It was a Friday evening and I was quite literally just about to walk through the front door all scrubbed up and ready for an evening out with the wife when the telephone rang, and fortunately for me (though not for her), I decided to pick it up. On the other end was 'My Way' skipper Gethyn Owen with the simple message 'Get your arse down here to Holyhead for an 8.30 sail - the big spurs are in'. This was in connection with completing a project we'd started the previous spring, but which, for reasons that will become apparent, is not the easiest of things to get off the ground due to the short lived availability of these fish, the weather, and the way the tide runs out in Holyhead deep where they live. I also like to plan in advance for the job at hand to make sure I do a trip like this justice, and in that respect, Geth had caught me completely on the hop. The three hours behind the wheel on the way down therefore came in very handy in helping me to get my head together, during which time I also got to thinking that as Geth had caught me on the phone, perhaps I could return the gesture. Let me explain. Back in 2001 I did a trip aboard Dave Carey's Pwllheli based boat 'Judy B' fishing the wrecks off the Lleyn Peninsula which for the first time I covered using a digital camera as well as on film. Digi was brand new technology back then, so I sent both sets of photographs in to Jim Whippy who was editor of BFM back then, and he passed it all on to his production people with the memo that they should give the digi pix serious consideration over the film if possible, the end result being a little piece of angling history with BFM producing the first full digitally illustrated fishing article in the UK. Things obviously have moved on a lick since back then. Now even mobile phones have better camera's in them than the then top of the range model I used that day. All of which got me wondering if perhaps I might break new ground again with the first fishing article deliberately fully illustrated using an average mobile phone.

What a lot of people probably don't appreciate, particularly those who have come in to sea angling during the past twenty years, is just how much of a hammering the spurdog has taken. Once the most abundant small shark species in European waters, within just a few years of commercial long-lining pressure, population numbers took such a massive nose dive (currently estimated as being around 5% of optimum) that you would have been truly hard pressed to come up with even a single specimen. And unfortunately, until very recently, it remained that way since the time when putting to sea commercially to supply the market was no longer viable around the late 1990's. Thereafter, a very slow, barely detectable numerical creep back was allowed to begin. Unfortunately, when for whatever reason they go into decline, shark species and rays always take huge swaths of time to recover compared to other fish such as cod, due entirely to the fact that they produce small numbers of well developed offspring instead of millions of eggs left to their own devices. On top of that, at up to 2 years, the gestation period of the spurdog is longer than that of any other vertebrate animal, including the supposed record holder the elephant, which again doesn't help. Fortunately, coinciding with the 'embryonic' glimmerings of a numerical comeback, which often triggers a resumption of the commercial pressure that brought about the situation in the first place, pressure of a different kind from anglers under the banner of the Sea Angling Conservation Network (SACN) not only fought for but won protective legislation for this and a number of threatened fish species, which to no small degree was responsible for my Friday evening phone call and subsequent run down to Holyhead.

As with one of the attempts last spring, we had a mirror flat sea under a bright sunny sky coinciding with a good set of neap tides. The one big difference was that last year the spurs barely put in a show, whereas for this years shot, which only lasts for a sets of neap tides during late spring and early summer, they were very much more predictable in their appearances. It doesn't need to be flat, though obviously, from a sailing point of view that helps. It doesn't have to be sunny either, though it sure as hell feels good on your back after a long cold winter. But it does have to coincide with a set of small tides. More specifically, the slack water period of a small neap tide, which in this case was around midday. So we kicked off at the back of the breakwater fishing for pollack and wrasse, then moved on down to South Stack for more of the same, plus some coalies and the odd early mackerel, all of which would help supplement the frozen mackerel and squid in the bait cooler. Then, in typical Gethyn Owen style, because he doesn't want to miss a single moment of opportunity, 'My Way' motored out over to Holyhead Deep where the anchor was put down. We were probably a half hour or so too early for the reasons already given. You could tell this immediately by the fact that even approaching slack water, it was still difficult to hold bottom with 1½ pounds of lead. Fortunately as the tide looses the last fragments of its pace, keeping the baits down becomes increasingly easier, though only for a couple of hours. So you need to be prepared, to get there early, and to fish it as hard as you can in the knowledge that you might not get a repeat opportunity for who knows how long. A case of seizing the moment.

