My second 'Danglers' trip in 7 days, and a change of venue - Aberystwyth, after tope and bream.
With an early start, we boarded Aldebaran with a bitterly cold Easterly blowing. Within minutes of leaving the harbour, Dave the skipper put us over some mackerel, and we feathered up, just enough for the tope fishing. While feathering, up came herring, pollack, whiting, and a greater weaver.
With a few dozen mackerel in the boat, we steamed West, and after an hour or so we anchored up on the tope ground. Within minutes, up came the 1st of many doggies, followed by some cracking bull huss (well into double figures).
It was over 2 hours before we had the 1st tope run, and Del reeled in a lassoed tope of 23lb. We had a further 6 tope runs, but only a further 3 were landed.
Del's 23lb'er
Clive with the biggest tope of the day - 31lb.
After a few more hours on the mark, and numerous big huss, and nuisance doggies, we headed towards a bream mark Dave had lined up for us. A 30 minute steam East and the anchor was sent down. With only one or two small bites after 15 minutes, Dave decided a move was needed, and guided us about half a mile North (on the same reef), and down went the anchor for the second time.
Practically before the anchor had taken hold, I was reeling in a double shot of bream (1.5lb) and pout. Next drop, a double shot of bream, which more than justified Dave's move. There seemed to be plenty of bream on the mark, despite it being early in the season, but the problem was getting through the pout & poor cod!
A couple of hours non stop action, and a drift or two over the reef later, it was tim to head home. On the way in, Celtic Wildcat cruised past us on her way back in. We had been very lucky with the weather, as the wind had died down and the sun had come out to cap off another excellent danglers trip - with 16 species to boot!
Species Caught - Mackerel, Whiting, Pout, Poor Cod, Black Bream, LSD, Bull Huss, Scorpionfish
Other species caught on the boat - Tope, Greater Weever, Herring, Grey Gurnard, Red Gurnard, Codling, Pollack.
Next Dangler trip for me will be Aber again, but on Celtic Wildcat.
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