A Lucky Mistake…

I was beginning to think I had forgotten how to catch….

 

25th August and a nearly wasted trip

Again the wind has not been kind to the South West Coast of Wales. Scanning the forecast towards the end of August showed that a Saturday morning was going to be calm, coinciding with a dawn low tide I decided to give Worms Head, or more precisely the rocks around the bay another go on the lures.

 

I set my rods up the night before, one with a Gunfish for the surface and the other with the Pirate Lure Seaducer. These and all the other junk we carry for a successful trip were carefully loaded in the van and several hours later at the ungodly hour of three thirty the garaged doors rattled open unleashing me on the general populous. It didn’t wake any of the spawn because one wasn’t in yet and the other two were still awake destroying zombies. It was so early that even people on the radio could not be bothered to speak and a loop of generic pop cackled in the background until I replaced the infernal noise with Singles Going Steady by the Buzzcocks.

By the time I reached the cliff top parking I realised that the bastards had lied to me again, it wasn’t the three to four mph North Westerly breeze but what turned out to be an onshore three to five storm force. I gained this accurate information from the local BBC news via a National Trust Warden who happened to be walking his dog just as light broke. He was also interested in how I had managed to get into the field. I had stopped and paid but then driven carefully over the drop-plate from which several teeth have been knocked out making it useless. He said this was a recent event but I doubt it as it has been like it on all my previous trips. I wonder if the fall plate will be like grannies all over the country and put it’s best teeth in for Sunday next week?

I was there anyway so I made the walk to the causeway, as I strolled down the wind seemed worse. I tried a few casts with the Gunfish but the strong breeze blew a bow in the braid causing the lure to skate rather than dance seductively across the surface.

The soft plastic fared much better, although only 15g naked I had texas-rigged it with a barrel lead sawn in half, yes a cheapskate nail weight which I learned to do on the rockmarks of Clare. Even with a less stiff rod I managed to punch it out a reasonable distance but soon learned that rigging weedless doesn’t stop it dragging weed in. Shortly after the water was clouding and the weed killed every cast and once again I left the shore fishless.

It was not a wasted journey as I came across a small flock of Choughs and got close enough to get a few snaps. I know my fascination with these red beaked corvids may not be understandable being as I spent so much of my youth hunting their more common cousins with guns traps and falcons but growing up in Surreys leafy woodlands I never saw Ravens, Wild Peregrines and Choughs. Even the buzzards which seem to sit on every lamp post in South Wales would be a noticeable sight in my youth.

The Spit

I have holiday unused from work and decided early September could herald a run of Blonde ray and a week off. I would have changed my mind if I could when I saw the forecast.

With no choice in the weather but a reasonable tide I headed out to Sully to fish St Mary’s Well Bay, more accurately the Sand Spit which is a renowned South Wales ray mark.

It has been so long since I fished here I had to look on the map to see where to park. In the past I have parked down St.Mary’s Well Bay Road near the derelict building and walked down, using a small rope to get down the last drop. I have heard that the cliff has collapsed here and the path has gone, there have also been a lot of break-ins on cars left there.

I looked for the alternative which is outside St Lawrence Church which is on Fort Road. I even took the wrong path down to the beach, I should have gone through the trees and down and not back along the path.

Two hours before low water and the spit was already open and a number of anglers on it. In the past I have always fished it with locals. It can be dangerous if you are unaware of the tides and you must get on to the spit by walking parallel to the beach rather than through the mud behind the spit which can be treacherous.

Before setting my rods up I drew a line in the sand and used this as an indicator that I would need to get off before the filling tide reached the line, ensuring that I would not be cut off. As it turned out I was one of the first to leave and other staying just shifted shorewards as the filthy silt-laden waters of the Bristol Channel slowly swallowed  the sand.

As I had not fished here for a while I only walked half way towards Sully Island where as  if I were more sure of myself and the tides I would have walked as far as I could go, this area has produced more rays for me in the past but is open for less time so less time to fish it.

I like fishing with a five ounce lead but due to the tide I opted for six ounce with pulley rigs around three feet long, two 4/0 Vaivas Big Mouth Extra on the sharp end of it. I had picked up some sandeel, squid and bluey from a local shop who stock Devon Baits Ltd frozen bait. I do not recall using it before but it is some of the nicest conditioned bait I have used this year, the sandeel were firm and hooked very well.

I had a few fruitless casts with dirty squid, sandeel or cocktails of the two and decided to try the Bluey……. which with my failing eyesight turned out to be herring. My only previous experience of herring is as a pike dead bait but with plenty of elastic I managed to whip a tidy bait on. It did not help on the bite front.

The wind was cruel and lashed the spit into swirling sand devils, when I got home I looked like I had been shot-blasted.

