February Catch Report 2024

The weather conditions have not been favourable in recent times, but this hasn't stopped the fantastic catch reports from flowing in! It's been great to see anglers of all disciplines catching fish. This months report is packed with awesome catch reports across a range of different species and venues, from chub in urban welsh streams to Leerfish In Western Africa!

Fly Fishing

The beginning of the river season is just around the corner, so the majority of fly anglers throughout february head out for their last session on the Grayling or Pike before turning their attention back to trout. The rivers around South Wales produced some fantsatic fish, with big grayling on the feed and rivers such as the Wye providing anglers with awesome Pike angling, depsite the every changing river conditions.

The River Taff, Ely and Rumney are amongst a list of rivers that have been producing some lovely fish as of late. Ceri Thomas has been making the most of his lunch breaks by heading over to his local river section with his fly rod. These short sessions have resulted in some stunning Grayling, as displayed by the beauty in the photo below.

Luke Gater has had a fantastic winter targeting Pike on the fly across a variety of still waters and rivers, with some of his biggest fish coming from the River Wye. Stretching 130 miles from start to finish through England and Wales, the River Wye offers endless fishing oppurtunties whether it be on club waters or day ticket stretches. Despite the limitless options, Luke has enjoyed fishing the Hereford stretch of the Wye this winter. With the Pike filled with spawn and reaching their heaviest point of the the year, Luke was out on a redemption mission on some stretches where he has struggled in the past. 

Carp & Coarse Fishing

It has been encouraging to see the Wharf Fishery has been producing some quality carp despite the fishing being difficult on the syndicate as of late, which doesn't come as a surprise. David-Sean Robbins got his 2024 campaign off to an awesome start with a stunning brace during a 48 hour session. The pink scent from hell pop ups have been working wonders for Dave, set up on a size 4 ronnie rig with a small scattering of bait sprinkled around the hookbait.

Lamby lake has also started to fish well, with some of the lakes named fish even gracing the bank. One of those anglers having success on Lamby is James Honey who had a 72 hour session to remember recently. During his wet and windy session James landed a half linear at 23lb, a 30lb common and the stunning fish ‘Meg’ which tipped the scales at 34lb 10oz. 

Following the success of this session, James headed back down to Lamby full of confidence that he could land some more fish over the course of a 48 hour stint. He continued his fine form with 2 more takes from fish both over the 30lb mark. James' first fish was ‘Peanut’ at a whopping 36lb 12oz and ‘Pablo’ which weighed over 30lb for the first time, so James had the privilege of naming the fish!

Blake has been leading the way on the Birch Syndicate as of late. The Birch has followed suit with the lakes mentioned above throughout February by producing some great fish. Blake James is a regular in our catch reports and he recently visited us in store to upgrade his set of rods. He chose the Free Spirit Helical rods in 10' 3lb which allows him to get better distance on his cast than previously. He halso loved the minima guides on this range. 

This pristine common was the perfect reward from his hard work. Weighing 25lb 4oz this common fell for a Pro baits Squid & Orange boilie. The perfect way to christen his new rods.

A fishery that is producing some fantastic reports at the moment is Chew Valley, arguably the best Pike water in the UK. Located south of Bristol, Chew Valley has gained a reputation for it's quality fly fishing for trout since opening in 1956, but the lake is also well known for its head of huge pike. In February alone the lake recorded multiple captures of fish in excess of 40lb. Dean Downe landed this mega pike from the boat at Chew. This impressive predator couldn't resist a herring dead bait and weighed in at a whopping 34lb.

In January, writer and TV presenter Will Millard joined Fishing in Wales on the Rectory beat on the upper River Wye in Mid Wales. Whilst filming for a winter river fishing video Will was able to land a beautiful chub in freezing conditions. Fishing in Wales have now released the video for you to watch on their YouTube channel.

