November 2024 Catch Report

The weather at the start of November was very kind to anglers across the UK, with favourable conditions for the majority of people across all angling disciplines. Although the back end of the month provided us with some challenging weather, we continued to recieve some fantastic reports. Our Sea anglers have made up the majorty of this months report, with some outstanding catches from boat anglers and shore anglers alike. With the Pike season well underway, predator anglers have also given us lot's to talk about in this months round up, as well as our carp, coarse and Fly anglers all helping to make this one of our most jam packed monthly reports yet!

Sea Fishing

With the Cod season almost non existent in the channel these days, it is encouraging to see that other species such as rays and eels have been sticking around in numbers. Popular marks such as Cold Knap, Barry have been amongst some of the most productive venues in recent weeks, which is a bonus for those anglers looking for somewhere to fish with comfort and easy access.

Fish baits, as always, are the way to go on the Knap. Blondes, smalled eyeds and congers have been loving a variety of baits like squid, sandeel, anchovy and bluey. If you are able to catch some fresh pouting or whiting, there's a chance of picking up the bigger eels.

Amongst the usual suspects that are caught along our South Wales coast line, there are 4/5 species of the ray family that are targeted and caught all year round, but the following species is not one that often graces our shores. Whilst fishing for Rays on one of his favourite low water marks, Lee Jones landed this blue Skate and although the picture quality isn't ideal, you can see the fantastic markings covering that make it rather distinctive. You can find out more about blue skate over on the Shark Trust website.

November is always a good month for targeting big Bass in the Bristol Channel using baits. With the right presentation and plenty of scent in the water, there is a strong chance of landing a big bar of Bristol Channel silver. Sponsored angler and Garry Evans staff member Andy Smith is an expert at targeting the bass around his local area of Newport, particularly during the winter and early spring.

With the conditions looking perfect, Andy headed over to one of his favourite marks for a few hours on the bait rods and it's fair to say, he was not disappointed! Using double crab on a dongle rig as his main approach proved to be a deadly set up for this stunning bass (pictured below) which bent the rod over before giving Andy an awesome fight.

The population of Bluefin Tuna in british Waters has been increasing at an impressive rate over the last decade, with licenses now being allocated to a small number of charter boats. Growing up to nearly a tonne in weight and over 100 inches in length, these powerful beasts are truly a fish of a lifetime. White Water Charters, skippered by Andrew Alsop is one of the UK's leading charter boats and one of the driving forces behind the catch and release programme that is now in place for permitted vessels. Earlier this month, some of our regulars were lucky enough to get in and amongst the action on White Water and Rob Cole put together a fantastic report:

"SWSA BOAT TRIP REPORT.

What an absolute cracking end to the season,last trip of the year down west and boy what a red# letter day for the boys tuna ,blue shark, Fin Wales, dolphins , and of course the dive bombing birds.

The morning was pretty quite with Shane and Bart working the chum hard. Just after dinner like clock work we turned back into our 8 mile slick drift and boom a blue shark of 75lb for Paul marsh )Bart) . The skipper managed to finish his tagging of the shark for data research which gave Bart a chance of a quick photo.

Then the birds turned up feeding and do I need I say no more first Tuna took the bait and and gave a cracking fight of 35 mins 360lb

Second tuna was a 40min fight at 350lb

Third tuna was a lump but only 84 inches at 420lb

And took 54mins to land . All the lads made a deal to rotate on the fish giving everyone a fair bash .

A huge well done to Christopher Bugsy Read , Carl Golding , Shane Boxall Robbie Roberts,Paul marsh and of course myself on a cracking days fish and teamwork, then we record the data and safe return of all fish . I'd like to take the time out to say a huge thanks to Andrew Alsop the skipper of WhiteWater Charters what an absolute legend, you take so much care of the fish and make sure of the safe return nice one ."

With the cold temperatures setting in as we head towards December, the spurdogs reports have started to pop up from boat and shore anglers. As it is always the case when targeting spur dogs, high water marks that fish into deeper water have been producing the fish, especially for those that are fishing at night time. Venues such as Witches Point or Porthcawl Pier are ideal marks along the South Wales coast if you are looking to target the Spurs at this time of year.

The better reports have been coming off the boats, however. One of our regular customers Martyn Stallard has been getting amongst the action on the Spur Dogs whilst fishing on Escape Charters, which is skippered by Wayne Cook who has years of experience in the Bristol Channel. After a quiet start to the session, Wayne decided to head over to the english side of the Channel and almost straight away, the change of mark paid off. Using a selection of our frozen bait, Martyn finished with 11 spur dogs and a nice Bull huss.

