Join Dave on his travels in search of a fish that many believe can't be caught in any numbers off the Welsh coast - the blue shark.

For as far as the eye could see, from horizon to horizon, the surface of the ocean was boiling with life. Gannets by the hundred competed with the razorbills, gulls, terns, petrels and guillemots as they gorged themselves on the bountiful harvest of fish that had been pushed to the surface. Countless millions of whitebait were being massacred by what seemed equal numbers of mackerel, hungry fish who themselves were undoubtedly being slammed by unseen predators beneath.

Catching enough fresh mackerel for the day wasn't easy; it was absurd! Throw the reel into free-spool, drop the feathers over the side and barely would they have disappeared out of site when the weight on the rod would at first fall slack, then suddenly come alive with the vigorous thrumming of what in most cases was a fish on every hook. "If you manage to get below the mackerel there are big pollack and some fine cod on the reef below", Andrew had told us as he struggled with yet another half dozen squirming fish. Get near the bottom, I quietly thought to myself, there was more chance of hooking a mermaid!

Early start

The day had started several hours earlier at some horrible pre-dawn hour when I had crawled out of bed, scolded my throat with hot black coffee, and driven 200km west to Milford Haven. It was a beautiful morning with as yet barely a hint of wind to stir the heavy morning mist that lay like a blanket in the valleys, or stir the heavily leafed trees that flank the winding lanes that lead through the rolling south-Pembrokeshire countryside. By the time I crossed the high toll bridge at Neyland I was eagerly anticipating a day's offshore angling that I had been assured would be something special.

Myself and angling friend Steve Humpherson had been invited out for the day by Andrew Allsop and his father Al, aboard their 26ft Osprey, 'White Waters'. We had met the father and son team at the dockside, loaded our mountain of kit aboard, and in no time at all were steaming across glassy calm seas passed St Annes Head at the mouth of Milford Haven and on west towards the twin islands of Skokholm and Skomer. We soon left these trailing behind in our wake as we headed on towards Grassholm, a steep pinnacle of an island that from a distance of several miles looks to be covered with snow, exactly like a mini Mt Kilamanjaro. It's only when you get closer that you see the blanket of pure, snowy white is in fact the plumage of many thousands of gannets. Grassholm hosts the second largest colony of gannets in Europe.

Soon we were past Grassholm and heading even further west towards a distant and isolated lighthouse, the famous 'Smalls Light'. It acts as a warning beacon to passing shipping, alerting them to the dangers of the infamous Hats & Barrels reef, so called by ancient mariners because at times the area was thick with floating barrels and the hats of drowned sailors from the many ships which have been smashed to pieces here on these vicious rock pinnacles. And it was here over high water, when the area was as calm and as safe as it would ever be, that within 20 minutes we had filled the spacious sunken fish hold in the deck of the Osprey with the mackerel we would need for bait and rubby dubby.

This time Andrew pointed White Waters into the south-west and we steamed a further 30km before finally stopping and starting our drift; the time was a quarter to ten. Blue sharks were our target species, a species that until very recently was one thought to be an infrequent visitor to Welsh waters. If you want to catch a blue shark, many seasoned boat anglers are still firmly of the opinion, then you must head either to Ireland or Cornwall. This opinion, as you are about to see, that in recent years has been well and truly blown out of the water by Andrew and a small, hard core group of fanatics who regularly fish this area.

Chum time

Andrew had brought along a couple of plastic drums that were full of frozen chum, and these were soon lashed over the gunwales, their fish attracting juices and oils leaching out into the tide and forming a long glassy slick. Not long afterwards the first baits, suspended beneath balloons, were drifting behind us and we settled down for the long wait that generally marks the start of a day shark fishing. Steve, a veteran of no less than half a dozen Namibia shark trips, had never caught a shark in UK waters and we had decided to let him take the first fish. At 10:15am, half an hour after we started, Steve released his first blue.

As runs go it was a pretty unimpressive affair, a couple of clicks, a short burst stripping maybe 10 metres of line out, then a steady click, click, click as the shark swam away, followed by nothing. At first we thought the fish had gone then we could see the balloon was getting closer to the boat, the shark had taken the bait and was swimming up the slick. Steve quickly wound the line tight, struck, and following a brief tussle Andrew grabbed the leader and pulled a small shark of about 30lb through the open transom door. Okay as sharks go it was a baby, but a fish so quick had to be a good omen.

