November Catch Report

November Catch Report

The winter conditions have certainly arrived, but that has not stopped plenty of anglers getting out and chasing their favourite species. Have a read of our November round up to see what's being caught and what tackle is doing the business!

Fly Fishing

November has been tough for grayling on our local rivers, heavy rain has played hell with the levels. There has been a brief lull however, allowing some anglers to enjoy the Rhymney on Caerphilly Angling Cub and Royal Oak.

We hope levels will drop in December on the Taff, which can offer superb winter grayling fishing. Taff tickets are available in-store.

The lake fisheries have been much better - Crynant, Garnffrwdd, Papermill have been fishing well in S.Wales as has Ynysyfo reservoir. Although Garry hasn’t caught anything there yet!! Bigwell near Monmouth has also been excellent. 

In England Avington has been fishing really well, especially for big browns. Our regular customer Luke gator has started up a YouTube channel, check out the awesome video below which features tackle and rods Luke has purchased in-store, he is a big fan of the Hardy rods and reels as you will see!!
 

Coarse & Carp fishing

 The river conditions have been below par this year, but with the rain improving the levels it has allowed for some good fishing across Wales and the rest of the UK. Our young staff member Harrison has been targeting the barbel on the river Wye in recent weeks. across a few different stretches. Harrison's success has been down to a large cage feeder packed with Sonubaits Robin red  ground bait, with a variety of different hook baits between 10-14mm. With this being said, the robin red pre-drilled pellet proved to be the deadliest.

In the picture below Harrison is pictured with his personal best Wye barbel so far, weighing 9lb 6oz.

Unknown to many anglers, there is plenty of quality fresh water fishing to be done in and around the city of Cardiff. The Taff feeder stream is the perfect example. Our mail order manager Ryan Healey has been enjoying a mixed bag of coarse fish including this pristine bream, with Cardiff Castle as the backdrop.

I think we can all agree that there aren't many spots more picturesque than this one.

For our commercial lake anglers, the carp have continued to feed, whether it be on the waggler float or fished on the bottom. After visitng us in our Cardiff store for some advice and some new feeder gear,  Liam Davey headed over to Hendre Lake for a day session. This stunning Autumnal carp was quite literally the highlight of the day, with it's stunning colour and markings. 

Liam had several other carp and bream which all fell to the Preston Innovations ICS inline feeders and Drennan ready tied carp bandit hook lengths, whilst using a variety of hook baits and ground bait. 

For any coarse angling goods, remember we have a fully stocked range on line and instore across numerous brands.

 Sometimes it's not all about chasing the biggest fish, but simply aiming to get a bend in the rod. Dan caught lot's of little Perch whilst fishing on the waggler, with double maggot being his bait of choice.

It's always great to see the youngsters getting involved.

Sea Fishing

 There's no doubt that Cod are one of the most popular species for sea anglers and although the British shores don't hold the population of cod that they once did, there have still been some great catch reports throughout November. Ben Beal, working out of our Newport store has had some good session along the Bristol channel recently. Black lug and squid have been up there with the most effective baits for Ben, fish mainly on pulley rigs. 

Ben caught these two codling whilst fishing Cardiff Foreshore. He also landed another nice one around 3lb along with a conger eel of 9lb later on in the session.

In recent years it appears the Bass stocks have improved massively. Although theyr'e species that most people taregt throughout the warm summer months, there are still plenty of bass to be caught during the winter. Drew caught this quality bar of silver whilst fishing his local mark, Cardiff Foreshore. This beauty which weighed in at 6lb 8oz fell for a black lug and squid wrap.

TronixPro staff Ambasadeur Lloyd Summers has been catching plenty of fish on his Tronix Cobra GT-2, one of the most popular rods wev'e stocked since it's release in 2019. This blonde Ray fell for squid and sandeel set up on a dongle rig, using one of the new Tronix T22 Mutsu Circle hooks which have proved to be a fantastic hook since coming out earlier on this year. The new range of tronix hooks our now available to purchase in store and online now! Click on the photo below to take a look for yourself. 

Spinning & Lure fishing

 Many anglers on the salt water lure scene are aware of the fantastic reputation that comes with the Penn Spinfisher VI reels. Our customers have been putting the 7500 size to the test on the heavy popping gear, paired with our Penn Battalion Tuna rods. It's fair to say that both the rods and reels have proved that they're worth every penny! The quality build along with it's salt water resistance helped Danny and Sean to  land some monster yellowfins up to 71kg's in weight whilst fishing along the Kenyan Coast, East Africa. 

The fish pictured below was the biggest from a hectic 3 day trip using poppers and plugs.

 Darren Bradburry has been a member of the Wharf Fishery for many years, but this autum he decided to switched his carp set up for the for the lure rods, targeting the good head of pike that the venue holds. He's been catching plenty of fish using a range of different lures, with his go to soft plastics being the Savage Gear 4D Trout rattle shad in the ‘golden albino’ pattern. Although Darren hasn't been able to find any of the Wharf's bigger fish, he has had some cracking sessions where's landed up to 5/6 fish in the space of a few hours.

 One of our customers, well known BBC TV presenter and writer Will Millard (and all-round top bloke!) shot a ‘Fishing In Wales’ film with his friend Chris Howell on Pontsticll reservoir recently. The result was a magnificent 24lb 8oz pike ! You can check out the film below. The reservoir is fishing very well for bigger pike; lots more 20's than usual have been captured so far. We have all you need in-store for your winter piking sessions, from deadbait bait, to rigs, traces floats and lures.

 We hope you have enjoyed our November catch report, for a chance to be featured in our December edition feel free to send over your catch reports. Tight Lines!