The Three Amigos Meet, part one.

A short while back when Ross started catching Thornback and Small eyed Ray, Scott text me and asked if I had any time off work mid February, Scott wanted to come down and bag a Small Eyed Ray. With a little re-jigging of the schedules I managed to get four days off in a row. That started the ball rolling for the three of us arranging to meet up and fish from the 15th -19th, targeting a range of species. 

Due to the time of year a pure lure fishing fest was not going to realistically happen and I don't think Ross and Scott would have wanted that anyway, we therefore were doing a fair amount of bait fishing at night and mixing things up a bit during daylight hours. We were fairly realistic about our expectations on this meet, knowing it would be tough, after all February is probably the toughest month for any type of fishing in North Wales. The main goal was to meet, fish and have a laugh and the trip certainly ticked those boxes for the most part.

Though Ross and Scott had been fishing on Friday daytime, I met up with them Friday night after work. Although I was expecting to kick off with a Ray session, we had to opt for Rockling and Conger Eel fishing due to imperfect Ray conditions.

During the session myself and Ross both lost Conger Eels and we ended the nights session with Scott  breaking his bad run on the Rockling, with a nicely coloured Shore Rockling.

On Saturday Ross had to work and myself and Scott were left to our own devices and opted on a mark 20 minutes walk (Ross time) away from our hotel (about an hours walk by normal persons standards).

We tried both lure and Bait but could not get any fish from the Menai Straights and our lure rods quickly turned into expensive crab lines. My crabs were of course all lure caught and therefore come in better than Scotts rag worm caught specimens.

Well after the silliness we conceded defeat and grabbed some food on the way to visit Ross at Menai Angling where he works. We chatted over a coffee and met some nice folk, including a fella who was just embarking on his first light game activities. We discussed Saturday nights plans with Ross and Ross looked at us like we were loons when we said we wanted to try some light lure fishing. Taking his advise into consideration myself and Scott ended up opting for some general bait fishing whilst Ross and his mate went Conger fishing.
Scott caught some Whiting, Codling, Poor Cod and another Shore Rockling. I caught some Whiting, Poor Cod and a Codling, I also managed a long awaited lure caught Poor Cod on my lrf gear, which did please me.
Here's a couple of Scotts fish;

Here's a couple of mine;

My first Whiting that saw me beat my blanking streak.

At last, Poor Cod on a lure!

When Ross Met us later he was quite pleased at having caught two Conger Eels and a Scorpion fish, though his mate was not quite as pleased with having only caught a Dog fish.

After a few hours sleep and some breakfast, we all headed out Sunday Morning for some Pike fishing and blanked. In the afternoon we headed to Wylfa Power Station, for some mini species fishing and caught Corkwing Wrasse, Common Blennies and Tompot Blennies. It was quite a bit of fun.
Sadly I didn't catch a Tompot Blenny and my hunt for those is still on.

We lost a lot of drop sot weights at this mark! 

One of Ross's Tompots.

Sunday night we all headed to another one of Ross's Conger marks but despite one run, which I cocked up, we all blanked.
The tide starting to run concluded the first half of our trip and we headed back to Bangor for some much needed sleep.
Bait fishing is definitely not my first choice of fishing methods, but after having felt the power of those fish twice now I must admit to wanting to get into some more of those and maybe actually land one!

A report on the second half  is to follow, 'til then;
Tight lines.