Okay, so Cardiff  is the official capital of Wales,  but risking the lynch party I reckon Swansea is Wales’s  cod capital. The codding off Cardiff can be  excellent, but I’ve been checking past catch returns for the past couple of  decades, and for sheer numbers of big fish and the consistency of its fishing Swansea just has the edge.

Whilst the BBC Radio Five  Live programme Fish on 5 was still on air, I’d promised programme presenter  Nick Hancock a crack at bagging his first cod, so it’ll come as no surprise  that I elected to head for Swansea  then to get the job done.

THE DAY DAWNS
I was booked aboard Stingray.  The fishing had been a bit hit and miss just prior to the trip due to swinging  wind directions, so chatting on the phone with the skipper the night before we  elected to leave late, around 10am, but fish on through in to darkness to get  that key dusk period that can often produce a short flurry of feeding cod.

It was 9.15am when Nick, my lad Mike Jnr and myself  all piled in to Roger’s Tackle shop on the marina quay to grab our bait and  scrounge a welcome cup of coffee. There were good numbers of ravenous whiting just  offshore, so I was conscious of making sure we’d have plenty of bait as these  can quickly rip a big cod bait to shreds. We made sure we had a good choice  too, taking live black lug, some local blow lug, imported Dutch blow lug, plus  squid, cuttlefish, razorfish and mussel. I’d also been diligently keeping a  dozen or so fresh peeler.

Roger is a fishing fanatics,  and I always make a point of picking his brains for the latest info. The steady  procession of skippers and anglers coming through their door means they know  the current bait fads that the fish have and the key feeding times during the  recent tides. It all helps give you an edge when you’re out on the briny.

TACKLING UP
You’ll be fishing within 15  to minutes of leaving the quay mostly, so jumping aboard we wasted no time in  getting tackle up.

We each had our uptiders  with reels loaded with 18 or 20lb line and 50lb shock leaders. We’d be fishing  a strongish spring tide, but I’ve found casting away from the boat you rarely  need more than 5¼ozs here, though I carry a few 6oz leads with long wires, just  in case.

Simple rigs work best for  cod, so just slide the leader through one eye of a link swivel to take the grip  lead, add a bead, then knot to a size 4 Mustad Rolling Swivel and add the hook  trace.

If smaller codling up to  5lbs were likely I’d have gone for a short 3-foot hook length as the smaller  cod hit and run with a bait and tend to self hook. This winter though, the cod  have been good ‘uns averaging around 10lbs but running to well over 20lbs, and  these feed a touch slower. I prefer a longer 6-foot hook trace of 40lb mono to  give them time to take a big bait fully in before swimming away.

Most anglers use a turned  down eye Mustad Viking 79510 4/0 hook (the biggest available) for the top hook  on their pennel rigs with a 6/0 79515  below. I prefer two 6/0 hooks for these bigger cod. If you get a 6/0 79515 and  heat the shank just below the hooks eye with a cigarette lighter, you can bend  the eye over at 45 degrees towards the hook point with a pair of long nosed  pliers to make a turned down eye hook identical to the 79510 pattern.

I also make my pennel's by  forming a loop in the line about 9-inches long at the end of the hook trace,  slide on the modified 6/0, tie in a single granny knot about 2-inches below,  then add the bottom hook by passing the loop through the eye, down over and the  hook and pulling it up tight. The top hook can slide between the two knots and  be inverted for placing in to the upper portion of the bait neatly to  eventually sit in line as normal for perfect presentation.

BAITING UP
Nick has only just started  sea fishing, and I think he was shocked by the size of bait we used. Start with  a large whole black lug, slide on three or four blow lug to make a bait up to  9-inches long. Now you can add a chunk of crab, a couple of mussels, or a long  slice of squid or cuttlefish as a tippet.

I also like to have  razorfish with me and use two of these, one each side of the lug bait like a  splint and well wrapped in elastic bait thread. Cod love cocktail baits, so  don’t be afraid to mix ‘em up.

