April 2025 Catch Report

If you have been following our catch reports throughout 2025 then you will have noticed a steady improvement in the fishing across all disciplined and it's fair to say, April has continued on the same trajectory. The fresh water and sea fishing has been awesome, with a range of different species being caught. Enjoy our last report below, to see what's being caught!

Sea Fishing

Towards the end of march the first smooth hound reports started to pop up and trhe numbers have gone from strength to strength in April. The Swansea area, as always, appeared to produce most of the early reports from marks such as Knab rock and West Pier. These marks are easily accessible and provide comfartable fishing, which means there are often plenty of rods in the water! 

Kaden has been enjoying some early success on the hounds for his 2025 campaign:

“Last night i headed out to see if i could find an early spring smooth hound with plenty of live peeler crab, as this time of year you can get some really nice sized hounds. if you can find them. Target achieved and straight into a double figure for my first hound of the season & also beating my PB going 11.11lb Well happy! Also filmed for my YouTube channel.

The hounds have started to move further up the channel as well now with good numbers being caught from beaches such as Monknash. Whitches Point has been on fire as well. Located between Monknash and Southerndown, Witches Point has always been a popular venue for targeting species all year round and it's a go to mark for the smooth hounds at the start of the season. 

Osian headed down over low water, armed with a range of frozen baits and managed to catch his target species and his first hound of the year, as pictured below. Along with this nice smooth hound, Osian also managed a small eyed ray, spotted ray, bullhuss and of course dogfish!

Most anglers in the UK tend to have a soft spot for bass, so it's always warming to see them showing in along the Welsh Coast. A good friend and expert angler, Steve Tucker has been amongst the Bass this april, with the one pictured below being the highlight of his sessions. Here's what Sakuma had to report from Steve's catch session:

"A lovely Bass for Steve Tucker. It helped him to win the heaviest bag and 3rd in the heaviest fish category, in the comp he was fishing at Barry, south Wales. Gear used included 20lb Sakuma Nite Crystal line and 3/0 Sakuma 440 Circle hook on a Dongle rig, with fresh Crab as bait."

The ray fishing has continued to impress along the Bristol Channel coast line with thorn backs, blondes, smalled's and spotteds all being caught from varying marks. Pleasure anglers and match anglers alike have both been catching from clear ground and rough ground marks. The Knap, a beach which often features in our reports, is amongst the list of marks that has been producing plenty of rays.

Wayne James has been having plenty of success using single hook dongle rigs, with our cokctail baits doing the business. Most of Waynes rays have been caught on our squid and sandeel, using size 3/0 circle hooks, as you can see in the photo below (right).

Over the Easter holidays, Reel Minds held a series of kids sessions to keep them busy during the school break. With help from some volunteers, Dave held some fantastic sessions for the kids at a range of different locations to allow kids from across South Wales to take part. Each session was a success, but one trip stood out in particular and here's what Dave had to report: 

"The session started very slowly and we hadn’t had a bite for the first 2 hours. Then fate intervened. I’d arranged for someone to drop a donation to us at the barrage and we quickly handed out the rods and reels to a couple of lads that were borrowing equipment. Jackson baited up a pulley rig with a whole squid on his new rod and reel combo and sent it out. A couple of taps and his rod pulled over, he was into a lovely blonde ray weighing in at 13lb 1oz.

A big thanks to Alex and Gareth for helping land it. A couple of dog fish followed including a monster doggie for new lad Max.

We’ve had a think about it and this Ray is the biggest shore caught fish by a participant on a reel minds trip. Well done Jackson .

Thank you for the donations today they were put to good use immediately and the lads were extremely grateful."

There's more to fishing than catching.

The local competitions around South Wales have been producing some good weights as well with endless dogfish and a mixture of other species. Roy Tapper won South Wales Sea anglers club match on April 19th at Ogmore with dogfish, a thornback, a small eyed, and spotted rays for a combined length of 720cm and 50 points. John Fishlock came in second place with 915cm and 41 points. Rob Cole, who finished in 3rd place sent in the picture below of this nice small eyed, which he caught along with 17 dogfish and 61cm bass. Squid and Joey mackerel baits did the business, fished on 3 hook flappers.

