Sea Fishing and Sea Angling Online: A Ray of Sunshine!

A Ray of Sunshine!
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Mike Thrussell on 08 April, 2008 11:20:00
 
The weather for early April has been more akin to early  January with snow
showers and bitterly cold northwest to north winds evident.  That said, fishing
wise, spring does seem to be in the air.
I had a short session on a local beach just looking to enjoy  a couple of hours
targeting flounder and whatever else was around. My  expectation levels
weren’t that great to be honest, but having not fished much  of late I was
really looking forward to it.
I fished one rod in tight at around 30yds with a simple  3-hook flapper on, and
put a two-hook clipped up rig out to maximum range. I  was fishing Kamasan
B940’s size 2 as I was expecting only smallish fish.
Local lads tell me the doggies have been scarce this winter.  Just my luck I
had two dogs on the first two casts.
I was watching both rods and saw a double pull down on the  long range one,
followed by the tip pulling a fair way over and then a hint of  slack line.
When I hit the bite I initially thought I’d got a double shot of  doggies,
but then quickly realised this was not so.
The fish was reluctant to swim and was obviously a ray  trying to hug bottom. A
short fight, resulting in the ray running off a few  feet of line tight in
amongst the surf tables, and my suspicions were confirmed  when I beached a
near 5lb male thornback that took a small strip of Bluey. I  rounded off the
night with small flounder and whiting.
The thornbacks are slowly trying to recover locally after  serious tangle
netting evident throughout mid and north Wales up until  a few years ago, and
it’s great to see them coming back. The mid Wales beaches don’t really get
the early year  run like the south side of Anglesey does, so  this ray is a
definite harbinger of spring.
That same first week of April two tope were confirmed for an  Aberystwyth boat,
and we heard unconfirmed reports of the first mackerel, which  are very early,
being caught whilst having a pint in our local, so spring  certainly looks to
be making her presence finally felt!
PAPER TALK
I’ve never been one to buy a newspaper, even at the weekend,  but a friend is
the dead opposite and he’s brought to my attention that The  Telegraph seems
to be the only national newspaper to really make an continuous  effort in
keeping their readers informed with regard to marine activities,  commercial
fishing and angling related matters.
Charles Clover is generally the author of these well written  and fully
informed articles and it’s good to see other forms of the media, not 
normally associated with marine matters, willing to make copy space for 
something other than footballers secret liaisons, murder, financial and 
political corruption, or boring celebrity divorce settlements.
PINK FOR THE LADS
The more experienced sea anglers have always known that pink  is a good colour
for artificial lures, especially muppets, and will take cod,  ling and big
pollack over wrecks, amongst others.
I remember back a few years ago when those salted pink  rubber eels from
America hit  our market and cleaned up with big pollack over the English  
Channel wrecks. You couldn’t buy any for love nor money once the  word was
out as they’d all been bought up.
During 2007 pink shads also scored with a lot of big bass  for boat anglers
over wrecks and reefs down south, but interestingly also when  spun from the
shore over rough ground marks and from the likes of breakwaters  and jetties
right along the south and west coasts. I was recently working in Whitby and
talking to one  of the local skippers there who told me that they’d had great
cod fishing over  both inshore rough ground marks and off the long range wrecks
last year, using  the pink shads.
When I’ve been fishing for cod in Iceland  and Norway,  pink again has been
the top taking colour. In hotter climes pink flies are good  for bonefish, with
pink lures, when trolled, good for everything from  roosterfish to marlin.
It’s not just confined to British waters!
No one really understands why pink is such a good colour,  but its obviously
more visible and attractive to predatory fish than our human eye  conceives it
to be and must, to fish’s eye, hold its colour far better than  other colours
at depth.
Being typical lads we all have an aversion to the perceived girly  colour pink,
but judging by past and recent results, pink is the “in” colour.  Ignore it
and you’ll miss out on some great fishing potential.