For as far back as I can remember, Rhyl has had the reputation of tope capital of North Wales. Off past achievements, I don't think many would argue with that. And still those high standards are being met, though with some recent adjustments in terms of timing and distribution. Stock numbers generally don't appear to have been affected. But there has been sufficient change locally to keep tope enthusiasts on their toes. Some of this is down to down to climatic change. But some is almost certainly also be due to longer term environmental changes specific to Rhyl plus an increasing number of other angling venues dotted around the country as the governments desire for more renewable energy starts to bite.

The best of Rhyl's Tope fishing, certainly in terms of numbers, tends to come early season, thinning a little in July when they start to move into deeper water where they can stick around until October. In May and June they are traditionally found in the shallower water around the Hoyle Bank which has in recent times found itself playing host to quite a sizeable wind farm. It could just be coincidental, but since the wind farm went into full production, and in particular when the turbines are active, the tope suddenly appear to favour the deeper water away from the bank.

I recall once reading an account of a great white shark put into a sea-life centre tank which had to be released because it wouldn't feed due to a pre-occupation with weak electrical currents caused electrolysis of metals in contact with the salt water. Members of the shark family, of which the tope is one, are very sensitive to even the weakest of electrical currents which some species use in the location of their prey. Obviously, different species have different detection abilities and tolerances. So it could just be that power generation on the Hoyle Bank is disturbing their normal pattern of life. Environmentalists are quick to point out disturbance levels to sea birds such as Scoters when wind warms are proposed. Perhaps they should sponsor some research into environmental effects beneath the waves.

Tope may well have been knocking about under the boat, but you wouldn't have recognised this trip as a summer trip. There wasn't too much in the way of wind, but it was cool under a miserable grey sky that threatened and eventually did put some rain down on us. Rather than fish his more traditional June marks, Jensen II skipper Tony Parry decided to head out into slightly deeper water right from the onset with the suggestion that we put down scratching rigs with small baits until the tide started to ease away. But first things first. We needed a good haul of fresh mackerel both for the hooks and for the rubby dubby bag before the anchor went down. No problems there. We soon had loads of little joey’s, perfect for whole baits, but with some real clunkers mixed amongst them for taking home. A few scad and herring were also mixed into the shoals, all feverishly chopped up for the net bags as Tony took the boat out to the first mark.

The party on board was a group from Cheshire, some of whom were regulars who were happy to fish for anything in the run up to tope time, but definitely with an eye towards some better fish when they started to feed. A group with mixed abilities, some of whom had caught tope before, and some that hadn't, which meant that Tony had to get his teaching hat on and run through some of the basics in terms of tackle, baits, and handling the gear. His preferred trace is six feet of 175 lbs bs mono with an 8/0 hook. That's it. No wire. The reason being not wanting his hands to be cut to pieces when guiding the fish in by the trace. That I can understand. But I personally have never used just mono before for tope presuming they would bite through it. You do loose the odd one I'm told, but very in-frequently. So something new for me to try too. I will be modifying one of my heavy mono Common Skate traces next time out.

The scratching rigs baited with fresh black lug, fresh mackerel strips, and cocktails of the two, produced plaice, babs, whiting, some excellent tub gurnards, bull huss and inevitably LSD's. A couple of unexpected tope runs that didn't come to anything also broke the early routine. Then it was time to up sticks, lash a second rubby dubby bag to the anchor, then send it down again in even deeper water. I say deeper, but at around 60 feet it wasn't exactly deep. There was still an hour or so to go at this stage before the tide eased away sufficiently to build high expectation levels. But it was tope time finally. Time also for some more instruction on how to go about successfully catching one of them. With the rubby dubby trail well and truly laid, getting the right bait presentation was next on the agenda. For this purpose, fresh mackerel is second to none, with the smaller 'joey's' perfect in every way. A variety of presentations were demonstrated ranging from small whole baits through to larger fish cut into two, with the main priority being not to mask the hook.

Brian Shaw was the first to hook up a tope with what turned out to be the best fish of the day at a touch under 32 pounds. With the fish played out, Tony again put on a show that caused me to re-think an approach I had been comfortable with for years. Instead of tailing the fish and lifting it aboard, out came a huge stainless steel framed landing net. The instruction given was that on his command, the rod tip would be lowered. As soon as the back half of the fish had been engulfed by the net, the rod tip was dropped, and with one great lift of the net, the fish was contained well inside. Tope are known to be susceptible to excessive out of water handling, particularly when held upside down by the tail. This can cause the organs in the body cavity to shift about under their own weight resulting in blood vessel rupturing and internal bleeding. For this reason Tony has invested in a proper weighing sling. The head of the fish goes into a small pocket at one end so it lies still in the dark. Then the straps are lifted onto the scales, with the body cavity well supported by the sling.

Not un-expectedly, quite a few decent sized bull huss also put in a show, which despite being doggie like are still spectacular fish to look at, and amazingly powerful as anyone who has tried to hold one straight for the camera can testify. Bernard Smalley claimed his first ever tope which at a tad under 20 pounds turned out to be the smallest specimen of the day, though still equally well received. A couple of the other lads had runs, some of which were dropped never to pick up again, and some which failed to result in fish to the boat. And there were others which pressed the weighing sling back into action.

Earlier trips just a week or so previously gave us a reasonable level of expectation, with more than half of all the tope caught in the EFSA Wales tope competition falling to the Jensen II crew, including the competitions best at 42 pounds resulting in a top boat award for Jensen II. Unfortunately, events were not to repeat themselves on this particular day, which just- didn't look or feel like summer at all. But how often do you get days when everything completely gels. When I fish charters instead of going my own way in the dinghy, its nice sometimes to feel like you’ve earned a result instead of having one handed to you on a plate. And if you can go away feeling as though you have learned something every time, like the mono trace and landing net trick, then that truly would be a result.

Rhyl, it has to be said, has seen more than its fair share of very big tope over the years, though it also see's it's fair share of smaller pack males. Fortunately, they are better than average pack fish often running between 30 and 40 pounds apiece. But these are as nothing compared to the pregnant females that show up in the earlier part of the summer. Those fish regularly take the scales round to 50 pounds and more. The best of those to come aboard Jensen II actually fell to Tony Parry's own rod, weighing in at a superb 71 lbs 5 ounces. But even that fish pales into relative insignificance compared to one specimen on board back in the early '90's. That morning, a gill netter that had hauled quite close to where Tony had anchored came along side and asked if there was a set of scales on board capable of weighing fish of 100 pounds plus. The reply was yes. So the gill-netter dropped a stinking monster tope onto the deck that had obviously been dead for at least a couple of days. That fish pulled the needle round to 95 pounds.

FOOTNOTE: For some time now I have been doing work on producing graphs and tables from which reasonably accurate weight estimates for specific species of fish can be made. Common Skate weights for example are all estimated these days from a well used estimation table which everyone is more than happy to accept. In years gone by, Tope weights were similarly estimated. But I thought that particular formula had died along with the Tope Angling Club of Great Britain more than 20 years ago.

It seems however that I was wrong. Tony Parry had managed to resurrect the thing and was using it at Rhyl - with modifications. The original formula was based on girth x girth x length divided by 800. However, by checking this against actual live weights it was found that estimates were falling short of true by around 10%. Then it was realised that when this formula was devised in an era when the killing of Tope was not frowned upon, the measurements were taken from dead fish which had lost weight in the interim. So the formula is alive and well, it just needs a little mathematical tweaking to take account of the 10% short fall.