HOUSE OF FUN
With its repuation for consistent winter fishing on the River Dee, it would be madness to ignore Mostyn…
Why you should visit Mostyn in North Wales.
TACKLE
This being an estuary mark, the tide, even on the neaps, can hammer through, and you have the steep and deep nature of the rubble and stone to contend with on the final retrieve.
Most anglers use either a 13ft or 14ft European-style beachcaster with a 7000-sized fixed-spool reel for its fast retrieve. Load the reel with 30lb braid and a 60lb braid leader.
Alternatively, go for a standard 4-6oz beachcaster and multiplier with 20lb line and a 60lb leader to combat the conditions. Braid can give you an edge on the bigger tides because it cuts the tide flow better, needs less lead weight to hold bottom, and catches less weed.
Lead weights need to be breakout wire types. Carry 5oz and 6oz, but if you want to fish the bigger tides, then have some 8oz fixed-grippers as well. Some anglers like lead lifts as these will help lift the sinker quicker on the retrieve and bring it over the top of the shelving rubble, but I find a fast-retrieve reel, such as the Penn 525, or a big fixed-spool reel, more than enough to keep me away from the snags.
When you’re playing a better fish, it’s easy for the fish to get the line or leader rubbing over the snags. Getting right to the water’s edge and holding the rod out at an angle helps to avoid this.
RIGS & BAIT
For general fishing and targeting a multitude of species, I’d opt for a one-up, one-down rig armed with size 2 Kamasan B940 Aberdeen hooks, or a similar pattern. The lower hook hard on the seabed will pick up a lot of flatfish, along with codling, with the second higher hook often picking out the free-swimming whiting.
If you want to target whiting, but still have a chance of a flattie or codling, then three-hook rigs work well. The codling are not big and can be very hit and miss but you get the odd three-pounder, therefore there is little need for Pennell pulley rigs. If a run of cod shows, then I’d stick with the the one-up, one-down rig, but increase the hook size to 1/0 or 2/0 and use bigger baits.
I like 20lb fluorocarbon hooklengths here because they are stiff enough to avoid tangles, heavy enough to minimise abrasion, but light enough to keep some movement in the bait.
Black lug is the staple bait and will catch all the typical species, but tipping with a couple of blow lug can give you that little edge when it comes to picking out a better codling if the water is carrying more colour than normal after a good blow.
There are mussels growing on the steep rubble bank, so fresh or frozen mussels can be a good bait, and it’s worth tipping small lug baits with a mussel, again to pull in a few more fish and to target any codling. Mussels on their own will take winter dabs and early spring plaice.
For dabs, sticky black lug is the top offering, and this, along with blow lug, will take early plaice from the end of February. Lug gets a lot of the smaller pin whiting, but if you fish
either a strip of mackerel, Bluey or squid, or especially half a small sandeel, you’ll target the bigger fish better.
GROUND FEATURES
The channel is deepest towards the chemical plant where a muddy beach is evident and where the sloping sea wall begins, then it really shallows as you approach the eastern Fun Ship end.
There are mooring buoys in the deeper channel and this can be a good place to start as the chains securing the mooring buoys have seed mussels growing on them. Smaller fish use these chains for some protection from predators.
You’re casting on to mainly clean sand off the rubble, but this rubble carries on right down to meet the sand and can go a little way out, too, so don’t assume it’s a straight fault line, it is erratic in nature.
The demarcation line where the stone meets the sand is a good place to drop a bait because fish passing through use this to swim along as food will collect here. However, you need to remember to lift your gear up quickly and at speed and keep it coming to avoid getting snagged.
Casts of no more than 50-60 yards are required, which sees you fishing on an inclined featureless sandbank that gets deeper the nearer the rubble you get. Fish do stay on this bank, so do not ignore it. In reality, the fish are fairly evenly spread along the seawall’s length.
MAIN SPECIES
The whiting vary in size here. In daylight you get pin whiting, but as dusk falls bigger fish come on the feed. If you fish a three-hook rig, then I’d suggest casting out a little way up the sandbank in front of you. Let the line come tight to the rod in the rod-rest, and then release just enough line to form a bow. This bow will ensure all three hooks are close to the seabed and in the killing zone.
Watch the bow in the line for lifts and drops as fish take the bait. If you fish a tight line at fairly close range, at least one hook will be too high in the water and out of this all-important feeding zone, especially in the deeper parts.
Night tides can be very good for the better codling and the bigger whiting. The water always carries some colour, especially after a good blow with some north in it when it really colours up. This keeps daylight fishing fairly consistent. Dabs and plaice can be found in the deeper channel during the smaller neaps, but during the bigger tides they move up on to the bank a little where the tidal pull is weaker. This is also a good spot for the first plaice from late February onwards.
There are some good flounders taken up to Christmas and even into early February. They show right along this section of seawall, but the better results come from the shallower water towards the Fun Ship where the channel is shallower and there seems to be more mud in the sand at close range.
CONDITIONS
It is thought that after heavy rain in the hills of North Wales, the flood water reaching the estuary pushes the fish out and ruins the fishing. However, many local anglers say while it does have an effect above Flint to the east, here, where the estuary is at its widest, the effect is much reduced.
As on most marks, wind direction can have an effect. The seawall protects you from strong and even gale-force south to southwesterlies and these, and a west wind, can fish well. Northerly, and especially easterly, winds can see the fishing drop away.
Your 5oz and 6oz lead weights will hold on the neap tides for most of the time, but on bigger tides, with few other anglers in close proximity, then uptide into the current, release a good amount of line until it’s pointing directly in front of you and fish a big bow in the line to keep anchored down during the peak flow periods. Mostyn is a reliable winter venue for a variety of species, and produces when other marks struggle. ■