Looking at the projected weather forecast we’re scheduled to get a high pressure system pushing in from the south by the end of the week and hopefully this will settle over us for a few days and give us some respite from the continual wet and very windy weather we seem to have constantly had over the past couple of months.

Like many of you I’ve barely fished for what seems like ages now, in fact just twice in the past 5 weeks, due to the massive seas and gale force winds. But this high pressure system, if the Met Office has got it right, will see me out and about and making the most of it.

The sea will inevitably still carry some colour now for quite some time, but as seas calm off I’m expecting some good catches of dabs, whiting and flounder, so I’ll be out on mid and North Wales surf beaches with these species as my main target. I usually fish these as short night time sessions for just 3 or 4 hours over the peak time period and I’m looking to just catch a few fish and enjoy the night with no pressure on.

It’s been mild though and it wouldn’t surprise me to see some bass still about and possibly, on the right marks, even thornback rays.

The flounder will be interesting! This time period is usually good off the beaches, but with all the rain we’ve had over the past couple of months I’ve a feeling the flounder will have moved out off the Welsh and Cornish estuaries earlier than usual and will have taken up station off the adjacent beaches gorging themselves on the shellfish and worms being ripped from the sand. It wouldn’t surprise me to see some real clonkers reported for the anglers who put the time and effort in, especially over the Christmas period when the tides are smaller neaps. The flounder tend to stay close to the low water line on the neaps and the big fish are lazy and won’t move far, so you’re pitching baits to a big audience.

Last year wasn’t good for dabs, but these can go in yearly cycles and it wouldn’t be a shock if we had a good run of dabs right around the UK coast this winter, but the high temps of the autumn will see their main season pushed back to the first two months of 2010.

I doubt the whiting fishing will be much cop though. The traditional season has already peaked for numbers of whiting inshore, but you’ll find some individual big whiting will run the surf beaches behaving much like bass in the Christmas and early New Year period, so bear this in mind. Guys fishing the deeper beaches such as Chesil and Dungeness will still get some good catches, but the shallower marks lose the numbers.

I’m also intending to get out on the rock ledges, possibly in Anglesey, for the chance of a big conger, but these will be longer all-night trips fishing the full flood tide and maybe some of the ebb. I haven’t found the rocks have fished too well over the past few years, in part due to the drop in smaller food fish such as pout, poor cod and rockling, which once common on some deep water marks, now seem far less in number. I’ve no idea what’s caused this! It’s the same apparently on the Cornish rock marks where local lads tell me the smaller food fish have thinned out and they’re seeing fewer conger and huss being caught, generally speaking.

All this said, while the weather has been bad I’ve stripped my Penn 525 Mag reels and put them through a full maintenance routine readying them for cod fishing over rougher ground if the weather drifts back to wind and rain again, as I fear it may. I’ve a spot in North Wales that produces in the right conditions, but a mate and I have been thinking of nipping across to fish the Yorkshire Coast, so we might change geographical sides and head east for a change if prospects look good.

In short I’ve high hopes for some good and varied fishing over the next few weeks and aim to put the time in!