For those anglers that only have a spare couple of hours, the streams and canals around Cardiff have been the ideal venues to target. Stuffed full of different species, these waters are home to chub,dace,barbel,pike and much more! Our Dispacth manager Lloyd Prytherch knows these waters like the back of his hand and has fished them since he was a kid. The best approach is a float set up with double maggot, usually on a size 16 barbless. Lloyd's go to hook range for this style of fishing is the Drennan Super specialists. Ideally, it is best to fish these waters after a bit of rain which gives the water a bit of colour and puts the fish on the feed.

After hearing about some good reports from the taff feeder stream, Hunter was desperate to fish it so he could tick off one of his targets for the year, which was a chub. Accompanied by his parents, Hunter popped into our cardiff store to stock up on terminal tackle and so set up his rod before heading down to the feeder for the afternoon. This stream is easily accessble from our store as it's just a 5 minute drive away. Within a few minutes hunter was into his first fish of the session, a stunning little chub to tick off the list! Over the course of the next few hours, Hunter caught more of these stunning little chub, following Lloyds advice with regards to hooks, line and bait selection.

The Pike fishing reports have been great so far in 2024, with plenty of people using deadbaits as their main approach. Writer & presenter Will Millard has been really enjoying his Pike fishing as of late, here's what he had to say: 

"On Friday I was back with the wonderful Countryfile ‘Plodcast’ podcast team - with a mission to help producer Fergus catch his very first pike!

Conditions and results have been so mixed at all my usual pike fishing places, I decided to take a real risk and head to a stretch of canal which I’d never even seen before, let alone fished!

Luckily, I had some advice from my pal Aaron Williams - who’d had some success on the stretch in previous weeks - and we had superb piking conditions on arrival.… well, we did for the first hour at least…

It didn’t happen right away - in fact, the morning was completely fishless - then the wind really picked up and the sun shone really bright - nice for winter walking, not good for predator fishing.

After a lunch reset and a tactical switch from lures to deads, it didn’t take too much longer to find some fish. Interestingly, all the bites came when the same crested grebe appeared, hunting small fish through the swim. I think it must’ve flushed some panicked silverfish into the area - with the pike following behind in hot pursuit. Every time we saw that bird - away the pike float went!

In the end, some lovely pristine predators; successfully caught and safely released; and a very happy podcast producer!

Can’t wait to hear the final programme & great to finally be banking some fish this winter!

Cheers for the belting fresh smelt baits Garry Evans!"

The still water fisheries have also been producing some nice fish lately, such as the Birch Syndicate. Prodominantly knwon as a Carp Syndicate, the Birch is also holds a fantastic head of Pike, with the lake record in excess of 30lb (Our former employee Ryan often boasts about holding the lake record many years ago, despite his record being smashed just a week later!). This pike oiuctured below took a popped up mackerel bait, set up on a running rig which consisted of low resistant Drennan products.

Sea Fishing

At this point of the year, anglers along the Bristol Channel understand that the fishing throughout January and February is not as prolific as it is throughout the rest of the year,  so the expectations are generally not as high. For Benny Worsey, as trip to Friars point was more of an opportunity to get out on the rocks with his son Max, a very keen young angler in his own right.The fishing was difficult with a blank for Max, however Benny was chuffed to land a nice 3lb 15.5oz spotted ray and a surprise 25cm turbot. 

It's encouraging to see increasing numbers of youngsters on the sea fishing scene at the moment, especially when they are putting the effort in during the more challenging winter months. Ashton Price is another keen angler who has recently started fishing with some relatives around the South Wales area. Whilst fishing at Monknash, Ashton caught his best fish yet (pictured below) on a 2 hook flapper rig which was baited up with our fresh rag worm!

As we head into March it becomes the best time of year for anglers to target spurdogs. With this being said, there are always reports of some earlier spurs being caught in February, which of course are always welcome whilst the fishing is a bit slow! David Barber has been catching a few lovely spurs as of late, using a variety of fish baits to pick out the fish. Pictured below, David is holding a spur which was caught on a large squid bait, loaded on a pulley pennel rig with Sakuma Manta Extra hooks. Here's what Dave said about his session:

"Managed to get a quick session in last night, fitting the session in between school runs and work. Was only out two hours and it paid of, I Managed to find more spurdogs, never had them in February before so it's nice to see wasn't a bad size either."

