Just picked up a cheap fly rod and I’ll be up in Aberystwyth in a little while. After taking in all the wonderful local riding I was planning to mess about for a couple of hours on the rocks at the bottom of the jetty at tan y bwlch beach trying to catch some bass for tea.

It’ll be the first time I’ve ever fly fished, I’ve got something approximating a cast down but after that i’m pretty lost.

Any tips on specific salt water flies, tactics or places to get more info would be very welcome.

Try this forum (you’ll have to ‘join’ though)
http://www.worldseafishing.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=43
I use it for North East info.
Tight lines!

Well, good luck!

I’ve messed around with this a little bit, it’s good fun so i guess maybe go with that in mind rather than relying on a catch for dinner, cos its quite hard, compared to spinning for mackeral.

B.A.S.S is a good place to go for tips on catching them in general (ukbass.com).

I would say, as a rule match whatever fly you choose to the weight of your rod and line weight (you won’t chuck a big heavy fly a long way with a soft flexy rod). Silver coloured small fish replica flys work well for most species, including Bass, but clever guys use things like crab or prawn flys, which are a bit specialist.

My tips would be: Dont bother if its windy, especially onshore wind; Dont forget eye protection/ sunglasses for fly fishing (seriously, google the photos….); and look for ‘rough ground’ to fish over – Bass hunt in rockpools, especially on an incoming tide. You cant cast anything like as far as normal sea fishing, so dont try – fish in shallow water over rocks, as this is the best trick of fly fishing (you dont get snagged as much on weed/ rocks as other styles of fishing). Big bass will hunt in shallow water, less than a metre deep looking for crabs, prawns, small fish etc so thats your best shot.

Hope you get some dinner – there is a minimum size for taking bass, to ensure they have had a chance to breed (40 cms i think) so maybe watch out for that if you get a tiddler!

Wasn’t really expecting to catch much just thought it might be a fun way to kill a few hours on a sunny afternoon. One step up from rock pooling. I’ll be popping to the tackle shop before hand so hopefully I’ll be able get some of the little crab flies if not it’ll be after something that looks like a sandeel. I might pick up some lures too in case it’s too windy.

Fine with putting things back and causing as little damage to the fish as possible, pulled a 14lb undulate ray out of the sea on Saturday and was very happy to return such a beautiful fish (it’s endangered so it would have been illegal to keep it anyway) the smaller thornback was returned too. Can’t say the same for the delicious bream though.

Cheers for the links chaps, plenty of reading for me.