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SPEARFISHING IN WALES - UK DARIO DELI'S SEA BASSES
Where do you spearfish? I live in Manchester but the closest places good for spearfishing are in the North of Wales and precisely the isle of Anglesey and the Leyn Peninsula. One of my favourite places is the Menai Strait, where according to the tides there might be very strong currents. How did you start fishing over there and are there many other speros in that area? Well, there is a small group of speros in northern Wales but very few of them make this sport on a regular basis so since I had not such a great support I had to find the best spots myself spending as much as possible time in the water. Are there any spearfishing equipment stores?
Does the spearfishing culture exist or people do look at you like an alien if they see you handling a speargun? Definitely not, but after the first shock in seeing a man getting a fish that way, people was really intrigued and attracted to our sport. What kind of seabed characterizes the stretches of sea you spearfish in? The seabed here is really diversified but we can generally say that rocky coasts rapidly slope down toward either sandy beds or seaweeds forests of several types, and it is right there that you can often find the biggest fishes. Is the visibility often low or not? The visibility is one of the main issues of spearfishing in northern Wales but because of the morphology of the coast it is easy to find a good spot sheltered from the wind where you have at least one meter, 1 meter and a half of visibility. For this reason I suggest the use of short spearguns, I generally spearfish with a 85cm or 60cm arbaletes with no reel and equipped with Tahitian spear.
What is the average temperature during the year? The water never gets over 15 degrees during the summertime and it is about at 4 or 5 degrees (Celsius) during the wintertime. Are there currents or any other things that might limit the practice of this sport, if so which ones? Currents might represent a big problem in some places where you have to accurately consider the tides to avoid risking to find yourself right in the middle between Ireland and Wales. In regards to the Menai Strait the current might get up to 4-5 knots and consequently you can dive in these spots only with some types tide.
What kind of weather we should expect in that area and which seasons might be better for spearfishing? Well, You might dive all the year long but the interesting fishes can be speared from May to October. During the remaining months the water is too cold, the visibility is non existent and the fishes disappear. The only species that can be found during that time are lobsters, crabs and scallops. What kind of fishes are more common in your spots? The sea bass is definitely the most wanted but not the only one. There are mullets, soles, lobsters, several kinds of crabs, scallops, pollacks, and rarely gilthead breams, cod fishes, trigger fishes and sea trouts.
What kind of habits they have, do they live in shallow waters or off the coasts? I am used to spearfish in shallow waters since there I can find more basses. Pollacks instead do live in deeper waters but I don’t really like their taste. Furthermore because of the currents, the usual low visibility and temperature, it is often really difficult diving deeper. Are your fishing spots characterized by anything in particular, like wrecks, natural barriers, etc? The most attracting one is in my opinion the Menai Strait, it is a 20km strait and its width ranges from hundreds meters to about a kilometre and because of this conformation the tides give birth to very strong currents but the basses are always there and it is funny trying to catch them once you are in the stream. Are there any local laws in Wales about spearfishing? There are very few rules to follow, there are minimum sizes (that for the basses is 36.5cm), lobsters can be caught only by hands and sea trouts are forbidden. Furthermore in some periods of the year also the scallops fishing is limited. The there are no more rules and you are free to fish as you wish.
Would you suggest anything to anyone wishing to spearfish in your area? First of all to get in touch with me and then to take a 7mm suit! I know big sea basses are very common in Wales would you suggest a particular period to spear them, if so why? Surely there are many basses between 2 and 3 kilos but the bigger ones are rare in op position to other northern Europe countries. The best period is definitely from may to September (included) even if they start getting closer to the shore in april to finally disappear in October/November. Are they different in terms of habits and their taste what is it like? The welsh bass behaves exactly like the Mediterranean one, obviously since the seabed here is different also the technique to catch it has to be modified accordingly. In regards to the taste it is the same but you should always remember to not eat its raw flesh as it often contains the anisakis parasite, that is dangerous for humans.
Well the questions are over, would you like to share one of your fishing experiences you like the most? Well most definitely the first experience that pops up in my mind is the last one. Because of the traffic on the motorway and a little problem with the dinghy I missed the low tide period in the Menai strait. Once I got there I soon realized the current was getting faster and faster. I had a go the same and when I got in the water the current pulled me rapidly away… in few seconds I had moved hundred meters! I finally tried to dive and I got soon surrounded by basses everywhere. By the way the current was too strong and I failed to point the fishes. Only by using both hands to brandish the speargun and clinging to a rock of the bottom I succeeded in shooting a bass but the spear hit the fish right above the mouth...a very weak point! In a few seconds a was over it with my hand in its gill, it was an almost 4 kilos specimen, caught right before the lip broke, what a luck! Dario Deli |
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