June

Welsh Danglers reports

June

June 1st Rock mark near Tintagel, Cornwall

While on a weeks holiday Deejay fished a nice rock mark where he had seen locals catching mackerel.

Armed with only a light rod some feathers and some small weights he went of it.

His 1st 2 sessions proved fruitless, but a frustrated Deejay decided to try it one more time on an evening high tide.

After catching 20 mackerel, 1 of which was pushing 2lb, he tried something different and dropped his feather rig down the side of the rocks into about 20ft of water.

As he slowly worked his rig up....wham!! a good take, after a decent scrap he landed a nice 4lb pollack.

After a snap or two he returned the fish and left the mark a very happy angler.

The mark Deejay fished

The best mackie of the sesh

4lb pollack

June 3rd Ogmore Deeps

Blackcat, Valleyboyo and Wilba set off for the deeps around 9am and picked up bait on the way. With the plan to fish 3 hours either side of high water

Barrelreef had to settle for catching up later because of work commitments.

The boys started fishing around 10ish without Barrelreef who was on his way.

While on the drive to the deeps Barrelreef recieved a frantic phonecall from Wilba......

"Blackcat has just had a cracking bull huss at least 8lb, hurry up!"

By the time Barrelreef arrived a photo had already been sent to his phone....nice fish.

Turned out Blackcat hooked it on his 1st cast of the day and it had taken a mackerel/ragworm/sandeel cocktail. Although Blackcat said it was very heavy but didn't fight particularly well.

It was weighed on a borrowed set of scales which didn't seem the most reliable....the scale bounced between 8lb and 10lb so a weight of 8lb was settled on but it could well have been a double??

After that we were all expecting a cracker of a day but it was not to be.

Valleyboyo landed a small whiting a little later.

Barrelreef hooked a doggie on sandeel bait around high.

Just after high Wilba had a cracker of a bite which he wound tight and struck into a good fish.

The fish seemed big and our guesses were a decent ray beacuse it wouldn't come off the bottom. Still struggling to get the fish 'up' the worst thing happened....Wilba's line chaffed the rocks and he fell backwards with a pile of loose line at his feet.

A good fish lost!! Oh well that's fishing!

Wilba didn't blank though after the earlier disappointment he had a go with the light float gear and 'landed' a shanny (common goby) we think.

Barrelreef managed another whiting and a doggie both on mackerel baits.

Besides the bull huss a quiet session with not many bites...although the weather was cracking.

One lesson learnt though....next time Blackcat says he's getting too old to carry some of the gear....no way

We won't be falling for that again, when he hooked the huss he was like a 'mountain goat on speed' getting down the rocks to land it!

Blackcat - Bull huss 8lb at least

Wilba - Shanny (goby thing)

Barrelreef - 2 dogfish, 1 whiting

Valleyboyo - 1 whiting

Blackcat's Bull huss

Wilba' shanny goby thingy

Valleyboyo's whiting

Another pic of the huss

Wilba's 'white bits' too much suncream 1st time

Barrelreef's doggie

June 17th Aberthaw ledges (by the domes) WSF meet

Valleyboyo and Barrelreef were the only 'Danglers' who managed to make this meet. We turned up and were greeted by Rockling, Seahawk and salmon and also had a brief chat with Mintos.

On our 1st trip to Aberthaw we followed the lads to the mark were we met Welshben, rock hopping robin (I think) and Gazblank. We also met Codeyejoe, who popped down but wasn't fishing. We set up and were fishing in no time. pulley pennels and rotton bottoms loaded with fresh peeler baits in the hope of a smoothie or two.

A few casts into the session and still no bites although barrel did find a few peeler crabs and some weights in the rocks and managed to hook a crab that had been pinching bait!

Unfortunatly no fish showed although one of the other lads had 2 promiding runs that resulted in one snag up and a dropped bait. Although a small boat around 250 yards offshore seemed to catch regularly!!

Even though no fish showed it was a good day out, nice weather, good company and a good 'craic'

The mark itself looked very 'fishy' and along with it's reputation of throwing up some good fish we are definatly going to try it again.

Valleyboyo blasting one out

Crab caught by Barrel

June 25th Brean sands beach

While on a camping weekend some of the 'Danglers' managed to squeeze a bit of fishing in!

The original plan was to try and fish Brean down which can throw up some good fish. After talking to some locals and the local tackle shop, we were told it was well over a 2 mile hike so that plan got scrapped.

Valleyboyo had a little walk to the beach to check it out, a long expanse of flat sand. While there he got talking to someone who told him best bait to use was ragworm and to fish 3 hours either side of high. He also said the odd bass was showing along with the odd strap conger and flatties.

Off we went with a tub of rag and some mackerel and sandeels for good measure. As we hit the beach we noticed all the lugworm casts and started to wonder if we had taken the right bait. Surely with all that lug on offer any fish would take it willingly. With no way of digging some lug we just had to try our original baits.

It turned out we were right and our baits came in untouched nearly every cast. Not surprisingly we all blanked....not for want of trying.

Besides the blank session we had a laugh and the 'Young Danglers' also tagged along and enjoyed themselves paddling and building sandcasles.

Later in the evening we got talking to the warden on the campsite we stayed, turned out he liked a little bit of fishing as well.

He explained we fished the wrong part of the beach and used the wrong baits. Fresh dug lugworm and squid being the best baits and to fish the far bottom of the beach near Brean Down. He then proceeded to show us his photo collection of decent cod, a conger of at least 15lb, and a nice gurnard amongnst others all caught from where he said.

Oh Well we live and learn!

Blackcat and Wilba setting up

Valleyboyo 'concentrating on his rod again!'

Barrelreef enjoying the evening

Blackcat watching for even the tiniest twitch

'The young danglers' enjoying the beach

4 of the Danglers - Wilba, Valleyboyo, Blackcat and Barrelreef