Tope Fishing Session in Mid Wales

After the 3 1/2 hour drive I arrived at the launch site and proceeded to set-up my gear for an early morning launch.

I got a reasonable nights sleep , was up at 6:00am , and a couple of bacon butties and a coffe later I was donning the gear ready to head out.  As the weather hasn’t been brilliant this year (massive understatement) I had little confidence in the temperatures we would get , so the Aleutian dry suit and Kola boots had another outing .    July – I should be in a tee shirt! My fishing colleagues were all still fast asleep in their vans.

The launch was uneventful – sometimes you can get a nasty surf at the rivermouth – but not today.

I stopped for a quick attempt at the bass using surface lures but apart from one take it was quiet , so I quickly punched the coords into the GPS and paddled out to the first tope mark , trolling some feathers behind me in the hope of picking up fresh bait – but that drew a blank.

I dropped anchor at the mark , there was a fair lick of tide running over the reef , something the tope like, so a frozen mackerel was quickly hooked onto the wire trace and lowered down to the bottom, the second rod was set up with baited Silver Dream lures in the hope of picking up some livebait – pollack , mackerel , pouting etc. as fresh livebait improves your chances no end for the tope at this mark.

I managed a few dogfish on the tope baits – very annoying – before the action started . Without putting it all into words I’ve put together a small video which is linked below .  I ended up with one missed tope run and two tope to 35lbs , with no other kayakers on the water at that time I had to try and take the pics myself – not ideal with a 4ft tope thrashing around by the side of the yak!!  I also managed a number of black bream , these are excellent eating , many say tastier than fresh bass , but unfortunately mine were all small so were returned safely to grow a bit bigger for next time.

I recently purchased a pair of Palm Throttle Gloves and these have proven ideal for the kayak fishing , they give a good grip on the paddle and provide good protection when handling fish such as this , any member of the shark family has skin ov varying roughness and your hands can get messed up fairly quickly when onhooking fish.  These gloves have also been useful when hauling anchor especially if the anchor is stuck fast , they allow me to exert considerable pressure on the thin warp without it digging into my hands.

Barmouth in the distance

The Launch Point – Tywyn

The Lleyn Peninsular in the distance

and out to sea – absolutely flat calm

Tope #1 about 30lb

Small but very pretty – a black bream

Tope #2 about 35lb  – a very feisty fish which was safely returned after some admiring glances and respect from myself.

And heres the video ….  Tope Fishing Session In Mid Wales from The Kayak

My next trip is planned for 25th July , the weather is set very fair so my new Viper Dry Pants will get their first outing . The target species is smoothound , also tope family but smaller , without the teeth , but extremely powerful fish and excellent sport on light tackle.