Met up with another local kayaker at Bull Bay just after lunch and launched off the beach at Bull Bay - we were going to give one of the west coast marks a go for codling but the wind had picked up by this afternoon so we opted for the shelter of Bull Bay.
Paddled north to our usual coalie marks and tried trolling and jigging baited feather and shrimp rigs on the drift accross the marks. It was very quiet on the last phase of the ebb, so I then opted to drift further out on the light offshore breeze whilst my mate stayed in close and put on a conger trace and fish bait near to the cliffs out of the sun in the hope of tempting out a conger at dusk.
I had some good bites on the black lug and local herring baited shrimp rig as I drifted further out into deeper water. Didnt connect into anything and assume they were pin whiting. After paddling back inshore to meet up again we moved into the middle of the bay and i went further out again and tried a mark next to a pot buoy where we had previously had triple headers of whiting - nothing doing so as the sun started to go down we moved back towards the launch site against the now flooding tide and I tied up to a buoy over a deep hole in the main headland rip - bang, deep water and straight into fish 8-)
I pulled in a medium size whiting and saved the first blank of the year as well as photographing the first species of 2009 off the yak 8-) . For the last half an hour I pulled in four more fish of between 1/2 pound and 3/4 pound - all returned to grow bigger.
Paddled back into the beach and slipway around 30 mins before it got dark, and then spent 10 mins checking out the effectiveness of the dry suit and thermals underneath by wading out a bit with PFD still on to try out the water temp - still not too bad but toes got cold with just one pair of walking socks on :lol:
The moon was out when we came back in:
Avoiding the blank was a welcome start to kayak fishing in 2009, and end to what had been a pleasant paddle in flattish conditions in the remaining sunshine of the afternoon.
I think you have a great blog and I love to see the photographs from the kayak, brings a whole new perspective to sea fishing. I used to fish the Menai Straits and Colwyn Bay area in a boat a few years ago and caught a 12lb thornback ray on one trip. Many years ago I used to deliver chemicals to Wylfa power station on Anglesey and spent many hours looking out to sea wishing I had a fishing rod. The pictures of kayak fishing look great fun but bloody cold, keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteCheers - glad you like the pics. I caught my first thornback last summer from Cable bay - only 4lbish in weight but good sport and beatiful fish, safely returned to grow bigger.
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