The Three Amigos Meet, part two

On Monday 18th Feb, myself and Scott wanted to get down the Peninsula and lure fish for Pollock, Ross's advice was to the contrary, but we went ahead with the original plan. After arriving on the Llyn we soon discovered we should have listened to Ross, the conditions were tough and the preferred marks were inaccessible due to a four foot swell, I found myself wishing I had my wetsuit and bodyboard!

Despite the less than Ideal conditions I felt it was good for Scott to see the area, as the Llyn is such a beautiful place and I hope we can fish it together more in the summer. We did get a few fish, although they were not the quantities or size we might have hoped for.
We were all fishing quite heavy, using circa 45g drilled leads to get down and maintain bottom contact, the trace to the lure was around 60cm.

Scott was first to catch on a Lunker City Ribster.

My tiny effort fell to a Kiddy Brill Bait.

Ross on the right out fished us in his usual style.

That night Ross took us to a mark in the hope of Ray and though tough going due to having to switch to a second choice mark, Ross caught a Thornback of 5lb odd.

Scott caught a Doggie,

And I blanked! It was a chilled night though and I enjoyed the company and fishing none the less, I was also glad Ross got into a fish as he was he was not having the best of days until that point.

Being ever so slightly tired from the late night we all had a lie in on Tuesday and finished our trip with an afternoon of light game antics for mini species.

Here's a couple more pictures of fish I caught.

It was an enjoyable way to end the trip and the weather was really good to us.

Overall the fishing for the duration of the trip was tough, but having no massive expectations it didn't get me down in the slightest. Ross did a superb job of guiding us around Anglesey and I learned a fair bit in watching how he does certain things and in his explanations on tides and conditions.

The trip was not without the odd incident either, I managed to break the tip guide on my Beachcaster, Scott wrecked his Floatation suit trousers (clearly not designed for actually fishing in) and poor ol' Scott managed to lose his phone on the last session too, not good! Oh and Scott has really cheesy feet.

Despite those things, it was a good trip. We had some good fishing given the time of year, good banter and the company was also good, what more can you ask for?
Well I suppose more lure fishing opportunities, but March is just around the corner and that should see in the first run of School Bass.

I'll end the report with a curious picture of Scott, please add your captions in the comments box below.

Tight Lines!

The Three Amigos Meet, part one.

A short while back when Ross started catching Thornback and Small eyed Ray, Scott text me and asked if I had any time off work mid February, Scott wanted to come down and bag a Small Eyed Ray. With a little re-jigging of the schedules I managed to get four days off in a row. That started the ball rolling for the three of us arranging to meet up and fish from the 15th -19th, targeting a range of species. 

Due to the time of year a pure lure fishing fest was not going to realistically happen and I don't think Ross and Scott would have wanted that anyway, we therefore were doing a fair amount of bait fishing at night and mixing things up a bit during daylight hours. We were fairly realistic about our expectations on this meet, knowing it would be tough, after all February is probably the toughest month for any type of fishing in North Wales. The main goal was to meet, fish and have a laugh and the trip certainly ticked those boxes for the most part.

Though Ross and Scott had been fishing on Friday daytime, I met up with them Friday night after work. Although I was expecting to kick off with a Ray session, we had to opt for Rockling and Conger Eel fishing due to imperfect Ray conditions.

During the session myself and Ross both lost Conger Eels and we ended the nights session with Scott  breaking his bad run on the Rockling, with a nicely coloured Shore Rockling.

On Saturday Ross had to work and myself and Scott were left to our own devices and opted on a mark 20 minutes walk (Ross time) away from our hotel (about an hours walk by normal persons standards).

We tried both lure and Bait but could not get any fish from the Menai Straights and our lure rods quickly turned into expensive crab lines. My crabs were of course all lure caught and therefore come in better than Scotts rag worm caught specimens.

Well after the silliness we conceded defeat and grabbed some food on the way to visit Ross at Menai Angling where he works. We chatted over a coffee and met some nice folk, including a fella who was just embarking on his first light game activities. We discussed Saturday nights plans with Ross and Ross looked at us like we were loons when we said we wanted to try some light lure fishing. Taking his advise into consideration myself and Scott ended up opting for some general bait fishing whilst Ross and his mate went Conger fishing.
Scott caught some Whiting, Codling, Poor Cod and another Shore Rockling. I caught some Whiting, Poor Cod and a Codling, I also managed a long awaited lure caught Poor Cod on my lrf gear, which did please me.
Here's a couple of Scotts fish;

Here's a couple of mine;

My first Whiting that saw me beat my blanking streak.

At last, Poor Cod on a lure!

When Ross Met us later he was quite pleased at having caught two Conger Eels and a Scorpion fish, though his mate was not quite as pleased with having only caught a Dog fish.

After a few hours sleep and some breakfast, we all headed out Sunday Morning for some Pike fishing and blanked. In the afternoon we headed to Wylfa Power Station, for some mini species fishing and caught Corkwing Wrasse, Common Blennies and Tompot Blennies. It was quite a bit of fun.
Sadly I didn't catch a Tompot Blenny and my hunt for those is still on.

We lost a lot of drop sot weights at this mark! 

One of Ross's Tompots.

Sunday night we all headed to another one of Ross's Conger marks but despite one run, which I cocked up, we all blanked.
The tide starting to run concluded the first half of our trip and we headed back to Bangor for some much needed sleep.
Bait fishing is definitely not my first choice of fishing methods, but after having felt the power of those fish twice now I must admit to wanting to get into some more of those and maybe actually land one!

A report on the second half  is to follow, 'til then;
Tight lines.

Shimano Biomaster addition.

As you probably know I have been using a Shimano Biomaster 1000FB for my light game duties of late and I really rate the reel. At 205g it feels really quite nice on my Yamaga Blanks Blue Current 74 and is certainly a little workhorse. It's a very robust reel and has some nice features including Shimano's X-Ship.

A couple of things did bother me slightly about the reel though, the first is the excessive amount of mono backing required to fill the spool with braid, the other was that at times I was feeling I was not getting quite the distance in casting I sometimes require, even when using the infeet 83.
I considered buying a new reel and I was looking at 2000S and 2500S sized reels from Japan, (the later size is becoming increasingly popular in light game circles) financial constraints were putting a strain on that idea though. So to cut a long story short, I found out that the Japanese C2000S spools are compatible with the 1000S Biomaster and I therefore wondered if the C2000S spool would be compatible with the Euro 1000FB. After asking around and comparing the exploded diagrams I felt OK to take an educated punt and ordered a spool from the incredibly helpful people at Japan pro fishing.
I was a tad reticent and concerned the spool may not fit, but after receiving it all my fears were laid to rest.

Having a larger diameter than the 1000FB it will facilitate a slightly longer cast and certainly does not need a lot of backing. I think I shall order another spool for fluorocarbon use to as having the shallow spool should negate some of the memory issues with that type of line.

The line lay is great too and with just a few turns of 1.7lb backing, the spool loaded nicely with 150 meters of 0.4 PE Sunline Small game braid. The braid should also allow me to hit a better distance too, as I was using 0.6 PE before. Here's a picture of the reel loaded so you can see the line lay;

I'm pleased with not having to fork out for a new reel and in fact I still payed less than the usual UK  retail price for the reel including the new spool, with a little shopping around Euro sites. OK so its not the most exciting post going, but damn I love saving myself money!

Tight lines.