Though the general species mix at Holyhead is diverse, I feel sure few would take offence if I was to say that it is the cartilaginous species, and in particular the tope, smoothhounds and spurdogs that are the big attraction here. And it can certainly be no accident that anglers fishing aboard 'My Way' hold the Welsh records for all three species. Interestingly, had any of these fish also been eligible for British record status too, as all Welsh records of suitable size automatically are, none would have made the final hurdle, as none of the three were actually weighed on shore. In fact, in the case of the tope it wasn't even weighed at all because the scales weren't big enough. Yet still they appear in the Welsh record list. So how can that be so. Well, before delving deeper into that particular jar of worms, let me first say that if either the spurdog or the tope had been big enough for a British record claim, and had complied with the rule stating that all fish must be weighed on firm ground (in other words onshore), then those responsible along with the British Record Fish Committee encouraging them to do so would actually have committed an offence under European and therefore UK law. The Tope (prohibition of fishing) Order 2008 No. 691 states that while recreational rod and line fishing for tope is allowed, they may not be brought ashore from boats. Spurdogs in excess of 100 cms, which size a record would have to be, may not be landed either. Protection is also given to the common skate, white skate, undulate ray, monkfish and porbeagle shark. But unfortunately, nothing as yet to smoothhounds.

Despite the fact that it was difficult to keep any sort of prolonged contact with the seabed in the opening half hour, double figure fish came to the boat in good numbers from the very first drop. Not spurs unfortunately at that stage, but big bull huss. The sea bed down there must have been paved with the things. And they were not small fish either. Most were well into double figures, which in that tide made them a serious handful. Unfortunately, in some circles, bull huss are not placed that much further up the social pecking order than their lesser spotted cousins. Probably this is amongst small boat anglers, of which I am one, who can go out pretty much when they please, and people fortunate enough to live in areas were they can specialise in ways and for more highly prized species that keeps them out of the reckoning, which is a shame really, as huss do deserve a much better press. What these people ought to bear in mind is that a lot of 'less privileged' anglers do actually like catching the things as they often offer the best chance many anglers have these days of catching double figure fish. That being the case, Holyhead is most definitely the place to be then. The huss can often be more numerous than the lesser spotted dogs, as was the case on this particular day, when the best one turned the scales to a very creditable 16½ pounds with an average probably in the region of 12 to 14 pounds. But not far behind them in both timing and average size were the spurs, though their numbers were unfortunately not as great for the reasons already outlined.

It's strange really, because when I first started fishing, there were days in many parts of the country when you would have to make a conscious and determined effort of get away from the attentions of the spurs. Yet here we were now deliberately looking for them. Some of the shoals back them were absolutely huge covering acres of sea bed, where, like a huge swarm of big grey locusts, they would hoover up anything and everything edible as they moved around. Equally memorable was the fact that quite often a shoal would be made up of individuals not only of the same sex, but also of the same average size and stage of pregnancy, many of which, probably as a result of poor handling, would sadly end up dropping their pups all over the deck of the boat. Hopefully a current trend is that year on year, not only should numbers increase, particularly as these days they all go should go back, but in theory at least, they should also be a continuing to increase in size. To some extent this has been borne out by the fact that the current Welsh record standing at 19 lbs 7 oz and taken by Geth's stand in skipper Paul Whittle is the fourth time the record has been broken aboard 'My Way' since 2008. Indeed, many of the spurs taken this particular day were well in to double figures with the best going a fraction under 17 pounds. Accurate weights were actually quite easy to gauge due to glassy sea conditions, and no problem to the fish either as Geth uses a weighing sling of the type designed by carp anglers in conjunction with a digital scale with a display freeze button. Not potentially as accurate perhaps on a lumpy day as weighing on the shore. But at least this way, the fish gets to swim away afterwards.

We also boated a few small to middle range tope, which considering that for the spurs and huss a heavy mono flowing trace without a wire tip is used, is not bad going. But for the consistently bigger fish, some which can top 60 pounds with the record going closer to 80 pounds, marks very much closer both to shore and to base are favoured. The 35.91 Kg (79.16 lbs) record was actually taken over the main smoothhound grounds, and as was said earlier, was too big for the scales. However, as accurate length and girth measurements along with good support photographs were also taken, the Welsh Record Fish Committee took the bold forward looking step of feeding these data into a weight estimation formula and subsequently awarded top honours as a result. Equally forward thinking, they were also happy to accept all of Geth's onboard weighings and support photographs for the spurdog and smoothhound records too, the alternative being that for the tope and spur, they would continue to list two records which, due to changes in the law, were no longer eligible for claims. A situation the British Record Fish Committee currently finds itself in through it's dinosaurian reluctance to move with the times. Despite the fact that it is now illegal to kill certain species of fish, many anglers had already taken it upon themselves to put all fish back, even if it means missing out on a record, which quite frankly makes something of a mockery of the current record list, which if those who administer it are as they say there to represent anglers, should ensure that it is opinion driven. That's the way it now is. So deal with it.