Just after the turn of the tide I had a massive slack line bow and I wound down and pulled into something very heavy, no kick to it though and I believe it was a raft of weed pulling me in to a snag rather than a fish. I lost another couple of rigs in much the same way, pulling into snags which did not seem to be there on the ebb.

I saw a few strap conger and a tope pup caught but no rays. I walked off the spit with plenty of time to spare and am sure that I will go back later in the month.

Friars Point Barry Island

The weatherman is only right when he has predicted shitty weather and the strong North West Wind persisted all week. A few fish had been coming off Barry Island and both the left hand side of Friars and Nell’s would offer some protection and a chance to tuck in out of the wind.

I took two of the spawn to school and headed down towards  Cardiff arriving at the point two hours before high.

I set up next to the toilet……. I don’t think it is really the toilet but its a hole in the rocks that stinks of piss and had numerous wet-wipe flags fluttering in the bottom of it. Other than that the rocks were quite clean…. which could just be a result of the recent high tides and high winds.

I found a nice little slope with access to the water and a flat bit to cast from and benefited from the constant aroma of hot donuts, chips and other seaside treats which slightly masked the piss smell to the right hand side of me.

Again I have only fished here with my old friend Wayne who is struggling with the effects of a catastrophic brain injury, it dampened my hopeful mood to think of him, our past adventures and made me reflect on just how fragile we are and how destructive we areas a species. I fear for the future, not mine but possibly my children’s or their children. Our greed must be curbed and the planet given some respect before we reach a point of no return. As the Cree Indians so rightly stated

“Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last fish been caught, and the last stream poisoned, will we realize we cannot eat money.”

There is, I am told a reef of flat stone and weed that runs from Friars Point to Steep Holm so I casted directly towards the tip of Nell’s Point across the bay. The second rod I aimed at Marcos cafe, inland and dragged it back in slowly for the first part of the retrieve to map the bottom in my head.

As I was on my own, and after hearing of rods being pulled in recently,  I set the drag and ratchets on the old Penn 525 mags that I still use. I sat and waited, the wind dropped and the sun came out, smiling on the righteous and other idiots who had gone out this blustery day.

The Lucky Mistake was in fact the herring which I had mistaken for bluey, I had filleted two out and made wraps with some dirty squid. I don’t think it is vanity that makes me leave my reading glasses at home, I just have not accepted I cannot see things close up without them. In the case of herring versus bluey the lack of true seeing seems to be beneficial, and next time I will remember that bluey have pointy faces if the writing on the packet is too small for me to see.

Around an hour before high my left hand rod dropped back and a big bow of line appeared, unlike the sand spit I had seen no weed so I was hopeful as I wound down. Weight and kicking… it was a fish but what it was I was unsure of at first, staying deep like a ray but nodding in the current. It felt reasonable and after a few pumps to bring it up to clear the impending rocks a small-eyed ray broke the surface, I was pleased with the spot I had chosen and my feet hardly got wet as I landed it, I only went in to six inches above my rockboots to make sure I landed it!

I was beginning to doubt myself before this.. blanking streak beaten and a reminder not to dismiss the Cardiff/Barry marks for preference of cleaner water.

 

I should have carried a tripod, as it was the camera sat on its own strap, partially in shot, to give it the hurried elevation so I could get the fish back.

As the tide turned I was again cursed by roaming leads being dragged into the snags and losing a few rigs, this time instead of swapping reels as I would usually I just unhurriedly tied on new leaders. I do not know why I bother carrying the extra weight of spare reels.

Loosing bottom was constant but with one of these events I hooked my first shore tope of the year, all be it the size of my usual tope baits.

They are out there and I will find them over the next few years. I have a few ideas of where to look now. There may be some closer to home than I originally thought with a few Swansea marks said to produce them.

With the pull of tide the slow clicking of the ratchet was not uncommon but a few little clicks in a row followed by a slack line indicated that the herring had worked again, this felt a better fish but this time I knew it was a ray, hanging on and hugging the bottom…. god I have missed this, in the tide I could not bully the fish to come to the front of the rocks and was lucky enough that a fellow angler had seen me and was climbing down the rock to land it for me.

He was also good enough to ask if he wanted him to photograph it for me, the look on his face when I got the Nikon out of the seatbox was priceless but once I had set everything to Auto he took a reasonable picture, even if he complained that he could not see what his was supposed to be shooting.

I did not weigh either of them as I don’t carry scales anymore since the last big tope I caught bottomed out the old Avons that I have always used.  I wont replace them because the days of me worrying about what fish weigh are far behind me They were decent fish anyway, the put up a good fight and they went back to grow bigger. No one will say are you sure they weighed that much, they looked much bigger/smaller?

Size, it is just a number.

And I can still find fish….occasionally.