It may come as something of a surprise to a lot of people to hear that the 11 mile by less than 1 mile 'hump of grass, sand dunes and sea-borne stones' (not my words) known as Walney Island in Cumbria with its population of around 13,000 people is in fact the eighth largest island in England, and the largest with a direct bridged access road to the mainland. Yet outside of the north west, few people it seems have ever heard of the place, with even fewer having enjoyed the quality of boat fishing it can offer. Another statistic picked up while researching on the Internet is that Walney is also reputedly the windiest lowland site in England too. So it should come as no great surprise that the area is now being developed for offshore wind farming. Another important role is it's strategic geographical positioning in relation to the nearby town of Barrow-in-Furness on the mainland side of the narrow of the Walney Channel whose shipyards use the island for shelter, and the channel itself for dispatching the submarines it builds for the protection of Queen and country. Fortunately, this shelter and the channel also have their value from an angling perspective, as small boats can launch directly into it at pretty much any stage of the tide from a steep cobbled slip close to the Ferry Hotel adjacent to the bridge on what is known as The Promenade. Not only does the channel boast safe sheltered launching, it also offers safe sheltered water to run back into at the south end if conditions start to cut up, and some surprisingly good plaice and bass from time to time when conditions over on the seaward side make it either uncomfortable or dangerous to venture out. There is reputedly access in and out of the channel into the Duddon Estuary at the north end too over high water, though personally I have never tried and would not attempt or rely on it for safety reasons either. The safe access is the buoyed channel to the south, though unfortunately, this can add quite a bit on to sailing distances to get to the fish. But in these parts it wasn't always that way.

When I first started small boat fishing around Walney back in the late 1970's, we pretty much had the place to ourselves as all our launching was done over on the western seaward side either at Earnse Bay or Biggar Bank. You could put a light weight boat in from the little car park at Bigger Bank by lifting the small outboard motor off the back, emptying all the gear out, and handballing it down the beach. We would even camp on the grassy verge getting our drinking water from the Round House at the top of Sandy Gap Lane which was a public toilet back then. But more often than not we used the ram-shackled slip in front of Earnse Bay holiday park (now West Shore Residential Park) taking our cars directly down onto the beach. We would stick to the edge of rocks where it was firm so far as was possible, and never got bogged in, though I wouldn't risk it now without 4WD. The beauty of Earnse was that it was centrally placed for fishing in all directions. You could either head south to fish the heavy ground off Biggar for cod with a stop off for tope in front of the Coastguard lookout as a further option, or you could head north to fish the shallow banks and gullies leading up and into the River Duddon Estuary for bass and plaice. Dabs and flounders also like this area, particularly the dabs. But it was the plaice which we were particularly interested in. Fresh blow lug would be dug in front of Bigger Bank car park at low water, then it was over to Earnse and up into the Duddon fishing it on three boomed paternosters until it ran out, then either home, pirking for cod, or a crack at the tope. One particular day, three of us shared a haul of 530 plaice. Obviously it isn't like that any more. But with plaice now making quite a strong showing again along some western Irish Sea Coasts, there are still be some to be had. Some bass too, and plenty of big dabs. Though still there, Earnse slip is not good, besides which, now with the advent of bigger, safer, faster boats, weather permitting, it's quicker for me to sail across Morecambe Bay from the Fylde using Lune Buoy and Lightning Knoll Buoy as staging posts. The Duddon is over 20 miles of a run. But the south end marks are not too bad. Of course, you can still drive around and launch in the channel too, and it's in the south Walney area that some of best fishing can be found. To give you a taster of that, during a bass tagging trip, three of us released 42 bass in under 3 hours.