Further down the Welsh Coast, there have been plenty of species being caught around the Swansea area, which makes for some good sport on lighter gear. Knab Rock is the perfect venue to target a range of species as it offers easy parking right next to the water, floodlight paths and plenty of water to fish into over high. It can be a lottery ticket sometimes, as you really don't know what you might pull out! 

During the summer months, Knab Rock is a well known smooth hound mark and even throws up the odd Tope, but during the winter you can catch dogfish, dabs, whiting, pouting, bass and much more! Flapper rigs with small hooks between size 1 and 6 are often the best rigs to go for if you want to target some different species, with rag worm often being the most productive bait. With this being said, small fish baits such as mackerel strips, sandeel or crab are also great choices of bait. As you can see in the photos below, Rhian and Hunter headed down to for a few hours over high water and it was all action from the get go, with plenty of species ticked off the list on their new Shakespeare Salt Bass rods!

November was another busy season on the South Wales match scene, with competitions running right through the month, regardless of the terrible conditions at times. The Penarth SAC/Garry Evans sea master leg 3 qualifier had a massive turn out once again, which turned out to be another occassion where Dai Llewellyn was able to show case his angling ability.

Results of the 63rd South Wales Open held today Sponsored by The Admiral Group plc. Huw Llewellyn presented the prizes on behalf of Admiral Group

120 anglers participated with 28 weighing in. 5 different species, total weight 32kgs consisting of conger eels whiting, dog fish, pouting and diver eels.

1ST.

Was the ever present and Open Winner Dai Llewellyn representing Holton Rd Anglers. Fishing the Beach weighed in 3.303 kgs to win the £500 first prize donated by Admiral Group plc plus £72 in pool money plus the Senior Trophy for this year's Championship.

2ND

Was Dave Backhouse representing Cardiff Sea Anglers. Fishing the beach he weighed in 3.28 kgs to win £200 sponsored by Set Up Displays plus £48 pool monies

3RD

Was Gary Addis representing Cardiff Sea Anglers again fishing the beach weighing in weighing in 3.11kgs to win £100 Sponsored by MDP Mechanical.

The JUNIOR CHAMPION for this year was Faith Marsh

who fishing the Pier weighed in 0.12 kgs.

8 year old Faith was representing Penarth Sea Anglers and takes home a £50 voucher plus the Junior Championship Trophy for this year.”

The competition action continued in some extreme weather conditions with the Cardiff Sea anglers open at Cardiff Foreshore, on sunday 28th. Despite the poor weather in the build up, another well run competition resulted in some good results from numerous anglers. It was fantastic to see our father & son customer duo Benny & Max Worsey amongst the points, with a fantastic eel which he mentions in his match report below:

"Brilliantly run open by Cardiff Sea Anglers today. I don’t often have a plan that comes off but today I did. Stuck with big baits hoping for a big eel and managed to catch the heaviest of the day and finish 3rd overall. (Thanks for the landing skills and company today Joe )

Max scratched all day and managed to winkle out 4 fish to finish 3rd place in the juniors. (He also managed to win an LRF rod and bottle of sherry in the raffle )

Well done to all the other competitors and the winners today in those conditions."

Bass lure fishing was red hot through early and mid November, thanks to the mild and settled weather, which allowed the bass fishing to continue on many of our well known marks. Ceri Thomas and Alan Parfitt headed to Cardigan Bay and enjoyed a red letter session, mostly fishing Savagegear Seeker Lures, with around 20 bass landed between them. You can check out the session on the video below! (Video will be released on 7th December)
 

Although the Cod fishing has been nothing short of rubbish, it has been encouraging to see some entries into our Winter Whiting pool throughout November. Kaden Kopp was already in 1st place in the pool before betterring his own fish with this entry going 0.507lb, caught up towards the Newport area on worm baits.

But despite Kaden's best efforts, it was alsmost inevitable that the man himself Roy Tapper would eventual find himself on the board. This was exactly what happened, as he entered a 1st place entry of 0.69lb.

This months sea fishing report is ending on a more exotic note, thanks to a report from our old friend Jake Jones, who is now living out in Australia and, by the looks, is enjoying his fishing a bit more than in the UK! With an abundance of species to target across a range of fishing tactics, Jake is never short of a challenge. 

Jake has started to enjoy targeting some different species using dead bait tactics on ledgering tackle and it's amazing to see what fish are lurking beneath. This Western blue devil fish put up a fantastic scrap on Jakes TronixPro Cobra GT2. 

Predator

The predator fishing has continue to impress around the South Wales area for both Pike and Perch fishing. Despite the conditions being low & clear, the Perch fishing around Cardiff Bay has been red hot. The best approach to pick out the better stamp of fish from this venue is certainly to keep your low as close to the bottom as you can with a very slow retrieve, giving it a jerk every now and then for extra movement. In terms of lures, simple Fox Rage shads rigged up with a 10g or 15g jig head can be deadly.