When you retrieve a used  bait, don’t strip it all off. Just slide on some fresh and push the old stuff  up to the top conveyor belt style, When the old stuff gets compacted, usually  after the third chuck and retrieve, rip some off to make room and start over.  This helps keep bait costs down a little but maintains a big bait and powerful  scent trail.

I also like to put any  punctured black lug in to a separate container so that their blood juice  collects. You can then add burst blow lug, the squid etc, in to the blood to  soak all that scent giving juice up. This makes for a more effective bait. A  quick look in the container is not for the squeamish though.

ANCHORED ON THE SWYG
The skipper fancied our  chances on The Swyg, a mark that basically consists of rock covered in coral  with cleaner patches. He set the anchor while we baited up. The tide was just starting  the ebb run, but we figured it would need to pick up some speed before the cod  fed. The radio started to chatter revealing that boats out earlier had already had  a couple of cod in the 8lb range though.

We settled in to a steady  stream of whiting. Good whiting too, averaging around a pound, but with some  much better fish between 1½ and 2lbs. We laid strips of squid down the sides of  our baits to give them something to chew on and give the lug juice time to seep  off downtide.

Other boats where moving  marks trying to find the fish, but the skipper had faith in The Swyg, and  rightly so. About an hour and half after low, Nick’s rod twitched, twitched  some more, then the line fell slack. No good pulls to signal a strong  determined bite, it just twitched. Nick  hesitated, but I bawled out, “something not right, mate! Hit it!” He did, and  was rewarded with a solid head shaking resistance that just had to be a cod,  and a good one.

It sulked, hanging tight to  the seabed before the power of the uptider forced the fish upwards. It broke  the surface, mouth agape, defiantly splashing as it entered the net. Lifted  aboard we guessed it a plump 10lber. What a cracking fish to start your cod  career off with.

Nick’s as keen as mustard  when it comes to his fishing, but catching his first cod pushed him up another  a gear. He was really concentrating hard now and an hour later got an identical  bite boating a slightly smaller fish about 9lbs. What is it about cod? Fishing  for them is so infectious.

Another Swansea skipper I’ve fished with over the  years is Dave Axtell on Seren-y-Mor. Dave called us on the radio and asked if  I’d like to take pics of a big cod they’d just boated. “Sure would!” Dave  kindly upped anchor and steamed over to us. I leapt aboard, nearly going  Arsenal over Tottenham in the process, but got the pics of a cracker around the  21lb mark.

Back to our own fishing,  after Nick’s fish, apart from the whiting it had all gone quiet. It was now  late afternoon about an hour before sunset. I’d been searching the ground on  the port side of the boat by slowly coming around in an arc with each new cast.  This can sometimes pay by locating a little patch of different ground that can hold  cod briefly as they forage.

Finally, the tip twitched. Yep,  twitched was all it did, but it looked different from a whiting so I wound in  the slack until it came tight and banged the hook in. The rod tip pulled over  and I felt that so satisfying double thump as the rod met a heavy resistance. It kept tight to the seabed, took a tad of  line as it headed downtide, but eventually showed itself for the net. Not quite  as big, but a fat 8lb plus cod taken on black and blow lug tipped with mussel.

Time passed and we watched a  cracking sunset way out west of The Mumbles. One of those fiery winter skies  that goes vermillion on the horizon as the first stars appear.

My lad, ever observant, saw  my rod tip shudder and the line drop slack. I was on it like a shot, wound in  to the fish and knew straight off it was better than my first. While I was  fighting this fish, Nick, who’d switched to a whole whiting to try and get a  big brute out hooked up on what was obviously a belter. It was on briefly  before spitting the bait. The skip netted a better fish of 10lbs for me.

No sooner had I put a new  bait out, I was in to another fish. A clone of the second at around 10lbs. Our decision  to start late to take in the early dark had paid off. We’d had three fish and  Nick’s lost lunker in the hour approaching dark. Mike Jnr dipped out on the cod  this time, but then his previous trip to Swansea  produced a 14lber for him, so he knows the score.

We’d have all happily fished  on, but the bait was about gone so the decision was made for us. It was back to  port, a pint to celebrate, and cod for supper. It doesn’t get any better than  that!