Mark No 1: Mullgroo's Farm

One of the most productive, though certainly not most varied trips I have had to the heavy ground in front of beacon on the hill near what was (and possibly still is) known as Mulgroo's Farm, was with a charter party from Preston fishing aboard Andy Bradburys Fleetwood based 'Blue Mink'. It was a dull, weary, changable looking morning when we set off across Morecambe Bay, and it didn't get any better as the day progressed with rain off and on, and the promise of a fresh north westerly to come later in the day. But with a rain cover fitted over much of the fishing well, and the wind on our tail for the run back if it did come, we headed across anyway. The plan had been to do a spot of heavy ground mixed fishing for cod, pollack, gurnards, and potentially even the odd black bream which have been showing along parts of the Cumbrian coast in increasing numbers over recent years. That however isn't how it turned out. Initially we started fishing on the drift with baits on droppers above the lead to keep the hooks from going to ground in the boulders and weed. But it wasn't the heavy ground that ended up taking the hooks. The droppers were repeatedly coming up bitten through. Occasionally, the culprit would stay attached for a short while as it tore line from the reel. It quickly became obvious that these were tope, and when we put the anchor down and switched to more appropriate terminal tackle and baits, we discovered it was tope city down. The whole place was alive with the things which quite often happens early summer. So prolific were they that not even dogfish had much of a chance to get a look in. We probably did catch the odd dog and even huss. But it was carnage to the point that the spare terminal tackle on the boat, and for that matter the supply of fresh bait, simply couldn't keep pace with the fishing. So we didn't manage to put a nice example of the mixed fishing this area can produce, and in particular its summer cod potential in front of the camera. But never mind. I had seen it all before. And what a day we ended up having.

Mark No. 2: Lightning Knoll

Traditionally, this is a sign post to use for those making the run across from the Lancashire side. But it is potentially a very good 'south end' fishing area in its own right, particularly if either you just don't fancy making the full 20 odd mile run to the Duddon, or the forecast perhaps suggests that in the interests of safety, a shorter run might not be such a bad idea. At around 12 miles via Lune Buoy from Cleveleys, it still is a fair trip with the Lune Deep to cross as well en route, which if it cuts up can be a bit of handful to get back through on the ride home. But on a flat calm day it's a nice run, and easy to pick out as the buoy itself has red and white quarters with its name on it. However, back in the days when our boats were way too slow to even consider such a run, we would fish it from the bottom of Walney Channel. Obviously the charter boats from both sides (now sadly all but gone) would also regularly run to this area. You don't actually fish the buoy itself, but you will be within easy sight of it at all times with most of the marks no more than half a mile or so away. The big draw then was the thornback rays. Lots of them and of good size. Less widely known was the fact that while fishing at anchor with mackerel strip, on more than the odd occasion, anglers would end up catching turbot and occasionally brill, two fish normally taken on moving as opposed to static baits. So what the true potential was is anybodies guess. The only bit of additional light I can shed is from the days I spent aboard the Fleetwood trawler 'Biddy' with skipper Ben Bee who caught his net on a 'fixer' one trip near the buoy, capsaizing the boat, and sadly was drowned. I could quite easily have been onboard that day as I was regularly making the trips collecting research specimens of flatfish with deformities. Anyway, back to the story. In one haul made crossing from Lune to south Walney we scooped up in excess of 30 big turbot and brill, mainly for some reason the latter, with the best maybe going into double figures.

Around the mid 1980's, thornbacks not only in Morecambe Bay, but pretty much everywhere took a sharp and long lasting nose dive into decline. Some say it was the explosion in spurdog lining taking the rays as by-catch. But the reality is probably much more complex with all manner of commercial fishing, and none catch and release angling too playing its part. And when a species that only produces very small numbers of offspring goes into decline, it can take years for population numbers to climb back. But that it seems is exactly what the thornback population has now done. Left alone for a good long period after the inshore fishing hit the buffers, what was left of the ray population began quietly going about its business of making more rays and not getting cleaned out again along the way. So much so that a tagging project aimed at better understanding their protective needs this time around has recently started in the area based at Liverpool's World Museum (www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/raywatch). On a personal note, we noticed a couple of seasons ago that rays were suddenly starting to put in a show again, and interestingly in areas where we wouldn't traditionally see them in the past, suggesting that there are quite a few about now. For the most part, the ones we saw in the non traditional areas have been a bit on the small side, suggesting this is something of a recent thing. That being the case, there is no reason for them not to be back on all of their traditionally favoured haunts, including around Lightning Knoll. In fact, I know that they are, because over this last winter while everyone, myself included, was been focused on looking for cod, the remaining couple of inshore trawlers still working out of Fleetwood did make (unfortunately) some very big catches where they traditionally had them in the past.

