Travels with a Duck!

Yes, it's summer jolly holibob time again, this time camping in North Wales, something we haven't done since before Cerys arrived. I forgot how much stuff you have to take on one of these trips, a few extra bits now there's three of us, I had to invest in a trailer to get all the gear to the site.



Duck on the dash!

Only had a few fishing trips and the first was a flop, it was one of those 'I know I shouldn't do this' but did it sessions, I ended up buying bait instead of digging it, did this four years ago and didn't catch anything, did it again and didn't catch anything! Did get very wet though, chose to fish on the only wet day of the whole trip.

Lovely Welsh weather

I took my fly rod out on the next trip as the last time I fished here I caught my first Bass on the fly, I had to try and do it again. I followed the tide in as it filled the harbour and found a cluster of schoolies held up in a back eddie, the first fly I stripped through the shoal got a follow but no take, I tried again and another bow wave chased the fly, I kept at it and cast after cast I could not get a take, I swapped flies over to try different colours they just would not 'ave it'! took to long casting to these fish and being as I was on the opposite bank to the campsite I had to take the long walk around the marsh to get back to the tent. Nice walk though, saw loads of small schoolies and big Mullet working their way up some of the muddy channels, going to bring the inflatable next year and motor up after these Mullet.

Time to do things properly, went out at low tide and dug a load of the small harbour ragworm, they're really small but they work, the lure I was going to use is a modified Mepp's I worked on a few years back and it worked well, the body a mix of beads and weights with sequins between to add a flash of colour, behind this a short length of Amnesia with a size six fine wire Aberdeen hook on the end, a bunch of worms are threaded on the hook and cast out. I started in the harbour allowing the lure to touch bottom and then reeling in at a steady pace.



A tiddler on my special lure

Small Roach sized Bass

I had schoolies almost instantly but they were small, Roach sized. The odd flattie followed the lure and I had two Bass that were 'Tesco' sized, big enough for the pan but they went back, it was the best trip of the holiday and I lost count how many Bass I caught.