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North Wales ,The Llyn and Anglesey 2017

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Good trip out with Joe on Friday in the new boat; mainly a crustacean hunt as we wanted to get a nice lobster for Joe, which he did - talk about peaking early!

Viz was great and the water felt relatively warm. Load of sea life around - big congers in the offshore lobster holes alongside large wrasse, which I haven't seen before in that spot. Also found a huge bull huss fast asleep deep inside a hole as well, which was nice to see.

Hundreds of big prawns on the reefs, picked up a nice commercial prawn creel earlier in the day which we'll put to good use soon enough. Lot of lobsters about, we picked up a few but only took home one each, found some nicely berried females which is always good to see. The spider crabs are also in in decent numbers.

Not a lot of actual spearing done as I had to get in early but it was good to have my first dip of 2017 - I think it's going to be a good season.

May-12th.jpg
 
Hello gents,
I have been directed you your thread by another member.
I am quite new into spearfishing in the UK, and I was wondering if you could suggest me any quite spots to try along your beautuful costline.
I live in Cambridge, but I am planing to go for a weekend or two to wales this summer to have my first UK experience
many thanks for your help in advance
Good hunting!
josep
 
Good tSpeargun-Pathos-Laser-Open-Carbon-Pro.html
; mainly a crustacean hunt as we wanted to get a nice lobster for Joe, which he did - talk about peaking early!

Viz was great and the water felt relatively warm. Load of sea life around - big congers in the offshore lobster holes alongside large wrasse, which I haven't seen before in that spot. Also found a huge bull huss fast asleep deep inside a hole as well, which was nice to see.

Hundreds of big prawns on the reefs, picked up a nice commercial prawn creel earlier in the day which we'll put to good use soon enough. Lot of lobsters about, we picked up a few but only took home one each, found some nicely berried females which is always good to see. The spider crabs are also in in decent numbers.

Not a lot of actual spearing done as I had to get in early but it was good to have my first dip of 2017 - I think it's going to be a good season.

View attachment 43509
Well done chaps, brilliant. I wanted to get some other people's opinions on gun length for North Wales. I am going to try the pathos laser open carbon. http://www.spearfishing.de/product_info.php?info=p578_Speargun-Pathos-Laser-Open-Carbon-Pro.html
I was unsure about whether to get the 82cm or the 90cm. Bearing in mind they are slightly shorter than most Railguns in that they fire a shaft only 30cm longer than the gun length, whereas most Railguns are 40cm over the length.
What do people think would be a better option for North Wales. I already have a 70 gun and a 85roller. Cheers
 
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Hi Will, I've got a few Pathos guns - I've been exceptionally pleased with them - the 82 is my go to gun - I use it for everything - unless it's really low viz then I'll use a 60.

My 90 is unused - it sits in the boat feeling unloved. I always bring it "just in case" but I've just never found a situation where the 82 wasn't the better, more practical gun. Hope that helps.
 
Hi Mike, appreciate that advice. That's kind of put a spanner in the works though as I was swaying towards the 90. Overall length is actually 15cm less than say a rob Allen 90, so I thought it might be ok. Also with the carbon laser it seems to only come with a 7mm shaft which seems a bit overkill for our normal species. I don't want it to be slow on the shot. Is yours firing a 7mm Mike? Cheers
 
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I think mine have 6.5mm shafts - you could always ask Andreas if he'll swap the 7mm for a 6.5mm. The guns don't come rigged so I can't see it being too much of a problem - I'm not sure you'd really notice much difference between the shafts though.

Just so you know, I'm pretty sure the Pathos carbons are a carbon rail glued onto a round carbon tube, so it's not one tube piece, like a Rob Allen. I would double check that but I'm pretty sure it's still right. It put me off buying one, although I'm very sure it makes no difference.

Carbon guns are cool but I think I'd always choose aluminium guns just for their durability - it's nice to have a gun you can root lobsters out of their holes with without stressing you're scratching your beautiful carbon to pieces!

It's the same with fins, I always take a pair of plastic fins and a pair of carbons when I go out, so I can slip on the plastics when I'm digging for crabs and lobbies in the rocks. Can't be chipping that carbon!

If you want to have go with my 90, just let me know mate.
 
Thanks Mike appreciate it, I'm not really going to be about until August /September so I will probably aim to have the gun before then. Yes I know what you mean about aluminium, a valid point. I will have to give it a bit more thought but I am leaning towards a carbon 90 at the minute. I haven't read anything about the rails being a weak point so hopefully that's not an issue.
 
