Shooting Times & Country Magazine
Pray to the fishing gods
Gethin Jones goes on a spectacular earlymorning foray for bass on the fly, but things don’t quite go as he’d hoped they would
The essence of a truly wild sporting challenge is to engage in the pursuit of your chosen quarry, whether fur, feather or fin, when the odds are stacked in favour of the prey. You have to be blessed with a degree of luck in order to triumph. It was with this ethos in mind that I decided to head out for a late-season attempt to catch bass on the fly, at one of my favourite spots off Pen Llŷn, Anglesey.
The forecast for my morning wasn’t the best, and recent autumnal squalls meant that my usual marks on the south-facing coast were unfishable. With a gentle southerly breeze predicted for Saturday morning, I’d have to find a mark on the north-facing coast in order to cast a fly into calm, clear water where the bass might be feeding. I headed due west to Porthdinllaen, a shallow, sandy-bottomed bay where a rocky promontory stretches northward into the Irish Sea — a point so far west that it’s closer to Wicklow than Wrexham.
There’s an Irish feel to this part of Wales. The name ‘Llŷn’ comes from the Irish ‘Laighean’, the Gaelic tribe that inhabited modern Leinster. Whitewashed cottages punctuate the lush green landscape of small, stone-walled fields and I listened to RTÉ playing Irish music on the last few miles of the journey.
Fly-fishing for bass is highly weatherdependent, with ideal conditions being flat, calm water, with not
much wind blowing “just over your left ear”, as one fishing pal puts it. In such conditions it’s often possible to watch bass feeding just below the surface, where enticing swirls and occasional splashes mark the presence of these predators of whitebait, sand eels and joey mackerel. There had been recent reports of mackerel caught around Pen Llŷn, which meant that bait fish were still around and therefore I hoped bass would be too. I planned an early-morning foray as bass can often be caught when it’s still dark.
Heightened instincts
There is something magical about that period in the half-light, morning or evening, whether fishing or fowling. Your hunting instincts are heightened by the shift between night and day and the almost magical changes that take place. This is the time when woodcock return from their nocturnal feeding to seek thick cover. This spellbinding interval has no fixed time span, but you can sense when it starts and finishes just as clearly as the wild creatures whose behaviour it governs. It may last only 10 minutes or go on for an hour, but its beginning and end is like a tap being turned on and off.
I’d found a fly-rod perfectly suited to the job in Mortimers of Grantownon-spey a couple of weeks previously. It was a well-used Shakespeare — I’m loath to use new or expensive tackle in saltwater — 10ft 6in long, which seemed to work well with a fly reel loaded with a seven-weight line. Although my intention was to catch
“There’s something magical about that period in half-light”
a bass on the fly, I took along my 8ft spinning rod as back-up.
Getting out of the car, I could just make out the shapes of Yr Eifl and Garn Boduan against the black, star-lit sky. My eyes scanned the bay below, trying to gauge the effects of the breeze, which was stronger than forecast. It was just about high tide and I’d have to choose my spot carefully when wading into the sea as I could see there was a strong swell.
Underwater
The sky grew lighter as I walked along the track that meanders through the golf course that sits atop the peninsula. Rabbits scuttled into bushes as I made my way beyond the collection of houses, jammed between the narrow, sandy beach and the steep, grass-covered cliff. The tide was higher than anticipated and the beach where I’d hoped to wade was well under water.
I scrambled down a narrow path toward the tip of the rocky promontory and, leaving my spinning rod behind, made my way through the boulders and into the water. In the lee of the cliffs, I was out of the wind and there was a gentle ripple on the surface around me. So far, so good.
Powerful swell
However, what I hadn’t expected was the swell, which more than made itself felt. The water was rising worryingly around me, even though I was wearing my neoprene chest waders. Wading further to where there were some interesting-looking rocks that bass love to lurk around became difficult, if not dangerous, each time the swell came in.
Neoprene is very buoyant and each wave threatened either to push me over or lift me off my feet. I managed a few casts and eagerly looked for signs that the water was dropping, but the powerful swell seemed as threatening as ever. I decided to beat a retreat and clambered on to some rocks to try a few casts into the bay.
On the rocks, at least I was now clear of the swell. But my preference when fly-fishing, whether for bass or trout, is to be waist-deep in water. Hooking and playing a wild fish when you are immersed in its habitat adds immensely to the whole experience and, with a landing net to hand, avoids taking the fish out of the water for too long, which is an important welfare consideration.
I felt a tug on the line, then it went dead. I took up the slack and again felt a tug. I could tell right away that this wasn’t a bass, as even a small school fish will pull like it’s trying
to take the rod from your hands. I could feel something on the line, but whatever it was wasn’t putting up much of a fight.
When the fish came into view, all was clear. I’d hooked a small pollock. A big pollock will offer resistance and they are excellent eating, but their smaller brethren give up the ghost easily. It felt as though this one was bringing in a clump of seaweed. I released him, with a hope that he’d tell his bigger relatives to try my lure.
A different approach
Time for a change of tactics. The south-westerly, now gusting strongly, meant that the usually productive west-facing marks were simply unfishable due to the waves crashing on to the headland. I had to find somewhere sheltered. I happened upon a north-facing cove where I could get down to the water’s edge.
I left my fly-rod behind and took my spinning rod and a selection of lures. The tide was dropping and there was a strong current flowing from my right as I looked at the swirling waters. A motley gang of cormorants had gathered on the rocks 60 yards away, some standing with wings outstretched while others were taking to the water and looking for fish.
Time was now against me. I reckoned I had around 40 minutes at the most to catch a bass. The sun was high above the hills and the dropping tide meant that the perfect feeding time for bass in these waters would soon end. I could now cast in a wider arc and, by changing lures, could probe the waters around the headland at different depths.
I was retrieving only my fourth cast when I felt the unmistakable lightning strike of a bass taking the lure. I immediately raised the rod tip and could see that the fish was strong enough to put a serious bend in it. My Mitchell reel strained as the fish took line from the spool while I kept the line taught and rod tip pointing skyward.
Slowly, I managed to retrieve some line before he made another run and stripped more of it. My pulse raced as I felt the bass pulling hard and scrambled thoughts turned to how I might land the fish with only bare rock around me and no recourse to using my landing net. Another strong pull came from the bass, with me gripping the rod more strongly than ever, and then… nothing. He was off.
With a deep breath, I retrieved the lure from the swirling waters. Had the last 30 seconds really happened? Resigned, I cast my lure toward the same spot where I’d hooked the bass in the hope that another might take it, but realised the magic moment had come and gone. Buoyed by optimism all fishermen must have, I continued casting for another 20 minutes as the swirling waters of the dropping tide reflected the rays of the sun that was now high in the sky.
With the excitement of hooking the bass a mere memory, pangs of hunger made themselves felt and I decided to cut my losses and head home for a fried breakfast.
Climbing to the top of the cliff from where I had a spectacular view, I doffed my cap to the fishing gods in thanks for a great season. Landing a bass hadn’t been granted, but when you are pursuing truly wild quarry in spectacular surroundings, such realities become somehow much easier to accept.
“I felt the unmistakable lightning strike of a bass taking the lure and raised the rod tip”