The charter boats are also seeing a massive improvement in the fishing in recent weeks. Bass, eels, dogfish, rays and bullhuss are just a handful of species that have been caught from Cardiff & Penarth based charter boats. Escape charters, skippered by Wayne Cook is one of those boats enjoying some mixed species angling, take a look at the markings on this Bull Huss! Tobias caught this stunning specimen on a trip down channel during the first week of april.

The hounds are also being caught in big numbers on the boats. Another of Escape charters regular clients is our good friend Martyn Stallard, who loves catching hounds! Our prawn and peeler crabs have been working really well for Mr Stallard, giving him an awesome day of sport!

Carp & Coarse Fishing

The weather proved to be ideal for a spot of surface fishing throughout april, with rising temperatures pushing more carp to feed up in the water. Glamorgan anglers still waters are ideal for catching carp on the top and spending a few hours out in the outdoors! Ryan has been enjoying plenty of success at Llantrythid lake, with some stunning carp gracing the net up to around 15lb. Fox Bolt bubbles are an ideal float to use for surface fishing, supllied with bait bands, swivels and anti tangle sleeves to make sure you are set up and ready to go. Ryan's hook bait of choice has been bread recently, however dog biscuits or Sticky Baits krill floaters are a superb choice as well.

For those of you who are not able to get on the Glamorgan anglers list, lakes such as Peterstone, Tri Nant and Dyfrynn springs are fantastic day ticket waters if you would like to try some surface fishing!

Coking farm has often been featured in our reports for it's exceptional carp fishing, but this month we are looking into it's catfish reports! ‘Located in the heart' of the Blackmore Vale, Coking Farm is home to 10 coarse fishing lakes with a huge range of fish stocked across the varying waters including big catfish, which you don't find in too many lakes in the UK. Blake James was treated by his father to a birthday trip to Coking in search of some big cats. It's fair to say Blake's birthday trip was the perfeect present, with some awesome catfish on the bank, with the biggest fish of the session including a 39lb 10oz cat and a whopping new Personal best at 62lb 8oz. ProBaits Squid and orange boilies proved to be the deadly bait of choice throughout the week as the catfish didn't appear to switch off at all, with bites consistantly throughout the session.

Check out the size of the mouth on this beast below!

With the weather taking a disappointing turn at in the middle of April, it looked like some of our customers timed their trips abroad to perfection. Darren Davies is one of those people who loves a European adventure! Accompanied by his son, Darren heads overseas as often as he can in search of some of Europes best waters and fish, whether it be lakes or rivers, catfish, carp or tench! His most recent trip got off to a flying start on a French public water. The conditions were spot on and this carp were on the feed, with this beautiful hard fighting 30lber being the smallest during his first 24 hours on the lake!

With all the superb carp fishing to be found in France and across Europe it is often very easy to neglect other species. With some slight tweaks to your approach, you can find some huge Tench, catfish and big bream if you are looking to target something different. Darren decided to make the switch during his trip after an epic start to his adventure on the carp. A solid PVA Bag fished down the marginal shelf proved to be a deadly tactic for the Tench, with the best of the bunch being pictured below. The sticky Krill Spod &  Bag mix was the perfect bait to use for this approach, which he picked up from our shop just before his trip.

Darrens son Will was absolutely in his element catching these big tench!

During the easter holidays it was great to see lot's of kids getting out on the bank and catching lots of fish! For some people, they weren't going to let the weather ruin their fishing and fished through it, just like Jack who's pictured below. Accompanied by his father John, Jack enjoyed plenty of sport on the float by using a selection of baits to catch some nice carp, brea and silvers.

This warm weather has made it perfect for Tench fishing, as proven by Hunter, another young angler who has been getting amongst the fish. Darran Park, a natural lake also known as Llyn Y Forwyn is a fantastic all round coarse fishery which also includes some big tench. Using sweetcorn, maggots and hemp Hunter has been catching some lovely tench just like the one pictured below.

