Conor’s April report

In the first week or so of April we wanted to try for a few different species. On the 2nd we went to a fairly inshore rocky mark we found by accident in the winter to try for bream. The bream didn’t show but we had a couple of hounds including my new PB of 12lb. Before going in for the night, we had a few drifts for plaice and my dad had nice one of around 2lb but that was the only one we had even after multiple drifts over the same spot.

After speaking to a netter and having that plaice we spent the 3rd drifting the same inshore spots only giving whiting and a smut pup, a slow day fishing.
Later in the week, on the 7th, we went to an offshore bank on a fairly small tide to try for big blonde rays unsuccessfully. The bank only gave us tiny congers, dogs and pout.

Wanting some better fishing we went back to the mark where we had the smooth hounds on the 8th. However, the tide conditions were opposite to how they were the weekend before and we only managed to have a wrasse and a three bearded rockling which was a new species for me. When we finally adjusted the anchor so we were on sand for smuts the fishing went strangely quiet. As the tide began to die off we moved to a reliable mark about a mile south for a few hours and had 16 or 17 hounds between us on rag and peelers! Not very big but great fun to catch so many, even got the spinning rod out! A nice start to the summer season.