Saundersfoot - Metachronisms and Mermaids Purses

Now it's always an attractive challenge to fish a new venue for the very first time and especially when the angler is question is a sea fishing novice. I've had a dabble here and there for sure and banked some seabass but there are other species I really do fancy catching.

Gobies, mackerel, garfish, flounder the list goes on !!!

There's so much to learn from all those contributing factors which you hope will combine to help you actually catch something that's well worthwhile. A Bull Huss really would be nice, seemingly a dogfish on steroids. 

But angling is one of those sports where a bait chucking novice in the right time and the right place and show up the angler with much more experience.

However there's no doubt that familiarity with a certain fishing spot breeds contempt, as the angler learns which state of tide is best, that peeler crab is the top bait and daylight hours are useless, for example. 

Much like me as a river angler I've tricks and tips for specific species and no doubt that will be the same for the salt water angler. 

Those basic rules about each venue become engraved in our memory simply because the facts and features of success and failure are remembered, so they can be repeated or avoided. 

But it usually takes a first time visitor or a novice angler to remind you that fishing is never completely cut and dried, or that a well-known venue is not without its surprises. 

There are two basic approaches to fishing a new venue. Firstly, the angler must obtain as much information about the fishing as they can. The local tackle dealer, other anglers, catch guides, coastal reports, books and videos all offer valuable information, which without, much is left to chance, imagination and logic. 

The bonus side of the instinctive approach is that you're unbiased by factual information, and some would say, it's more enjoyable than taking everything for granted. 

However, few anglers would deliberately set out to fish a new venue without any inside info. This is left to the more experienced angler, who is less likely to proceed by trial and error.

The weather had cleared nicely after the morning blank so after a wellie walk from Saundersfoot to Wisemans bridge for an ok'ish Sharp's Sea fury pint I could actually see the ground I was fishing over. 

Soft sand basically and when the tide was at its highest maybe 6 or 7 foot deep or so. Now this dark session at high tide I decided to use the 3 hook flapper rig gifted to me by Scott Harris West Wales Fishing and this time scale down the baits I used for the first session. 

So small pieces of mackerel on two of the hooks and a small section of squid on the other. Scaling down I was hoping their would be a better chance of a bite. This time whilst the Wife was watching the F1 from the USA I'd cast a little closer to the wall as well rather than to see how far I could cast the baits.

As I said in the previous post the harbour is well lit so for the travelling light angler like me it is ideal for a bit of fishing because there is no need to bring everything but the kitchen sink.  

A sea tri-pod wouldn't go amiss to be fair as the harbour wall wasn't as big as I thought it would be, luckily the benches coming to the rescue. Sam was keen as ever because he got to use his new head torch and he really wanted to catch a dogfish.

 A much calmer evening and I could have stayed there all night quite happily. There was one other angler on the main wall casting in to the deeper water but we were quite happy where we were especially when I'd seen a dogfish caught the evening before.

After half an hour it was Sam who spotted the first proper bite and sure enough a few more rattles on the tip a fish was on. Now this Angling Direct Bass rod is a stiff old thing so it didn't really stand much of a chance but with Sam illuminating the water we had a dogfish on.

Not the biggest of the species admittedly but having not seen one up close before what a fantastic looking fish. It was well behaved too as I thought it would try and wrap its body around my arm. 

The eyes particularly wow !! it was unhooked easily enough and returned to where it came from. So it saved a blanked which many a sea angler can say. That was the only fish but as we were getting to leave a couple of old boys arrived just down from us and caught two in the space of 20 minutes. We'll be back for sure.