The Apprentice

THE PUPIL
Morgan Withers is no stranger to appearing in magazines having had numerous features on his gaming exploits in PC gaming mags. Trust us, this lad can really play! He’s also well known in the gaming world for organising events too.

Although born in Tywyn, not far from his current home in Corris, Gwynedd, he did spend most of his childhood living in Sweden. Inevitably he went fishing in the local lakes catching arctic char, trout, pike and perch. Back in the UK, he’s tried a carp fishing trip, with modest success, and enjoyed that, but felt salt water might be the way to go. What made Morgan’s request so appealing to then, was that this would be his first ever time sea fishing.

He’d given the trip some serious logical thought too. He fancies fishing the local estuaries for bass, flounders and eels, just to initially get a feel for the sport, but having never sea fished before he hadn’t got a clue where to fish, how to fish, what rigs to use, and was also keen to learn about the right baits with a view to shortcutting his way to fishing success. What he wanted then was more of an instructional session that would set him up for the future, rather than a full on fishing trip.

THE EXPERT
Mike was dead chuffed to get the call from Morgan. A lot of people say that PC’s and games consoles have taken the majority of younger people away from angling. It just goes to show though, that young people are still looking to get in to fishing as well as enjoying a stint on the games console. It’s likely the lack of opportunity that’s the real reason many younger people never get to fish and that’s why the PC’s gain!

It was interesting that Mike also cut his fishing teeth on these local estuaries, but from a very early age. He reckons there is no better place to learn, simply because over low tide you can see most of the ground you’re going to fish, observe what lives on it, plus you learn to read and understand the tides. These are fundamental to getting the most out of your angling.

THE MARK
The lads chose to fish on the south side of Barmouth Harbour just inside the mouth of the Mawddach Estuary where the estuary channel narrows. You can fish it either from the end of the Breakwater on the west side of Barmouth Harbour, or from Fairbourne point on the southern flank of the estuary.

The estuary fishes best through a flood tide from late May right through to November giving good bass, flounders, eels, odd plaice, dogfish and mullet. The best of the bassing is at night, and generally you’d pick an overcast dull day if forced to fish in daylight. Plaice and mullet aside the daylight hours are not the best for fishing here.

During the peak tourist months of July and August the south flank does get packed with tourists by day, as will the breakwater, but the crowds ease off after 6pm.

THE SESSION
Mike and Morgan had obviously spoken on the phone prior to the session. Work circumstances for Morgan, with an imminent business trip looming, meant that regrettably he only had a couple of hours spare before having to leave, but was keen to give it a go. The session then fell mid afternoon over the last two hours of the ebb tide. Hardly the best time to fish.

Mike was worried about the state of the tide, but they were also confronted with a stiff force 6 to 7 westerly wind howling down the estuary, and the estuary water was well coloured after recent heavy rain and snow melt from the mountains.

As the lads were unpacking the kit from the car, Mike explained that flood water after heavy rain and snow passing down the estuary puts the fish off feeding, especially in the local estuaries which are fed by cold acidic mountain streams and rivers. Lesson one then, was to learn to watch the weather, both on the TV and out of your own window and time your sessions with recent rain fall in mind. A little rain is okay, but flood water kills estuary fishing!

With it being towards low water, Mike was keen to use a little time showing Morgan the feeder channels above the main estuary which hold big flounder over high tide throughout the summer. The flatties like to bed down on the rising banks of the deeper pools that are situated on the bends of the feeder channels. As the tide floods in, the flounder then move out of the deep pools and on to the flatter sand areas where food gets exposed as the tide pushes through.

Walking through the dunes, the lads stopped at the top overlooking the whole estuary mouth area and out towards Barmouth Harbour. Looking at the geography of the estuary channel, the mouth is wide leading in towards the harbour. Where the breakwater juts out in to the estuary the width of the channel suddenly narrows and this has created a scooped out deeper area with a mixed sand and shingle bottom. This bottle neck restriction was the obvious place to fish from as any fish that move through the estuary have to pass by your bait. Morgan was quick to realise that what he needed to do when he was fishing on his own in the future was to make sure he identified areas where fish would concentrate and then literally ambush them as they passed by.