Spinning & Lure Fishing

In the salt water lure fishing world it also seems to be waking up with bass, pollack and wrasse all seemingly being caught on the lures along the Welsh coastline. The Gower has been producing some quality bass for our lure anglers who are putting in the hours, just like John Howcroft. John has a caravan on the Gower which allows him to nip out for short sessions as and when he pleases, often choosing the perfect opportunity to target the silver bars. His last session resulted in this chunky 53cm fish which couldn't resist a soft plastic on the Ebb.

Further down the coast around Pembrokeshire, the fishing has been just as good and there have been some big pollack showing as well. A regular feature in our Blogs is Joe Shaw from Catch & cook kayak based in Solva and this month, it's been awesome to see some of his reports starting to come in more regularly. 

"We had the first two specimens of the year yesterday, taken in amongst a load of great fish in a 30 minute pollack bonanza.

I was worried that my first 2 fish of the day, 4&6lbs, were going to take the glory from regular client and all round legend @bobbythedog , but few casts later and Jim was into his pb pollack of around 7lbs. It was a proper dogged fight, locking him up in a snag after if bullied its way down, but Jim played it great and after a bit of patience and his own bit of bullying it came free and continued to battle right up to the top. That was on a savage gear sandeel V2 in yellow, all of my fish fell to the Lazy Lures bomb squad 18g in orange, while I also had a small bass on the green pattern.

I’ll be showing the video footage on the Tik tok page soon.

By this point we had had a few double-hook up and also a triple hook up of decent fish which kept us busy cats after cast which was really exciting.

We went against the rule of ‘don’t leave feeding fish’, in search of other new ground for the boys and it did not pay. Just 1 schoolie bass and mackerel to show, but after the mayhem of the pollack spree we were quite happy all in all.

Lloyd P has started his lure season and he has already enjoyed some enjoyable sessions. Although he has been unlucky with the conditions, Lloyd has had plenty of pollock and wrasse around Pembrokeshire, despite the average stamp of fish being relatively small. With lot's of wind and a strong rip from the tide, 40g and 60g jigs appeared to be the best way to cover the most distance.

For Lloyd, the ‘Zepllin’ jigs from Drift Fishing did the most damage and in particular, the cotton candy pattern. Fishing into deep water meant that the heavier jigs really came into their own, finding fishing where it would have been difficult to do so with smaller jigs. It must be his new lucky hat!

Ceri and Richard from our Cardiff store have recently returned from another memorable trip to Denmark chasing sea trout on the lures. The conditions were far from ideal but with stunning scenery, quality food & drink plus the chance of some fish, it was all worth it in the end."

"Heading home from another short break to Denmark, spent in search of sea trout

Coastal sea trout are never easy and this time round we were met with the worst possible conditions, with either flat calm seas or howling north easterlies, with an ever constant relentless sun. Despite this, we did manage to catch a few hard earned fish on the lures or the fly.

As always the company, banter, delicious food and surroundings were top rate. Another enjoyable adventure completed."

To target these stunning sea trout you can use fly fishing tactics, but lure fishing certainly seems to be a more effective approach. Metal lures tend to be the go to choice, not only due to it's baitfish - like imitation but also because of the distance it allows you to gain as they punch through the wind. Savage gear ISP Seekers, Westin Salty's and Drift Zepplin jigs are amongst the best lures to use, which you can choose in a range of weights and patterns. Reels between 2500-4000 in size and rods casting around 7-25g are an ideal set up to give you the best chance of finding the fish. Have a look at Ceri's set up below, which consists of a Penn spinfisher VII 3500, 18lb 8 strand braid, Savage Gear parrabelum 7-24g rod and savage gear ISP lure. Take a look at the stunning markings on this sea trout!

If you fancy a slice of the action on one of these Denmark trips, get in touch with Ceri or Rich in our Cardiff store for lot's more information about marks, tactics and tackle!

We hope you enjoyed our April report for 2025, to be featured in next months catch report, feel free to send in your catch reports with a brief description to our email or in the comments section for this blog. Make sure to keep yourself up to date on our social media platforms for daily content on Facebook and Instagram.

For tips, advice and tackle information, don't hesitate to get in touch and we will be more than happy to help!