Lloyd P from our Cardiff store was featured in our October report with some big perch that were caught using the same tactics that are mentioned above. Well, Lloyd has been putting in the hours again down the Bay and the River Ely, with the results proving to be well worth the effort. Throughout the session the Perch were on the feed, with this stunning Perch below being the best of the bunch. Check out the colours on this one! Once again, the Zander pro shad in the Hot Olive pattern seems to be the banker, especially in the 7.5cm size.

The Pike have also been very obliging to the Lures as of late and theres no one who knows that better than Damien Lagner. With hundreds of hours of experience around the bay, River Taff and River Ely, Damien is one of the most prolific predator anglers in the South Wales area. Recently he has been having plenty of success by fishing soft plastics very slowly and as close to the bottom as possible. By using lures such as the Westin Shadteez or the Fox Rage Pro shads, you can still get plenty of action from the tail even when the lure is moving along very slowly. Using a treble hook stinger instead of a jig head will also stop the lure from constantly nose diving into snags, but instead the stinger will keep the lure at a steady level on your retrieve. As You can see in the photos below from Damiens last session, this approach has been working well, especially on the Taff embankment where the River Taff opens up and slows down before entering the Bay. The Shadteez roach in the 'Gold rush' as pictured by Damien below, is up there as one of the most popular lure patterns at the moment. This magnificent croc was the best fish from his session and just tipped the 100cm mark.

if you're looking to broaden your horizons when targeting predatory species, then the Gloucester Canal is a fantastic venue to try. With endless miles to cover, this water is home to big Perch & Pike, but is also well known for its population of zander which runs throughout. Lloyd P has been putting a few hours in their as of late, with rewards coming from lure and dead bait methods.

Small legered dead baits such as roach or smelt have been proven baits for Lloyd, but a couple of his better fish have fallen to lures. Due to the poor water clarity as of late,brighter patterns with big tail movement can prove to be the difference in these conditions. Westin "Ricky the Roach" in the Real Rudd pattern is the perfect lure to fit the criteria and even helped Lloyd to land some nice Pike on his last trip. 

Ceri headed up to a stunning Mid-Wales venue along with TV Presenter and friend of the shop Will Millard in search of pike and perch earlier in November. They did encounter both species using Fox Relicants for the pike and maggots for the perch (which Will used - Ceri doesnt like maggots!) The session was recorded for ‘Fishing In Wales’ and you can watch it below.

Carp & Coarse

It's not often that the Welsh complain about the lack of rain, but for the first fortnite of November the rivers were not at their most productive with low & clear conditions. Despite the challenging conditions, we still recieved some awesome reports from a few different rivers, in particular the River Wye, whether it be from pleasure anglers fishing for barbel or match anglers in the River Wye champs.

Barbel anglers have found some success on the Wye using maggot feeders as their favoured approach with the results speaking for themselves. Take our good friend Ryan Healey for example. Since finishing with us at Garry Evans last year, Ryan has enjoyed spending more time on the bank than before, resulting in some fantastic sessions like the one below. 

Set up with his Drennan Specialist rods, bait runner reels and feeder gear Ryan headed for a swim that has produced fish for him before, also offering a nice big slack on the opposite bank to target. Surrounded by the autumnal colours of the River Wye, Ryan's session was non stop from pretty much the first cast. After a morning of rod bending action, he finished up with 9 chub and a stunning barbel, as pictured below. What a stunning fish (not so sure about the angler!).

One of the big Coarse fishing stories during November was the Wye Championships, spread over 3 days. The beauty of the River Wye is the variety of fish that can caught from each peg, which is perfectly displayed by our good friend & Milo representative, Andy Neal.Also known as the Tom Jones of angling, Andy had some respectable weights across the duration of the comp, which he kept us up to date with after each day of fishing:

"Day 1 of the Wye Festival…

Love this… nice to have a couple of days off with the lads.

River is just incredible…

My 40lb of chublets, dace and perch was good in my area but Lee le Lee leeeee took it clean out with a proper showing! Unfortunately the other end of the big section fished well and left me about halfway on the points

Some stand out performances today…

Robbo… 50lb of dace where there isn’t meant to be many..

Lee Edwards… 71lb… just an awesome bit of angling

And… man of the match Tom Hobbs! A net of barbel of what’s known to be the worst draw in the bag! And … mega points to match! Brilliantly done mate! That’s worth a beer!

We go again tomorrow…."

"Wye festival day 2!

Peg 102 down ‘the courts’ whilst it’s a stunning peg to fish, when she’s low and clear it’s a tough ask…

An odd chub and this lovely barbel was enough for 2nd down there… unfortunately nobody is troubling lord Jones on his throne doing what he does so well!

