.
           I decided that it was time to get my fishing gear together so I dredged through all the magazines to see what was available. .
           In one of my local stores I asked about boat rods. He showed me a rod which he said was 50 pounds and he’d let me have it for a tenner? I snapped his hand off. I found out later that the 50 pound was the weight that it was tested to but even so £10 was pretty good value. If I caught a fish anything near 50 lb I’d be well chuffed. (in fact bloody amazed!)..
           Reels were next. I had heard about multipliers so I bought one. The guy said ‘ if you don’t cast it properly you could end up with a birds nest ‘ I thought this was a bit odd but there y'go. I learned about birds nests after my first practice cast in which my line stopped dead but my reel continued rotating at a great rate of knots. It took me about 3 days and thousands of metres of scrapped line to get the hang of it. .
           I bought another boat rod, this time a 12 pounder from Ken’s store in Trearddur village and a nice shiny new fixed spool reel, which I was more used to from my coarse fishing days. .
           I scoured my magazines for ideas on making my own rigs (the bit between the hook and the line). Again Ken came to my rescue with some ready made ones until I could build my own, some of which looked very colourful and elaborate (didn’t catch anything with them but I had fun making them up!) I bought myself a large tool box and filled it with every conceivable item of fishing gear.


          Hooks
          line
          weights
          Sea floats
          Spare reel
          Lures
          Knife for gutting
          Scales
          Ready made rigs
          Tape measure
          2 small flares for inshore distress
          Anti-glare sunglasses (essential on sunny days)

………….I had dreams of discovering an offshore wreck teeming with fish so I bought a Garmin GPS 12. With this I could mark off the spots where I had been, so that I could find my way back again at some future date and perhaps catch the one that got away last time. In practice though it was very difficult in a rolling boat, trying to see a 2.5 inch x 1.5 inch screen held in one hand and the instruction book in the other! I had to hold on to the bucking (yes bucking) deck with one leg wrapped around the cuddy door! (not easy). Fortunately the GPS 12 is self-contained, (having its own batteries) so I practiced with this on land and finally got a small idea of how to use it in basic form. So be warned! don’t use a GPS until you’ve had a lot of practice on dry land.
           About this time I decided to change the boats name and my wife thought it would be nice to have it named after her. So DONNA 2 became ANTONIA MARIA, quite a mouthful but we poured a can of lager (half a can really, well it was a warm day) over her bow (the boats) and the name was changed. We passed a house on the sea front one day and in the front garden they had a vicar conducting a blessing service for a renamed boat, with loads of people in attendance. I quite fancied this but all I could find was a guy in a nearby caravan who swore that he had been to church once! I didn’t believe him so we didn’t bother.

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