LLANGENNITH REVISITED
This beautiful part of the Gower Peninsula is noted for its bass and flounders in autumn
Given just the correct conditions, many surf beaches, – that is westfacing beaches – such as beautiful Llangennith on the Gower Coast, can be a very productive for bass and flounders through the autumn months.
Depending on the location, you can catch several other species too, including dabs, soles, dogfish and golden grey mullet.
It was back in the early 1970s when I first fished at Llangennith, when a small group of us camped on Burry Holmes, a tidal island situated at the northern end of the beach. We spent the better part of two weeks fishing from the island and the vast expanse of golden sands, which run for several miles in a southerly direction to the cliff-top village of Rhossili.
Bass were always the main target species. While spinning lures or legering freshly-picked peeler crabs were our methods of choice when fishing from the rocky island, a generous helping of freshly dug lugworm or razorfish was the key to our success when targeting bass in the surf.
I’ve fished Llangennith almost every year since those distant halcyon days, and those who know me will vouch that this is my favourite British sea angling destination.
MAGIC MADDIES
I still enjoy fishing for bass, but increasingly target other species, and, consequently, in recent years I have used maddies almost exclusively for bait. Known elsewhere as harbour ragworms, or mudworms here in the Principality, these tiny ragworms are a deadly bait for many species.
What surprised me when I started using maddies on Welsh surf beaches was the amount of bass that I caught on them. Invariably, you catch a lot of undersized schoolies, which at times can be a real nuisance, but maddies not infrequently tempt much bigger fish.
I have found that the trick when using maddies for bait is to cram as many worms on to each hook as possible. Depending on the size of the worms you have, look to get at least six individual worms on a size 4 hook, the more the better.
They are a bit fiddly to use at first, but with practice the baiting up process becomes second nature. Simply impale each worm head first on the hook and thread it for about half an inch before exiting the worm’s body and moving the worm around the bend of the hook and up the shank, followed by a second, third and fourth worm and so on.
Many shore anglers use baiting needles when fishing with maddies. Of course, lugworms, both blow and black, remain an excellent bait for surf bass, as are razorfish and pretty much any other type of shellfish when available, while whole sandeels or squid can be deadly if fishing specifically for better-quality fish.
TACKLE CHOICE
When fishing a surf beach, I typically use a light beachcaster or bass/estuary-type rod rated for casting 2-4oz, which I like to match with a small multiplier loaded with 12-18lb of clear or natural-coloured monofilament line. Continental-style surf outfits used with fixed-spool reels are increasingly popular, especially with match anglers
I keep my terminal rigs as simple as possible and typically use a single or twohook paternoster tied with reasonably long hooklengths, say 12-20 inches. I use longshank Aberdeen hooks such as Sakuma 430 stainless in sizes 4-6 if fishing maddies, but change to larger 1-2/0, when using lug, razorfish or a sandeel.
One worthwhile accessory well worth investing in is one of those funky little plastic bait boxes that can be worn around the waist. The one I use is made by Plano, and is perfect for baiting up when standing in the surf.
BEST TACTICS
My favourite time to fish at Llangennith is during the last couple of hours of the ebb tide, followed by the first hour or so of the flood.
Other hugely experienced anglers prefer to fish the flooding tide up to and over high water. Indeed, most matches scheduled along this beach are planned to coincide with this stage of tide. I have found that the most productive tides are mid-range, ideally on a rising sequence of tides.
The biggest mistake many anglers make when fishing a surf beach is casting too far. The standard advice when I was growing up was to ‘cast beyond the third breaker,’ and that advice still holds good today, especially for bass. Typically, look to cast 40-60 yards. If you are wading, which is how I like to fish a surf beach, often there will be times when fish are swimming about your feet, so a cast all but parallel to the shore line may be all that is necessary.
Most of the images taken to illustrate this article were shot during my latest trip to Llangennith, in the company of top Welsh anglers Joe Arch and Roy Tapper. Conditions for a day’s surf fishing were perfect, with a gentle Atlantic swell pushing a clearly defined line of shallow rollers onto the flat sands. A south-westerly wind and low cloud was the icing on the cake.
Unfortunately, the fish didn’t respond as we had hoped, but we caught numerous small bass, some plump flounders and several hard-fighting golden grey mullet, but for some unknown reason not in the qualities we had hoped for. Maybe next time.