...My 90 is unused - it sits in the boat feeling unloved. I always bring it "just in case" but I've just never found a situation where the 82 wasn't the better, more practical gun. Hope that helps.
I agree. I have a carbon 90cm Omer XXV and a 75cm version of the same model. I mostly use the latter. Twice (over several years) I have switched to the 90cm: once in Cornwall where I was spearing the same spot every day - the 75cm was fine but thought it was a good opportunity to try to use the 90 and I found the longer gun easier to direct accurately (hard to explain that) under the moderately clearer than normal conditions. The other time, I encountered much better visibility in S. Devon than I expected; my son was kind enough to run back to the car & bring me the longer speargun while I was in the water (he had to traverse rock obstructions both there and back - but he loves that kind of thing!). It was a luxury situation, the 75cm was Ok but he wanted something to do and a longer gun was more appropriate - but there were no fish, so all for nowt.
 
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Anyone dived recently? Was planning on heading down for the long weekend. Was wondering what the Vis is like at the moment?


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I went for the aluminium 82cm, and almost immediately wished I'd gone for the carbon 90!

It's a great gun mate - simple, lightweight, totally dependable - I think you made a good choice. For North Wales, I'd have the Alu 82 over a Carbon 90 in a heartbeat.

Anyone dived recently? Was planning on heading down for the long weekend. Was wondering what the Vis is like at the moment?

I was in today - 4 foot swell off Pwllheli marina - not very nice in a small boat! Conditions were understandably pretty terrible - did a bit of chumming at various points!! Picked up a variety of sea food... shell fish, crustaceans, Mullet, "Gentleman's Mullet".... so despite the horrible viz and swell, it wasn't all that bad.

I think it'll be fine for the weekend - it's calm all week - it'll clear up very quickly.
 
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It's a great gun mate - simple, lightweight, totally dependable - I think you made a good choice. For North Wales, I'd have the Alu 82 over a Carbon 90 in a heartbeat.



I was in today - 4 foot swell off Pwllheli marina - not very nice in a small boat! Conditions were understandably pretty terrible - did a bit of chumming at various points!! Picked up a variety of sea food... shell fish, crustaceans, Mullet, "Gentleman's Mullet".... so despite the horrible viz and swell, it wasn't all that bad.

I think it'll be fine for the weekend - it's calm all week - it'll clear up very quickly.

I heard there was a bit of an algae bloom?


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And it sounds like the chumming may have been involuntary!:vomit:
 
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I'm selling a carbon Rob Allen 90cm, it's on eBay but I could do a deal if anyone off here wants it, it's got Mako handle and muzzle, also got an aluminium Mako predator pro 70cm, don't want much for it.
 
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Finally managed to extricate Dafyddrees from his burrow and get him to the coast - we dived the Lintle, for a mixed bag of boulders, deep kelp and wrecks with the hope of big fish.

Daf was in straight in with an exceptional specimen, over 6lb, within 5 minutes of getting in the water - it buzzed him then shot off into the murk - knowing he'd never see it again, he pulled off an incredible shot to nothing, the spear entering through the gills and exiting right out of the end of the nose. A good start to the day!

Unfortunately, the fish, as with everywhere on the Llyn these days, were thin on the ground. We tried shallow, we tried deep, all very quiet. We saw dozens and dozens of dogfish, I've never seen so many. We found pollock on the drop offs alongside huge wrasse. Saw some large shoals of small bass coming in from the deep, which was nice to see. A few mullet around, almost no baitfish spotted. It felt fishy but was very quiet.

Highlight of the day was definitely finding a newly hatched dog fish swimming around, looking a bit lost at the surface. Cutest thing I've seen in ages - was safely returned to the kelp. Came home with a variety of fish and crustaceans - hard diving but a good day!
 
Very quiet on the forum these days... anyone been out? I've been in a fair bit but haven't found the fishing particularly good so far this year, despite the brilliant weather.

I've seen more bait fish than I've ever seen - shoals of sandeels and herring so thick you need to push them out of the way to see, literally. Likewise, I've seen shoals of small bass almost every dive, sometimes numbering hundreds and hundreds of fish - amazing to see. We've had some great dives but where are the big predators? Take-able fish are painfully thin on the ground.

Daf and I did a half day drift dive along a stretch of the North Coast this week, stunning viz, lovely deep kelpy reefs, buckets of bait fish everywhere - no predators. We saw one bass and I took a 6lb pollock - those were only shootable fish spotted all day. We had a great day all the same but it would be nice to see a few more fish.

Pic of pollock - interesting find in it's belly - it had eaten a huge, newly molted spidercrab. Never seen anything like that before.

6lb-Pollock.JPG
 
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That's a cracking Pollock. I'm hoping to get in soon for a night dive or a day dive......I will let you know if I do :)
 
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