The winter of 2007/2008 saw a sudden and unexpected dip in charter boat fishing fortunes, not only for Northwest anglers, but also those willing to travel from further afield for fishing that offers guarantee's. It's often said there are no guarantees in fishing, and that any charter skipper offering them should be given a wide berth. Well, in this particular instance that may not quite be the case. I'm talking here of winter boat fishing in the River Mersey. Over recent times, the quality of the fishing on offer, particularly for cod and rays tucked up inside the river has been growing year on year. Ask any dinghy angler and he will tell you that it always was good. From time to time, charter boats had tried to set themselves up for business, but without much success. Then suddenly it began to take off. And while the quality of the fishing for many miles inland deserves all the hype, the real plus with boat fishing in the Mersey, and in particular charter boat fishing, is the virtual guarantee not only that your trip is going to be fished regardless of the weather, but that you will also reach all the main marks. Some of the best fishing on offer is as much as 7 miles inland. On top of this, the charter boats pick up in one of the most sheltered areas of the river adjacent to the best fishing marks. Or should I say they used to, because the winter of 2007/2008 turned into something of a fiasco that not only cost a lot of anglers their winter sport, but quite a number of boat operators a substantial portion of the their income.

Not all the charter boats offering their services for the winter fishing are registered at Liverpool. Several make their way around to the Mersey at the start of each winter from Rhyl, returning in the spring to their own patch. By and large, these boats were berthed at Coburg Dock Marina, and therein lies the reason for the lost fishing season. Changes in personnel at the marina instigated long over due work on de-silting and restoration of the lock gates making it impossible for boats wanting to operate on a scheduled basis to work. As a result, the Rhyl boats stayed at Rhyl. I'm not sure what effect this will have had on the local boats, some of whom did not use the marina. But the effect on anglers generally has been bad, with fewer able to get afloat at the key time. The good news is that it should be business as usual by the end of 2008. Just a pity that the work was not carried out at a time when angling disruption could have been minimised, particularly in light of the weather repeatedly blowing trips off elsewhere in the region. So by way of a reminder of just what it is we have all been missing and what will again be available for the 2008/2009 season, I'm going to re-visit one memorable trip I did on the Mersey with Tony Parry aboard his boat 'Jensen II'.

As Tony brought the boat to anchor over an area of hard cladding on top of the Mersey Tunnel, he shouted from the wheelhouse 'Anyone not catching a cod today is walking home'. This drew an immediate scouse response from the fishing well - 'This is Liverpool mate. Chances are when you park your car up here you’ll be walking home anyway'. Having worked and fished in and around Liverpool for many years I know from experience that comments like this are said more tongue in cheek than in truth. Besides, with the facilities on offer at Coburg Dock Marina located just up river from the Albert Dock, this is as good as it gets anywhere. Swipe card access to the floating pontoons; clean toilets, bar and restaurant facilities, good parking, and close proximity to good sheltered fishing marks combine to make this the kind of location UK boat anglers deserve a lot more of. Liverpool is currently awash with extensive and expensive redevelopment projects as part of its European Capital of Culture for 2008 status. But is has to be said that the revelation the Mersey has become in terms of its water quality and the sheer variety and abundance of marine life this is attracting, European Capital of Aqua-culture would be a more fitting title.

It was dark and wet when I pulled up on the marina car park earlier with a good 6 to 7 south westerly blowing outside the warmth and security of the car. I could see flags waving about caught by the surrounding street lights and hear the clanking of yacht rigging on masts rattled by the breeze. A typical Mersey day for me I suppose as I only ever trail my own boat down either when its blowing too hard for Blackpool, or on the smaller tides which are essential to fish in the river due to the ferocity of the run. A quick look over the sea wall confirmed that as expected conditions were perfect for going afloat. But it was early season, and with nothing in the way of cod reported along my home patch which is usually the first area in the Northwest to see them, I couldn’t help wondering if I had jumped the gun a little. As the pictures here show, that most certainly was not the case. And to give us the best chance of getting a good result for the camera, Tony had assembled a crew that would have no excuses for failure including local angler and England boat international Steve Quinn, and Welsh internationals Al Reid, Rod Adamson and John Traynor.

