahead of me, I called it quits and headed for home.
So my evening had turned our pretty much as expected, with nothing but small stuff to keep me busy, and though I was happy with my rockling, the evening hadn’t been a patch on a conger session
. I can’t do without my fishing though and no doubt I’ll be back down the beach again before too long, but with only small stuff to catch, it’s going to be a looooong couple of months before I can get back to some proper fishing again .
