…………We went up, down and around the Bay several times until I was satisfied that I could handle the boat and engine. I practised cutting and lifting the engine just before grounding on the beach so that my prop didn’t hit bottom.Sometimes it worked but sometimes I cut too soon and in a tide on the ebb ( Hey I’m getting used to this nautical stuff! ) I was dragged in circles back out and had to scramble for the paddles . I saw a second hand Seagull engine for sale in a shop ad so I bought it as a backup to the main engine. This had a shorter prop shaft so I could use it nearer to the beach and gave me more confidence in case the Johnson broke down, which it hasn’t so far (touch wood!)
……….After several trips up and down the bay I decided that I was ready to start collecting my sea fishing gear.
I have been coarse fishing since I was 8 years old mainly in our local canal. My best friend Jack and I shared many a 5 pack of Woodbine cigarettes on the canal bank.One day we couldn’t get woodbine so we settled for Parkdrive and all afternoon my head was spinning and I was sick several times but it didn’t put us off having a fag.
My first sea fishing trip was in the mid seventies when a friend of my Brother-in-law(John) invited him ,myself and our Father-in-law(Bill) for a trip in a charter boat. We were staying in an apartment in Rhosneiger on Anglesey at the time so we all went over to Conway where we were to be picked up. It was daybreak and the mist was swirling as we arrived on the jetty only to find a line of about 50 anglers queing up for spaces on any of the available boats that were pulling up about once every 10 minutes, to pack in shoulder to shoulder about ten bodies per boat. We joined the queue but at this rate I reckoned that we would probably get out around lunch time but a sleek fishing boat pulled up on the other side of the jetty and our names were called out. It seems that my brother-in-laws mate was mega well off and regularly chartered this boat for himself and guests. The 4 of us climbed into the boat followed by a hoard of irate fishermen who were promptly ejected! So the 4 of us on a boat able to carry 10 left the jetty to the sound of whistles and boos!
We headed out of Conway towards Puffin Island just off the South East coast of Anglesey and anchored at the mouth of the Menai Straights locally known as The Swellies. Bill started feeling sick as we left Conway and got worse by the minute, in fact he spent the whole day lying on the engine cowling moaning, groaning and being sick.
As soon as we dropped our lines in we were into fish of all sizes and breeds, skate, mackerel, flatfish some I couldn’t recognise. I filled a bucket with mackerel and John’s mate caught a turbot which turned out to be the Welsh record and was the size of a dustbin lid! When the day was over I proudly took the mackerel back to the apartment but we didn’t have a fridge at the time so I kept the fish in the coolest place, at the top of the cellar steps. No-one fancied fish for tea so after a couple of days in the hotest season of the year the fish were turning a bit whiffy. We decided to dispose of the fish, but how? We were told that the refuse people were due to collect the trash so instead of tipping the fish back into the sea for the seagulls we tipped them into a plastic bag and deposited them in a dust bin on the pavement outside in the street. What we didn’t know was that the collectors had already been so the fish stayed in the dustbin all week (the hotest week all year). After a couple of days there was a no go area around the bin which got wider by the day! People would cross the street and wrinkle their nose when they passed. Even car owners stopped parking there for fear of their paintwork peeling off ! One day a car pulled up beside the bin and a woman opened the door and promptly began feeding her baby! Ugh!
We learned the lesson there and then not to take more than we needed from the sea.
John's mate
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