A hard but enjoyable day…

A section tomorrow… … I might need some enthusiasm"

"Wye Festival day 3!

Peg 22 definitely didn’t inspire… a blank the day previous but with barbel caught above I hoped they had pushed down into my area… 1 rod glory hunt was on!

Hour in and my first bite resulted in a beautiful big roach.. probably 1.5lb… this was soon followed by a barbel… unfortunately it was the same size as the roach…

Incredible to see some roach feeding as I caught quite a few by accident fishing for the elusive barbel… a quick call to Lord Jones Esquire and he was on a worse peg but tucking nicely in more of these lovely creatures on a stick.. he duly won the zone with 32lb! Brilliant! Some return from there!

Great week… thanks to Dave Roberts and everyone else involved. Loved it!!

Massive well done to Chris on winning. 3 great matches to be fair!"

The Syndicate waters around South Wales have been producing some quality fish in recent times, despite a slight drop off in productivity when the temperatures plummeted. The Wharf Fishery's larger residents have started to rear their heads, with fish in eexcess of 40lb gracing the nets during November.

Nigel Hodgson is one Wharf member that has been on fire recently. Over a handful of short evening sessions, Nigel has added a few named fish to his collection, such as the ‘royal’ at 27lb 5oz and ‘the big dint’ at 34lb 14oz. But the stand out fish from his recent album has to be the mighty ‘birth mark common’ which tipped the scales at a whopping 40lb 7oz. Here's what Nigel wrote on his social media:

“After walking the lake for 2 hours, i found a few fish right in the margins. As soon as I placed a rod on the spot, the stopped showing and after a couple of hours, I though i'd blown it. Just as I was contemplating going home, the rod on the margin spot gave a couple of bleeps and then tore off! After a slow, short encounter the fish hit the surface and the unmistakebale scar on the right flank identified the fish and then the legs went to jelly!”

The Birch Syndicate has continued to produce a quality stamp of Carp even as the winter months set in. Blake James is starting to build a reputation for his superb catch rates on the Birch. His angling ability have continued into the winter season, here's what 

"Spent 2 hrs watching the water around the lake to see one show towards top end of the lake on the front of a cold easterly wind so moved up that end to keep eye on them to see a further 9 shows within 20 mins so droped a bucket in a swim that commanded the majority of the water they were showing in ,after checking what the wind was doing for next two days I decided to wait untill after bite time to bait up my spot as I was planning on baiting heavy and staying on the front of the wind , started the session with 25 large spombs of Pro Baits UK superfruit and squid and orange chops soaked in some squid and orange glug with a good amount of pellet to soak the squid orange glug up my 10ft Free Spirit Fishing helical spm was sending my wolf spomb out with ease realy is a craking bit of kit , seen a few more shows over my spot and watched the seaguls sat over my spot trying to feed of the glug that was rising to the surface so was confident that the fish were on the bait , soon as the light faded my left hand rod had one beep so stood and watched the tip and notice a very slight tap so lifted straight into it and I was on , after a quick battle kinky the common rolled over the cord just over 31lb so was great start to the trip ,after that it was action all night with no sleep after topping the spot up and getting runs was happy for them to finally give me some rest , rebated with anout 15 spombs late afternoon with a quiet night and only one more run with a craking mirror of just over 33lb so in all was a amazing sesion some cracking food from my old man and a good laugh with the lads."

Fly Fishing

It has come to that time of year where the fly fishing season on the rivers is purely Grayling based. As the cold, crisp winter conditions settle in, grayling really are the only fish to target from november through to spring time. There are dozens of rivers and streams across the Wales and the rest of the UK where you can target ‘the lady of the stream’ and the River Wye is up there with one of the best. 

Ceri from our fly shop has been out on the grayling a few times recently, and has found that the stocks of this species in our local Taff and Rhymney rivers have been exceptional, compared with previous years. He has recorded around 60 grayling over the last 2 sessions, with a good number around 1lb, as well as smaller fish, which bodes well for the future. A pink shrimp with a 2.8mm bead fished as a single fly ‘euro nymph’ style has been the most successfull pattern for him, drifted mid-water as the grayling are still quite active. These flies are available from our shop. 

Lyn Davies has been on the hunt for some glorious winter Grayling on the River Wye at Builth Wells, Mid Wales. In his recent video (below) Lyn demonstrates how you can have success when targeting the grayling by using nymphs or spiders. 

Around the fisheries, Dare Valley Aberdare and Ynys-y-Fro Newport are both fishing really well - the colder water temperatures really switch the trout on, especially to pulled lures. Below: the stamp of trout being stocked every few days into Dare Valley.



We hope you enjoyed our November 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 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!