Conwy Estuary 05/03/2011

Every time I have visited Conwy, I've always thought about fishing the estuary and mud flats.
I had heard rumours that there was some Coddling and some School Bass in the area, so now was as good a time as any.

I deliberately didn't want to fish the area within the harbour due to the amount of people, noise and disturbance going on, as part of the reason I go fishing is to get away from all that.

I chose and area by the marina, near the beacons, where the estuary runs into a deep channel. On a full tide, this section becomes deep and fast flowing, on a low tide, it's quite narrow but still deep and fast flowing below the surface.
The plan was to fish either side of the channel and hopefully catch the fish as the swim up and down.





I set up on a small sandy section, about 50 yards from the car park. It seemed pretty quiet so I was quite chuffed.
I got the first rod set up, baited the rig and cast to the far side of the channel. I was using 6oz grip leads to hold bottom, so hitting the other side wasn't a problem.
The second rod was set up, with the same rig, weight and bait, but cast around 30 yards.
For bait, I was using a mixture of Black Lug, Ragworm and some frozen Peeler Crab, which I used to tip off the worm. Rigs where small hook 2 and 3 hook flappers with long hook lengths to allow the bait to move in the water.

The action was slow to say the least with crab activity constant all day. Matters didn't improve when a few people came down and started throwing rocks into the water around 30 yards from where I set up. A few choice words where spoken!

As the sun set and the tide started to come in I had my fingers crossed that the crabs would disappear and the fish would soon show.

On bringing in one line, I could feel a little resistance. On landing the rig and lead, I had hooked a small Rocking, a fish!
With the current being so strong and having such a large weight on, the bite hadn't even registered on the tip.

To be honest, I was pretty proud of my little Rockling, he'd done well to grab the bait before the crabs, plus I wasn't going to draw a blank!

With the tide flowing in, the channel became wider and deeper. Snags started to happen more often, a mixture of mud, leaf litter, sticks and weed. At one point, I walked 60 yards to the left of where I was fishing, made the cast, and by the tome I had walked back to the rod rest, the tide had washed the lead past me plus another 30 yards.
From this point things where getting more difficult. I couldn't hold bottom even with a 6oz grip lead, leafs, grass and weed where tangling around the line, I was snagging every cast, even at close range and I had no bite indication with the current pulling so hard against the line.

I've fished the Menai Straights on a flooding tide, but this was something completely different. The surface was flowing one direction with the undercurrent the opposite.

Now with snags being on every cast, and my hands being so cold I struggled tying on a new leader, I called it a day.
Next time I may fish the harbour for the Flounder and Plaice, although the crabs will probably be a pain there too.