As the lads walked down to the mark, Mike made a slight detour on to a small patch of broken ground with some weed growth on. He wanted to help Morgan get the basics of picking fresh peeler crab, which is essential to making the most of your estuary fishing opportunities.

Morgan realised that the crab would be underneath stones, but didn’t realise that even with a trained eye you can’t always see the crab when just lifting the stone. It’s always best to run your finger tips through the sand and mud underneath. Doing this you’ll feel the crab and can shuffle your hands underneath and lift them clear. This little trick produced a couple of dog crab that were thinking about peeling, but it was still way too early for a major peel after the prolonged cold winter. Mike also made a point that it’s important to replace the stones exactly as you found them to preserve life underneath, but also to maintain hidey holes for the crabs to peel in and be picked from in the future.

Morgan had already kitted himself out with a few bits including a Shakespeare Summit Bass rod and 070 sized fixed spool. He’d also bought some 50lb red coloured shock leader. The first job was to ditch the red coloured leader, Mike explaining that in estuary conditions, especially later in the summer during daylight when the water is gin clear, then either a clear or light sandy coloured leader is far less conspicuous to the fish. The same goes for rig body line and hook traces too. Mike also recommended dropping the leader strength to 30lbs to suit the rod and because Morgan would only be using leads normally between 2 and 3ozs in the local estuaries.

With the water coloured quite badly with flood water, Mike suggested a one up/one down rig, but using bright coloured float beads to get some attraction near the baits and to give them a little more movement to hopefully get them noticed. Morgan was intrigued by the coloured beads and was quick to suss and ask if certain colours were best. Mike explained that alternative blue and white beads were a good combo for flounder, with red and yellow more of a general mix picking up plaice and school bass in particular.

Mike also pointed out that it’s best to have the beads a few inches away from the baited hook stopped by a Powergum stop knot. This adds a little more movement to the bait, but also gives the fish room to eat the bait without butting up to the beads on the take.

Next was to look at the baits that produce best in estuaries. The lads had a selection of black lug, peeler crab, razorfish and mackerel. They’d already covered the fact that peeler crab is the number one estuary bait for all species. Mike explained though, that in the summer a simple mackerel strip would take good numbers of eels, the odd flounder, but was also prone to picking out venomous lesser weevers too. The lug was good standby bait for school bass, flounder and plaice throughout the year, and the razorfish comes in to its own after the September gales when they get scoured out of their burrows and wash ashore.

They also looked at combination baits such as tipping crab with mackerel in early autumn which picks out the bigger flounder in the Mawddach, and tipping lug with razorfish or crab, these being good combo baits in this estuary for the bigger autumnal bass.

Time to do a little fishing, or was it? Morgan wasn’t used to casting with the 3oz leads and asked for a little help with his casting. Mike explained a simple overhead cast and the need to make a conscious effort to look up at 40-degree angle before beginning the cast to get the trajectory of the lead right. It took a few casts to get sorted, but Morgan was quickly dropping leads out to 50yds without any effort and with straight line accuracy to give him confidence when fishing close to other anglers.

The lads only had about an hours fishing, and sadly no fish were caught. Mike was especially disappointed with it being Morgan’s first ever sea trip, but Morgan was quick to add that he now realised how important weather conditions are to catching fish and that the main reason was that chocolate coloured flood water, plus that by circumstance they were fishing at the worst possible time.

LESSONS LEARNT
Mike was quick to praise Morgan’s logic and was impressed how he’d thought out his major questions prior to the trip. It’s not often you get a budding angler realising it makes sense to spend time initially learning the basics of water craft, bait and rigs for a better payoff later on.

The main fact that had stood out for Morgan was the importance of understanding the specific areas where fish are most likely to pass or congregate, identifying these and concentrating your fishing there. Without this he admitted he would have just walked out to the nearest bit of the channel and cast out.

He also said to Mike that he hadn’t realised how important the state of tide was for fish to feed, and without chatting to Mike would have ignored this and just fished when it suited.

Having the right bait at the right time of year was also a major point for Morgan. Knowing the importance now of peeler crab when fishing estuaries he intends to collect his own crab and bait and this alone will quadruple his success ratio.

He also saw the sense in ignoring neat looking baits for the most part and using cut up baits full of juices to give the fish something to home in on.