Our first port of call for what was left of the ebb was to line up between the Mersey Tunnel ventilators over the hard cladding on top of the tunnel. The lads had already prepared their baits on the sail down with spare rigs baited ready to clip on in place the old ones in true match angling style. Blacklug and plenty of it on pennel rigs with a whole calamari lashed along side using elasticated thread was the dish of the day. Squid is the killer ingredient in the Mersey, though straight worm or crab will produce good numbers of smaller fish. Everyone on board except for me was uptiding, and interestingly, half the rods were teamed up to fixed spool reels. I have never had a problem in the past catching cod here down tide fishing. But I normally dinghy fish which is less likely to throw out any sort of meaningful scare area. When I'm charter fishing its usually to get magazine pictures, so the fishing was secondary. Where uptiding can come into its own is when you have a bow in your line as you must so as not to break the grip of the lead, you know you must be holding bottom. For drop down fishing the run in the river can get so fierce at times that it can be a struggle to keep the baits in the feeding zone. On our day it was only a 7.5 metre tide in the morning, and still I was struggling with a 12 ounce bopedo and braid during the main run. Steve Quinn on the other hand had a cod in the boat on his very first cast using his uptiding outfit.

For what remained of the run during the morning’s ebb, only a handful more of cod came to the boat. Then as the run plus the wind and the rain began to ease, whiting became increasingly more interested in the baits despite their large size. With the flow of Tony’s jokes mirroring the fishing (fast, furious, but sometimes hardly worth the effort), a move was suggested upriver to an area of softer ground beyond Dukes Buoy where a scaling down of tackle and tactics would pass the slack water period away by deliberately targeting whiting and dabs. Everyone agreed. If small fish in big numbers are what turn you on then this mark is the place for you. The big pennel rigs were swapped for a variety of smaller multi hook rigs which were coming up with two and three fish at a time. Tony Parry makes a lot of his own tackle including old fashioned three boom wire paternosters. I hadn’t used a pat since my early days fishing off Blackpool and hadn’t even seen one for years. So Tony gave me one of his. Despite looking like Christmas tree’s, pats or spreaders as they are also called, are one of the most effective multi hook rigs on the scene and it felt great in a nostalgic sort of way to be using one again. I don’t know how many whiting I had but there were plenty of them. I did however count the flatties. My 27 dabs and probably as many whiting, plus what everyone else was catching which was at least as much if not more gives some indication as to how productive the inner Mersey marks can be, despite being a good 5 miles inland.

Rod Adamson even caught a dogfish. Nothing special about that, except that I have never seen one so far up the river before. The previous day, Tony’s party had caught a couple of thornbacks at the same spot, the best weighing in at 12 pounds. A few years ago the catching of rays would have been a bonus. Now they are expected, particularly around the New Brighton side close to the town hall where a dozen or more is nothing out of the ordinary. Conger too have become another regular feature of the river now, as have bass, plaice and soles during the summer months. But it was cod we had come to catch, and when the making tide began to gurgle around the boats prop a couple of hours into the flood, it was time to press the bigger baits back into action again. Unfortunately, with the run came the return of the rain. Only this time the fine stuff that soaks right through everything. But at least the breeze had died right away. With the tide not quite running at peak flow (it doesn’t seem to run as hard on the flood anyway), I decided to have another go with the down tide gear and was rewarded with a cod topping 6 pounds mixed in amongst the whiting and dabs. As before, it was uptiders for everyone else.

On the day, or perhaps I should say for big boat fishing generally, uptiding appears to be the more productive approach. A couple of the uptide rods had the same number of cod as my down tide rod. But for the most part, baits either placed away from the scare area of the boat, or guaranteed to be fishing in the feeding zone which in such coloured water conditions is always going to be smack on the bottom, are always going to be in with the biggest shout. And so it proved by taking the vast majority of the cod hitting the deck, the smallest of which were two just under 5 pounds, the biggest going close on 8 pounds, and the boat average running at around 6 pounds which for any mark is not a bad stamp. For 5 miles inland from marks that can be fished regardless of conditions, its bloody marvellous. And just to highlight what you can get away with here, I fished one trip with Tony where the wind speed read out over the VHF by Liverpool Coastguard at the entrance to the river topped 50 knots from the Southwest, which on the Beaufort Scale comes in at force 11. We had started that day over on the Liverpool side but decided to move to the Birkenhead side for shelter. Not because of sea conditions. It's just that the wind was getting a little too strong for the tide and was taking the anchored boat off it's line which was affecting the fishing. But some boats stuck it out, and Suveran that day took more than 50 cod.

SEE THE VIDEO VAULT – Fishing The Mersey