Sunday morning soon came round and at 4.30am we were making our way down to Penarth Marina to meet with the rest of the forum crew. By 5.15am after greeting and hand shakes we were making our way out of the docks into the Bristol Channel.
A steam of about 1 hour and 30 minutes and we were at our chosen mark. Having been shown the basics about casting and bait, my rod was cast out for the first time and after just 30 seconds I soon had the rod back in my hand and I was winding into a bite on crab/prawn cocktail. A decent fight and I had boated my first smoothound before most of the other guys had even baited up.
This was a sign of things to come and over the course of the day 40+ smoothounds were landed by the crew of 8 as well as some baby tope, 1 dogfish and a lonely pouting.
Several double hook ups kepy Mike and Danny busy with the nets and they did a superb job.
Later in the day I had a bit which almost pulled the rod over the side, I soon grabbed it and with my heart going a little too fast hit into a hard fighting fish that made plenty of runs. A few jokes were shared that it was only another pout etc.. but after a good 5 minutes + I landed a new PB Starry Smoothound of 13lb 3oz, the second biggest of the day
A great day was had by all. I can highly recommend Mike and Danny of Lady Helen as they did their job superbly, great crack, great netting and even greater cooks (tea and sausage sarnies go down lovely)
For more info see Lady Helen website and The Forum
I hope my first trip shall not be my last, and I look forward to joining the lads again soon.
Dan
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