This weekend summer well and truly waved good bye. The forecast for Sunday was wet and windy with gale force gusts and heavy showers predicted.
So with that in mind, would I go to a cosy little fishery tucked away from the winds? Absolutely not! I went to the very most exposed fishery in the country Port Talbot Docks and sat head on into the worst mother nature would offer.
If you have read my blogs before you will know that I fish the docks quite regularly in the winter and it boasts some of the best silver fish angling around in all weathers due to it having a salt content and warm fed water from the nearby steelworks. That said, the water temp wouldn't be an issue today as temps were still decent for the time of year.
However the docks (as you may guess) are right on the sea front and we arrived for it basically resembling the North Sea!
The wind was blowing straight into our faces, which also meant the heavy rain was also lashing straight at us so the day would certainly be a challenge.
Only a few of us were fishing as it was only a little knock up, so we decided on a walk off. I drew 2 so was the 2nd one to chose a peg, so I chose the same one I did the feature on with Improve your coarse fishing.
Conditions were that poor, we set up on the platforms and waves were literally crashing into the sides and splashing up at us so it was a one rod attack today!
At one point in the match even the coast guard were out in the dock doing patrols in their rescue boats and you don't see that every day in a fishing match!!
My Champions choice feeder rod was set up with 4lb braid was the weapon and a 30g feeder and size 16 to 0.14 were at the business end.
I was clipped up at 25 turns which was in itself a big cast into the wind but a manageable distance to hit the clip.
Bait wise I had made up some pro natural ground bait and had dead reds, worms and casters for the hook and to put through the feeder.
The tip was bouncing about like you wouldn't believe due to the wind, but you could still tell that the baits were getting attacked by small roach as soon as the feeder would hit bottom. Looking around most people on the bank were bringing in small fish every cast so had the same issues.
This continued for most of the match, there was a few skimmers caught but as the match developed my travelling partner for the day Andy Neal worked out how to get rid of them and started catching the Skimmers. Andy went on to win this little winner take all knock up with 30lb of them. An awesome net on such a terrible day weather wise. After making a few changes myself I figured it out as well but not quite soon enough although quick enough to land 4 good skimmers and some decent roach to boot.
It was a very interesting day and enjoyable day, with some valuable knowledge gained on the docks ready for the coming months when I hope to be fishing it a lot more.
Unfortunately I couldn't take any photo's as conditions were just too bad, the photo above was from last year on a nice day!
So with that in mind, would I go to a cosy little fishery tucked away from the winds? Absolutely not! I went to the very most exposed fishery in the country Port Talbot Docks and sat head on into the worst mother nature would offer.
If you have read my blogs before you will know that I fish the docks quite regularly in the winter and it boasts some of the best silver fish angling around in all weathers due to it having a salt content and warm fed water from the nearby steelworks. That said, the water temp wouldn't be an issue today as temps were still decent for the time of year.
However the docks (as you may guess) are right on the sea front and we arrived for it basically resembling the North Sea!
The wind was blowing straight into our faces, which also meant the heavy rain was also lashing straight at us so the day would certainly be a challenge.
Only a few of us were fishing as it was only a little knock up, so we decided on a walk off. I drew 2 so was the 2nd one to chose a peg, so I chose the same one I did the feature on with Improve your coarse fishing.
Conditions were that poor, we set up on the platforms and waves were literally crashing into the sides and splashing up at us so it was a one rod attack today!
At one point in the match even the coast guard were out in the dock doing patrols in their rescue boats and you don't see that every day in a fishing match!!
My Champions choice feeder rod was set up with 4lb braid was the weapon and a 30g feeder and size 16 to 0.14 were at the business end.
I was clipped up at 25 turns which was in itself a big cast into the wind but a manageable distance to hit the clip.
Bait wise I had made up some pro natural ground bait and had dead reds, worms and casters for the hook and to put through the feeder.
The tip was bouncing about like you wouldn't believe due to the wind, but you could still tell that the baits were getting attacked by small roach as soon as the feeder would hit bottom. Looking around most people on the bank were bringing in small fish every cast so had the same issues.
This continued for most of the match, there was a few skimmers caught but as the match developed my travelling partner for the day Andy Neal worked out how to get rid of them and started catching the Skimmers. Andy went on to win this little winner take all knock up with 30lb of them. An awesome net on such a terrible day weather wise. After making a few changes myself I figured it out as well but not quite soon enough although quick enough to land 4 good skimmers and some decent roach to boot.
It was a very interesting day and enjoyable day, with some valuable knowledge gained on the docks ready for the coming months when I hope to be fishing it a lot more.
Unfortunately I couldn't take any photo's as conditions were just too bad, the photo above was from last year on a nice day!