I sorted my gear out on Thursday night and loaded up the car with kayak, a bass plugging rod and a 30lb class diawa boat rod for the tope. I was up at 6am the next morning and after a brief breakfast I left at 7am. By 8.45 I was outside the tackle shop in the centre of Tywyn where I met up with Nifty waiting for bait. The cafe next door was open so it would have been rude not to have stashed a bacon butty and hot coffee down whilst we waited for the tackle shop to open
The shop opened at 9 and we plundered the freezer of most of its frozen mackeral along with some squid and other essentials. We parked up at the bridge and geared up on the small beach whilst waiting for the still flooding tide to start subsiding. We launched into the river around 10am but still had a hard paddle against the still flooding tide in the final section of the river, but it was nice to see the low wind and large tide meant there was no wall of surf to encounter at the entrance
We paddled out to the tope mark, and anchored up about 80 yds appart over a deeper water trough running through the reef. First time anchoring for me in the scupper pro so I was pleased it all worked out ok with no dramas, and we both sat back to wait for some tope action with the reels out of gear and the ratchets on.
It wasnt long before Nifty was first off the mark with the first of the dogfish coming up. Once the whole mackeral fillet was bitten and released a bigger scent trail you couldnt keep the dogs away until you swapped it for a fresh whole fillet. I pulled I my first couple of dogfish, and downsized the bait to fillets and squid for a while until I got board of the constant bites and hauling the ugly dogs in. At least the use of a barbless hook meant that they were easy to unhook and release unharmed.
I put a whole fillet back on the hook after the ninth or tenth dogfish had been put back, and sat back in the morning sun, enjoying the view accross the mountains and south to Tywyn. The silence was broken by the loud sound of a ratchet screaming away and Nifty shouted "tope on". I quickly pulled my line in and up anchored carefully before paddling like mad accross to Nifty, who was enjoying the tope doing 360 degree circles around his kayak and anchor line I managed to take a couple of video clips of the action before getting in a bit closer to take some pics of Nifty bringing the tope on board for unhooking and a photo shot I had never seen a tope caught off the kayak before and took a good note of how Nifty handled the shark and then let it back into the water on the other side of the kayak. Approx size of around 30lb - not the biggest caught off Towyn from the kayak but it was one of the younger more feisty type that wanted to try and escape Nifty's love embrace
http://s65.photobucket.com/albums/h225/moniar/?action=view¤t=niftystopevid2.flv
http://s65.photobucket.com/albums/h225/moniar/?action=view¤t=niftystopevid3.flv
After that major excitment, I anchored up again slightly further offshore from Nifty as the ebbing tide started gathering some pace. I sat back for another hour, interupted by the odd adrenaline rush of the ratchet clicking when something took half my whole mackeral bait with one bite. As nature was calling and my legs needed a stretch, I headed in to the shore for a bit to eat and a stretch.
I paddled back out to the tope mark where Nifty had had no further action in my absence, and anchored back up. I sat back in the kayak contemplating whether I really wanted to hook a tope or not, and concluded that it would be rude not to at least try to catch one, given that Nifty had been giving me hints on dealing with them all day. I was so relaxed and laid back that the first scream of my ratchet didnt really register with me Zzzzzzzzzzzz! until it turned into ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!! oh sh*t! that wasnt a dog fish! I let it run for a few more yards, raising my arm to Nifty to confirm that I had action, and then I eased my thumb onto the spool and prepared for the thump and weight of the tope - nothing! It had dropped or taken the bait. My heart rate started slowing down, and Nifty shouted over some advice to leave it a few minutes in case it came back for the bait. I sat there, now very alert, for 10 mins, then reeled in to find that the whole of the mackeral bait had gone leaving just a shiny hook. Feeling pleased that I had had my first ever tope run, I rebaited with another whole mackeral and sat back again waiting. Unfortunately, there were no more runs for either of us, and in late pm just before the tide started to flood again we headed further in shore. I put the plugging rod into action and trolled a jointed thunderstick lure 30 yds behind me to see if there were any bass around to be tempted. We paddled in and around some large boulders and over the shallow part of the reef, before calling it a day for the fishing and beaching at the river entrance.
It was a long hard slog back up the first part of the river which was too fast and too shallow to try paddling so we dragged the kayaks up the shallows, until we could finally paddle up the final stretch against the current to the bridge.
We then decided to carry on up river for about a mile to do some nature spotting, and saw a variety of mullet and wild birdlife as far up as the lake.
As we paddled back down to the bridge and dragged the kayaks back up on the beach we met up with MarcJ who had just arrived in his campervan for the weekend. It appeared that a good crowd of other kayakers were on their way up there for the weekend too, all hoping for a tope or two. I left Nifty and Mark and headed back south down to Lampeter after a brief chat.
Hope there will be further tope tales after this weekend and some more pics. Another month and I will be back for that tope
