Fishing on the other side of the pond

[skinner]

It's amazing to me how we in the US take our surf fishing for granted. When I read this article about the trouble the author went to for that small fish, I felt fortunate to be living in the US.




Easy Sea Fishing at Penrhos Country Park
Posted on August 2nd, 2009 Stu
http://seafishingandwalking.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/20070721-penrhos-beach.jpg Penrhos beach - North of the coastal park

The wind continued to blow and showers were forecast so we elected to try somewhere with a bit of shelter. We’d been for a walk around the coastal park at Penrhos and had seem someone fishing north of the car parkhttp://i.ixnp.com/images/v6.2/t.gif (http://www.multimap.com/s/CgkX5dEp), just where the clay cliffs start so we parked up, donned waders and waterproofs and got going.
Weed was a bit of a problem initially as the tide ebbed from right to left and the wind blew the same direction, but once the tide turned everything became a little calmer.
http://seafishingandwalking.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/20070721-penrhos-bass.jpg A small Bass for me

This was another one of those infuriating sea fishing sessions where you know there are fish there, made even more so by the fact we could see birds diving for bait fish and we even saw a few fishing jumping, but no matter how hard we tried or what method, we just couldn’t hook into anything.
And then, while sitting and having a coffee, I noticed a slight bump on my rod but thought nothing of it as the weed and wind had been doing that all day, until it happened again – a tiny little knock.
Could this be a fish?
I wound in even more weed to find my smallest Bass yet attached to the bottom hook of my rig, a whole ragworm dangling from it’s mouth.
This was to be my first and only Bass of the hoiday but we’d found a new venue and got a fish out of it in conditions that in all honesty were probably best suited to sitting in the pub and having a pint. It doesn’t look very windy on the photo but believe me, it was blasting along the beach and after a while we called it a day as not only was the weather worsening but the tide was pushing us away from the deeper water.

http://seafishingandwalking.co.uk/2009/08/easy-sea-fishing-penrhos-country-park/

[stripermania]

I have had plenty of days of not getting hooked up. I give them credit, I would have left long ago.

[surferman]

Look at the size of some of these fish!:dribble:


http://www.henry-gilbey.com/blog/1248926431.html
You need to go shore fishing in Norway (http://www.henry-gilbey.com/blog/1248926431.html)

Posted 05:25, 30 July 2009

http://www.henry-gilbey.com/userfiles/Cod%202.jpg

Photo courtesy Phil Dale

Anybody with any interest in saltwater fishing surely knows all about the insane levels of boat fishing over in Norway, one of the finest countries on earth - they have so many big cod, coalfish and halibut for starters that it simply isn't fair. Over the last few years I have begun hearing more and more about the shore fishing, indeed we filmed a bit of it for one of my "Wild Fishing" programmes. My mate Cato keeps me informed on some incredible shore fishing as well, as does a really nice guy called Eirik who helped us when we were filming the shore stuff. I have recently been corresponding with an English guy called Phil Dale who is working at a Norwegian fishing camp in the Trondheimsfjord area, see here (http://www.skarnsundet.com/). Phil went out shore fishing recently and nailed this 20lb cod you can see above for starters - and he tells me that it's an easy style of shore fishing, perfectly suited to us Brits, plus it is cheap and easy to get there.



http://www.henry-gilbey.com/userfiles/Cod%201.jpg


Photo courtesy Phil Dale

Phil then landed this monster 28lb cod !!! I have never, ever seen a cod this big landed from the shore here in the UK, and it shows just what goes on over in Norway if you fish with the right people. This is incredible fishing, and the fact that it is off the shore makes it that bit more special in my book. Phil tells me that the potential in their area is off the scale, and he is already guiding a fair number of UK shore anglers into some tidy fish. There is no getting away from the fact that I never expect to see cod like this landed from my local south west shore again, and I know that these days I have no choice but to look eslewhere for fish like these. Norway has got the lot - incredible fishing, black metal and a stunning coastline with more fish than we are sadly ever going to have. Phil keeps a blog about his fishing exploits here (http://www.skarnsundet.com/index.php/en/phills-blog), so make sure to check it out - contact him via email here (http://javascript<b></b>:location.href='mailto:'+String.fromCharCode(112,1 04,105,108,108,46,100,97,108,101,64,104,111,116,10 9,97,105,108,46,99,111,109)+'?') if this kind of shore fishing gets you going, and he will do all he can to put you into quality fish like these cod you can see in these photos. What interests me most is that Phil is only just starting to really explore the true shore fishing potential in his area, so the mind slightly boggles at what might be possible - this is summer after all. How about the winter cod fishing up there ? <LI style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">It kind of reminds me when we were filming outside Saltstraumen and my mate Yorkie took a couple of nice cod right under his feet on a spinning rod - a really nice guy called Eirik was helping us out and told us excactly what to do. Rob did as advised, but I was an idiot and blasted a bait out "UK style" to show them how it's done back home. I never even hit the bottom at Saltstraumen itself, but I hid my shame well !! Listen to the locals eh ?
In between trying to clear a load of work, I am just starting to get my gear together for this trip over to Ireland on Saturday - as always, I am going over on the Fishguard - Rosslare StenaLine (http://www.stenaline.co.uk/ferry/) ferry. Going on the ferry means you can take all the gear you need for a trip like this, and judging from the current weather I am going to need to take everything from shorts to full waterproofs !! Please may the weather behave a little, but after seeing the news last night with the Met Office now saying their early "barbecue summer" predictions were essentially total garbage, I will just take it as it comes. It basically never stopped raining all day yesterday. Whatever we get though, I can't wait for a week's bass fishing and photography, and if we need to tuck away out of it and fish with bait, that suits me just fine. And if the weather means we can fish lures, that does me just fine as well. Anybody ever guessed that I am totally in love with Ireland ? If money was no object I would buy a house there tomorrow and spend as much time there as possible.

[porgy75]

Holy moly look at the size of that cod, you would have to go 20 miles offshore in the US to get anything even close to that!:drool:

[johnnysaxatilis]

not 20 years ago evidently. Eastern Tides by frank daignault describes 20 to 28 pound cod gettin killed from nauset beach on (yep you guessed it) Cape Cod. The fishing industry absolutely wiped them out. Reguardless, THATS A HUGE COD! ha good work ya slimy brit bugger!