I've just gone through the photos, as mentioned, there were actually very few taken. A couple of things we noticed last week, deep diving was COLD! Anything below 6 meters would chill you straight through, the bottom was freezing. Night dives were rubbish - after two 4:30 am finishes, we gave up to concentrate on day dives which were much more successful. All of the big bass and the gilthead were taken in the day. I was discussing on the drive down that a bream was my ultimate target fish for the year, to get a gilthead was just amazing.
The water, as others have said, was incredibly clear, I've never seen anything like it in N. Wales - easily 8m+ at times. At night with my 3000 lumen monster torch, it was like shining car headlights around, could see everything for miles.
Despite the amazing viz, I used a new RA 70 closed muzzle alu gun all week, 16mm bands and a 7mm spear - massively impressed, I was really left wondering if I could actually want for a better N. Wales gun - I could hit (or nearly hit) a clam shell at extreme range almost every time - I only missed a few very fast mullet, I hit every bass I shot at. Obviously for going deep in good viz something like a 90 would be better but for the mid to shallow diving we were doing, it was perfect.
Daf and I packing the car pre-mission, you can almost taste the bromance!
The first pootle around on the boat - this was after around 3 hours of drama in which time half the air-floor had deflated (a puncture that we fixed the next morning), we'd managed to detach the tiller gear control (an easy fix due to a loose screw), completely confuse ourselves with what to do with a choke and find out the hard way, that an outboard won't start in anything other than neutral...
Note the Captain's hat - an awesome present from Daf to celebrate the new boat!
The first BIG bass of the trip - not sure of the weight but a huge PB for me - stuffed full of peeler crabs and a 12" pipe fish:
Daf with his best bass of the trip, an absolute cracker:
Day two out on the boat, more cracking bass and some big mullet - look how still the water is:
The claws from a HUGE brown crab - actually worth the 1km+ offshore swim against the current - these were amazing! We somehow managed to snap something important off the end of the fuel line which meant that it just shot petrol and 2 stroke everywhere - we decided to do shore dives as it was the last day.
Obviously, no trip away would be complete without a classic Portland Pose - here's Daf with a 95lb bass:
Annoyed that we didn't take more photos - we really did have a bumper haul - something around 30+ good sized fish. A fair number but it's the only trip in the foreseeable future for either of us so it was good to stock up the freezer after such a long winter!
The water, as others have said, was incredibly clear, I've never seen anything like it in N. Wales - easily 8m+ at times. At night with my 3000 lumen monster torch, it was like shining car headlights around, could see everything for miles.
Despite the amazing viz, I used a new RA 70 closed muzzle alu gun all week, 16mm bands and a 7mm spear - massively impressed, I was really left wondering if I could actually want for a better N. Wales gun - I could hit (or nearly hit) a clam shell at extreme range almost every time - I only missed a few very fast mullet, I hit every bass I shot at. Obviously for going deep in good viz something like a 90 would be better but for the mid to shallow diving we were doing, it was perfect.
Daf and I packing the car pre-mission, you can almost taste the bromance!
The first pootle around on the boat - this was after around 3 hours of drama in which time half the air-floor had deflated (a puncture that we fixed the next morning), we'd managed to detach the tiller gear control (an easy fix due to a loose screw), completely confuse ourselves with what to do with a choke and find out the hard way, that an outboard won't start in anything other than neutral...
Note the Captain's hat - an awesome present from Daf to celebrate the new boat!
The first BIG bass of the trip - not sure of the weight but a huge PB for me - stuffed full of peeler crabs and a 12" pipe fish:
Daf with his best bass of the trip, an absolute cracker:
Day two out on the boat, more cracking bass and some big mullet - look how still the water is:
The claws from a HUGE brown crab - actually worth the 1km+ offshore swim against the current - these were amazing! We somehow managed to snap something important off the end of the fuel line which meant that it just shot petrol and 2 stroke everywhere - we decided to do shore dives as it was the last day.
Obviously, no trip away would be complete without a classic Portland Pose - here's Daf with a 95lb bass:
Annoyed that we didn't take more photos - we really did have a bumper haul - something around 30+ good sized fish. A fair number but it's the only trip in the foreseeable future for either of us so it was good to stock up the freezer after such a long winter!
