I’ve got to admit that my own Sea Angling has been hit very hard this year, what about you? So far I’ve only managed half a dozen trips out and whilst the fish catches have been good (plenty of Bass and Tope around) I can honestly say that weather wise I’ve never seen a summer like it. If it’s not raining then it’s blowing a gale and cold. Who knows, maybe the weather has come at the just the right time for some of our fish stocks (like the commercial fleet care about the weather?) but for us Sea Anglers it’s been a disaster. I can only imagine how bad charter boat operators are finding things, you all have my sympathy!

I don’t know why but I’ve really got a great feeling about this summers fishing, I think it’s going to be brilliant! In recent years the Isle of Man has become a real hot spot for Bass fishing (after several decades with very few and far fish) and this has opened up beach fishing once again. For a long time the only way of catching anything other than Mackerel and a few Pollack (Callig locally) was to buy/hire a boat and get out a bit. You didn’t need to go far, perhaps only 1 or 2 miles but the Irish Sea has a real habit of cutting up sharp with even the lightest of winds. Last summer was a complete right-off in terms of boat fishing.

Now that we can enjoy real shore fishing again for fantastic Bass the weather isn’t so important. I’ll be making my first trip to the north of the island the end of this month. Hopefully I’ll have something good to report!