Mark No. 3: Earnse Bay

The reason why I'm giving three marks instead of two as is normally the case with Inside Information is for those people who will not be sailing across, either because they don't fancy it, they live too far away from the Fylde Coast to make it a proposition, or they are local to south Cumbria area. Yes, I have sailed the 22 miles across to the Duddon on many occasions. But for a variety of reasons it can be better to have your start point on the Cumbrian side. As I said earlier, when we first fished it 30 years ago, we motored out on a Johnson 9.9 hp engine from Earnse Bay, and GPS (even the old Decca based Navstar) was still a thing of the future. Unfortunately, because of the geography of north Walney, all of which looks exactly the same, there wasn't much in the way of usable landmarks either. Depending on how early in the tide you dug your bait and got launched, the tops of the banks would still be far enough out of the water to see where the deeper channels were, something to take heed of now with a big fast engine on the back. You don't want one of those things stopping you dead at 30 mph. And everywhere we went we still seemed to catch lots of fish. Obviously the species mix would change – usually between plaice and dabs, though if you wanted the bass and had peeler crab, getting close in to the edge of the banks was always a good ploy. You had to go a long way up into the Duddon to get any appreciable numbers of flounders, though you would generally see the odd one anywhere. Fresh blowlug layered on newspaper to toughen it up was always the way, with any injured worms that had started to soften and die being especially good for the dabs. Then when we started sailing across, the bait pattern changed from fresh blowlug to frozen black, and that started to pick out the better plaice, particularly believe it or not, worm that had been re-frozen having been left over from a previous trip. Obviously it had only just started to soften in the cool box. And towards the end of that time the first navigators came on the market, so we were at long last in a position to accurately log our marks. Interestingly though, as technology made life easier generally, the going became harder due to there being less fish about. So the moral here is that these fish are likely to be anywhere and everywhere, with the mark given and used in recent times being potentially one of many, which if it doesn't produce on the day will be very close to dozens of others that might.

WALNEY ISLAND FACT BOX

Launch Sites: Ferry slip adjacent to the bridge. Becomes less good at the base towards low water, particularly on a big tide when 4WD might be required. Also Earnse Bay. The slip at Earnse is poor and narrow leading out onto a short patch of stones then clean sand. Don't risk this without 4WD.

Mark 1: Mulgroo's Farm N5403270, W0031977

Mark 2: Lightning Knoll N535916, W0031343

Mark 3: Earnse Bay N540820, W0031807

Tides: Barrow-in-Furness has its own tide table. A version of this can be had on the Internet at www.mobilegeographics.com:81/calendar/year/392.html

Safety: Walney channel offers a great deal of safe sheltered water to launch in and to tuck into. The western side is obviously exposed to the weather. HM Coastguard do have operatives in South Cumbria, but the overseeing centre remains Liverpool MCA Tel. 0151 931 3341. The RNLI have a 16 metre Tamar Class lifeboat stationed at Roa Island, and a 5 metre D-class inshore RIB.

Weather: Liverpool Coastguard or www.metoffice

Weather: barrow_in_furness_forecast

Charter Boats: Barrow 'Revenge' Tel. Stewart on 01229 826160.
Fleetwood 'Blue Mink'. Tel. Andy on 01253 354567.

RATINGS

Location and travel ****

Facilities ***

Tackle Shop ***

Location Safety ****

Fish Quality ****