Grosvenor Breakwater
In these times of austerity, particularly in the public sectre where rate payers pick up the bills and are therefore understandably critical of any unnecessary expenditure, particularly if it can't be shown to have mass benefit, we should expect to see little if any outlay on angling amenities. With that in mind, when I was in Morecambe two years ago fishing with Morecambe Dinghy Angling Club who launch close to where the old Grosvenor Hotel used to be, though the extensive and expensive promenade and sea defence work had reached that far south, I have to say that I have absolutely no recollection of seeing Grosvenor Breakwater. And neither had Charlie Pitchers who was with me that day. Yet towards the end of 2011 while walking along the prom around the same spot with his wife, Charlie suddenly noticed it and suggested that one windy weekend when we couldn't get the boat out, maybe we should drive over and give it a try. To be honest, with the amount of wind we've had over the winter of 2011-2012, that could have been virtually any weekend. But it wasn't, because we kept finding other shore spots to try. That is until the first weekend in January 2012.
I remember this area of Morecambe well from many many years ago. The old sewer pipe and its adjacent mussel filled lagoons were always a good Plaice venue. Dabs and Flounders could also be relied upon in the channel, and when I subsequently boat fished it, again with Morecambe DAC but probably 30 years ago, the large bouldery patch known as Grosvenor Skeer was also a good producer of both winter Cod and summer Bass. Now of course Morecambes long over due refurbishment has changed the promenade beyond recognition, though the skeer is still there. Not only that, what appears to be a short, concrete, purpose built angling jetty known as Grosvenor Breakwater now juts out at an angle across the beach just fringing the skeer. The council may well argue that it wasn't money spent on an angling only feature, though being narrow, pointing seaward, having metal railings and going nowhere certainly suggests a fishing jetty to me. It's possible it has some other function such as preventing sand erosion or deposition due to the influence the sea defences are having on tidal movement and sand scouring. But I don't care either way. It's there, it's new, and it most certainly looks like the perfect shore angling platform.
To be honest, when we did finally get around to fishing it, I thought we had left it too late in the season. On top of that, lots of freshwater coming down from inland was another consideration, plus we had no idea either how or if it would fish, even when the going was good. Depending on time of year of course, the main suspects would be Cod, Dabs and Flounders over the winter, with Bass, flounders, Plaice and maybe Dabs during the warmer weather. Whether or not the reality would match the expectation though would be another matter. So on a miserable, overcast and drizzly Sunday morning in January, Charlie, myself, Anthony and another Phil dragged ourselves up there with little in the way of bait other than frozen blacklug and squid, little to go on it terms of how it might fish, and little expectation either if I'm honest. Some optimism obviously. Whether that would be misplaced was about to be put to the test.
When we arrived, it was clear that we were not going to be able to put a bait for a good hour or so simply because there was no water to cast a bait out into. This gave the chance to get a bit of a handle on what we might be casting out onto later, which is always good. But most definitely, this is a venue to be fished in the run up to high water and maybe an hour or two down. On the side facing Heysham power station, the drop down the jetty wall itself was sheer which was good in terms of retrieving the end gear and getting fish in (if any would come along). For the first few yards or so it was light shingle, which quickly gave way to boulders, then what appeared to be a stone and boulder mix beyond. Obviously this was the edge of Grosvenor Skeer. The other wide however looked out onto a sandy bay. The problem was that very large construction boulders lined its length for quite a few yards out, which could have some bearing on getting the gear back in safely. Immediately after the boulders was a narrow channel backed up by a sand bank. So prospects at least for some flatfish moving up the gulley on the tide looked good.
As the water reached the stony Heysham side first, that's where we decided to start. We had all brought along our tripods, but after reccying it first, I decided to leave mine in the truck and just use the rails which was fine. Simple paternoster or flapper rigs with droppers above a grip lead were what we all used. No real need for clipping or lashing the baits, as it wasn't going to be a hard distance casting venue. Small fine wire hooks of around size 1 to 1/0 would be ideal. At least that way you stand a chance of a relatively blood free retrieve if small mouthed flatties do come along and swallow the baits. But it wasn't a flattie that was the first fish to show. I don't think Charlie had even finished setting up his second rod when his first fish came along. Okay, so it was only an undersized Codling. But at least it was a start. That said, the rest of the fish were all flatties, and not a single Dab amongst them, which surprised me on account of the numbers we had taken within a few hundred yards of the place while dinghy fishing the channel on that earlier visit. All the remaining fish turned out to be Flounders. Some of not bad size either.
Maybe an hour or so after we'd arrived, a couple of local lads also turned up aiming to fish, which is always re-assuring when you visit any venue for the first time. And as you do, we eventually got chatting, which confirmed pretty much what we thought in terms of species mix and seasonality, though they did also say that you can get plagued by LSD's when the packs move in. So all in all, very impressive. I like to think that Morecambe rate payers did commission it for the sake of shore anglers. It certainly looks as though it could have been. But I'm not so naïve as to really believe that. Either way, a new shore fishing venue has been born which will most certainly see a few more visits over the remainder of 2012.