David is well known for his angling around the Cardigan area and has accumalted a strong following across his socail media platforms. You can check out his Youtube channel 'Cardigan Bay Fishing Adventures' by the clicking the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/@C3BFA

Despite a slow start in February, the Ray fishing became extremely productive towards the end of the month for boat and shore anglers. It's also great to see a mixture of species  being caught including thornbacks, small eyed's and of course Blondes! Barry has been a hot spot for our shore anglers in recent weeks to target any of the 3 species that have just been mentioned. Andrew Davies landed this stunning blonde Ray (pictured below) from the Popular venue that is The Knap. Throughout the session Andy tried a mixture of different baits such as anchovies, blueys, squid and rag worm but it was a double sandeel wrap which proved to be an irrestibbale snack for this male blonde.

The thornback rays have also started to show up in numbers, particulary for those anglers that are fishing on the boat. For the lads fishing on White Water Charters out of Penarth there were no shortage of thronbacks around, or any ray species for that matter! Heading out on big tides at night, Rob Cole and co were put right on top of the fish by well known skipper Andrew Alsop from the first drop. Anchovy and Squid seemed to be the baits doing the most damage on the night, with some impressive thornbacks on the deck up to 11lb.

Spinning & Lure Fishing

Lee Harrison is customer of ours who has made us all extremely envious of his recent trip to the sunny shores of the Western sahara. Whilst fishing along the Moroccon Coast with expert guide Karim, Lee was aiming to catch a variety of different species but the biggest prize of all was a good size Leerfish. Our former employee Jake Jones has used Karim's guiding services before so Lee was hopeful that his trip would have a similiar measure of success, he was not wrong!

From the off there were species of all different shapes and sizes that took a liking to Lee's lures just like the ones pictures below. To fish in the surf in these waters, a powerful rod and reel set up is required which enables you to get your lures out past the surf. Metal lures are a fantastic way to fish these waters as most species will take a liking to them. The low profile also means that these lures fly through the air allowing you to get out past the surf to wehre most of the fish will be on the hunt. A few popular models that Lee put to use were the Savage Gear ISP Seekers in 28g, the Savage Gear Slim Jig minnows and the Westin Salty's.

Thousands of casts and many miles of surf later, Lee finally caught the big Leerfish that he was after. This stunning fish was 8kg of pure muscle and power, what a fantastic fish. 

It appears that the water temperatures didn't plummet to the temperatures we usually expect during the winter months, which could explain why the lure fishing has been extremely good for our sea anglers, considering the time of year. Joe Shaw is a good friend of the shop and a regular feature in our catch reports these days, which may be down to the fact that he's catching plenty of fish! As a guide it allows him to spend plenty of time trying out new lures, marks and tactis in order to find the fish. Joe has recently been catching plenty of fish on a veriety of slow metal jigs in different colour patterns.

Joe has been testing out his new range of Catch and Cook lures and he's been having plenty of success, using different colour patterns such as the orange/black/silver as pictured below. We currently stock the HTO YoYo lures which are a very similar desgin, but keep your eyes peeled for these Catch & Cook jigs which will be on the market in the near future. Although Joe has been catching the odd bass, mackerel and Wrasse but it has been the Pollock that have been the most prodominant.

As we mentioned earlier on in the report, the Pike fishing has been productive throughout February and some anglers have enjoyed success on the lures as well. James Dixon had this cracking fish from his local still water after a visit to our Cardiff store. James's had a spur of the moment idea and bought one lure to head over to the lake with. He chose the Westin swim glidebait in the Firetiger pattern  and its fair to say his choice paid off!

We hope you enjoyed our February catch report,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.

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