Swansea is one of my favourite ports. I love winter cod fishing and Swansea ranks amongst the very best for Britain's favourite fish.

The modern marina sports a popular charter boat fleet and access from inland via road is easy with the M4 motorway close by. Swansea is also home to vast array of smaller private vessels enjoying the quality summer and winter fishing on offer.

WHERE TO FISH
The ground off Swansea is a mix of clean sand and mud, rough ground patches, reefy ground consisting of coral, and further out undulating sand banks.

One of the more popular areas is the Outer Green Grounds which gives some of the bigger post Christmas cod. This lies more towards Mumbles at the outer edge of Swansea Bay itself and is made up of mixed ground amongst sand.

Another noted area is the White Oyster Trench. This is a deep gutter running parallel with the shore on a line set between Langland Bay and Pwlldu Head with a depth up to 100-feet. The tide run here can be bad and few boats bother to work this area in anything over medium sized tides.

Also rated are the distant Scarweather Sands, a good bass and ray mark, plus the Kenfig Patches to the south-east, again sand but holding turbot to 4lbs with occasional 10lb plus fish and quality rays.

The beauty of Swansea is that most of the popular marks are within Swansea Bay itself and only a short steam of maybe 20 minutes is required to reach the prime fishing grounds. Just long enough to tackle up before the skipper sets the anchor.

SPECIES
The cod move inshore during mid to late October officially, but a few earlier fish are intercepted, a vanguard of the main shoals. The prime months are from mid November through to mid January, though the cod stay until April some years.

There's a chance of a 20lb cod during December, but the bigger 30lb and the occasional 40lb cod, like the one featured here, show from mid January through to late March.

April can be quiet month, but by May small-eyed, spotted and thornback rays are showing in good numbers. These stay pretty much through to Christmas. The deeper water offshore also holds blonde rays to good size.

Tope move in during late May and June with fish to over 50lbs on the cards. The same period sees good bass working the sand banks and staying through to the autumn. From June, you'll also intercept smoothound until late August and plaice.

Mackerel make a showing in June and by the end of the month encourage a few porbeagle sharks within range. The porgies stay until late July before heading out and north. Catches of shark recently have fallen due to both commercial pressure and some individuals killing sharks for their food value, a practice that is now frowned upon by the professional skippers.

The reef structures hold black bream through the summer, and give a year round procession of conger, some of these touching over 40lbs and accompanied by bull huss. Turbot and very occasional monkfish show over the sand and sand banks.

The offshore wrecks can give excellent pollack fishing at times with fish well in to double figures. This is a high summer sport, and the wrecks also produce out of season cod, huss, and big conger. No boats seem to target the wrecks in the late winter period due to the weather, but you have to wonder just how big some the resident cod go to on these.

The swing to winter arrives again with the influx of whiting that appear in numbers from early September. Dabs are an alternative target from October when they move tighter inshore over the clean sand off Swansea itself and off Aberavon Sands and Porthcawl.

TACKLE
Even inside Swansea Bay the tides can run with some force on the bigger spring tides. For this reason, most anglers favour fishing with an uptide rod and casting their baits away from the boat. I'd suggest a 3 to 5oz uptider for the summer fishing when after bass, rays and tope, but opt for the heavier 5oz to 8oz version for the big winter cod. A multiplier reel like the ABU 7000C is ideal when loaded with 18lb line.

Carry leads of 5ozs, 6ozs and 8ozs with breakout wires and fixed grip wires. These will see you through anything the tides can throw at you providing you let out enough line immediately after the cast.

For downtide fishing, choose a 30lb class rod and reel holding about 300-metres of line. You'll need leads up to a pound. This tackle is suitable for trotting a big whiting or pout live-bait back from the stern of the boat to target conger and big winter cod.

For the bream, a lighter spinning rod handling leads up to 3ozs and either a multiplier or fixed-spool reel and 10lb line is perfectly adequate and gives maximum fun.

The best rig for both uptide and downtide fishing is a long and low rig with the hook trace of about 36-inches (90cms) fixed just above the lead to keep the bait tight to the seabed. Hand the bait on the grip wires of the lead for uptide casting to protect other anglers in the boat.

TIDES
For the offshore wrecks, choose only the very smallest neap tides. The drift is slowed down to acceptable levels on these and the fishing time is maximised.

The medium tides produce summer bass, rays, tope and bream well enough, but for the winter cod you need the medium to very biggest springs. Personally, I choose only the biggest springs as experience has shown that the best numbers of fish are inshore and feeding at this time.

The same applies to the sharks. These move in with the mackerel shoals that come tighter to shore during the bigger spring tides. The shark fishing is done on the drift, though I think that boats who experiment with anchoring during the neap tides could do just as well for the duration of the shark fishing season.

BAITS
Anglers here will tell you to fish only black lug baits. This is true of the lug has not been gutted as they still have all their juice when added to the hook and put lots of scent in the water. If you only have gutted black lug, then buy some fresh blow lug and add a couple or three of these to the bottom of a black lug bait. This adds enough juice to already bulky bait to bring the cod homing in.

Worm baits also take whiting, dabs, dogfish and host of other species including the summer plaice. Fish baits are good for the rays and conger, but they also take whole small fish well when down-tiding.

Over the inshore reefs, any bass will take large worm baits or peeler crabs, but over the sand banks the killer bait is live sandeel or whole live pouting. Late in September a switch to whole squid can pick out a specimen 10lber.

For the wreck pollack, carry an assortment of Redgill artificial eels in sizes 112 and 172mm. You need all black which is the most reliable, blood red, all white and a few mixed blue/white or green/white colours.

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