We had to wait about 40 minutes for the next run, which from the off looked to be a more promising fish as it screamed off with the bait. Once again Steve took the rod, pushed the lever drag on his TLD 30 2-Speed to strike, allowed the line to tighten, and set the hooks. This time he had to work for his fish and it was fully 15 minutes before he sat posing with a fighting fit fish we estimated at 80lb. With Steve's second fish safely released I was in the process of paying out my line again, when suddenly it was jolted out of my fingers and started steaming out from the boat. Quickly I wound the line tight, struck, and found myself attached to my first blue of the day, a fish of similar proportions to Steve's.

Memories are made of this.

What happened during the next few hours is etched in my memory forever. Pretty much as fast as we could get a bait into the water we were hooking blue sharks, never did we wait for more than 10 minutes for a run. As fast as we could replenish the rubby dubby bags, play, photograph and release fish we were hooking fresh fish, often we had two on at a time and on more than one occasion we had fish swimming within touching distance around the back of the boat. During the course of the session the average size of fish we hooked got progressively bigger, too, with several specimens hitting the magical '100lb' mark.

At one point Steve was swiftly reeling in to check a bait after a brief run had failed to develop, only to see a blue shark scorching after it like a hot billfish! Ten metres out from the back of the boat he stopped winding, and we all watched in awe as the shark first circled the stationary bait then on its side glided towards it, rolled its eyelids back, opened its mouth and engulfed the mackerel flapper. Fifteen minutes later she was welcomed aboard for an impromptu photo-session.

By now the wind, which had been steadily increasing throughout the day was blowing a steady Force 4, with the swell starting to grow in size by the minute. We were over 30 miles from the nearest land, a long way in a 26ft boat, yet still the fish kept coming. Towards the end of the session I found myself attached to a really strong fish, and it was almost 20 minutes before I got her anywhere near the boat. "There she is, and look at the size of her," I exclaimed at about the precise instant I realised the huge fish homing in on the rubby dubby bags was in fact free-swimming, and not my hooked fish. That fish stayed around during the time we tried in vain to get my fish, a cracking specimen that was clearly well over 110lb through the transom door. For an age both Andrew and Steve had hold of the heavy mono-leader, but were unable to boat the fish as the stern was now rising and falling to such an extent in the increasing swells that each time they got the fishes head over the transom, its body rolled beneath the swim platform. Eventually the barbless hook I was using came out. What the hell, I thought, a photo would have been nice, but I am counting that fish.

Free swimmer

In the meantime the free swimmer was still circling the boat, and everybody could see she was significantly bigger than the fish that had just slipped the hook. Unfortunately, during the mayhem of the past couple of hours my rod was the only one ready to go and as there were the smashed remains of a mackerel flapper still left on the hook, I lobbed it out in front of the big shark. It took the bait instantly and once again line was screaming off my reel.

By now the sea was turning nasty, a steady force five with ever increasing swell, and Andrew had already decided this would be our last fish. Again it was the better part of 20 minutes before we got the leader to within grabbing distance, and yet again Andrew and Steve had their hands full trying to manoeuvre her great bulk into the boat. Each time a swell lifted the stern it was as much as they could do to hold on, and then when the stern suddenly dropped the fish would dive powerfully as it tried to regain its freedom. All I could do was stand back and watch, ready to let the fish run if the boys had to dump the leader. Sadly, however, the strain on the already much abused 250lb mono became too much and with a snap the leader parted.

Just how big was that fish? I don't know, but I'd put a lot of money on the fact she was at least 120lb, while the general consensus of opinion aboard White Waters was much, much bigger. By now it was 3:30pm, and thanks to the weather certainly time to run for home. In the five and a quarter hours we had been fishing we had caught eleven blue sharks and lost another three, and wasted a considerable amount of fishing time photographing fish. Had we been simply concentrating on catching fish there is little doubt our tally would have topped 20 fish. Show me better shark fishing than this around the coast of Northern Europe, and I will see you there next summer!

FOOT NOTE:

Two weeks later I was back out with Andrew and Al aboard White Waters, and once again we enjoyed exceptional sport catching plenty of blue sharks. The highlight on this day, however, came late in the afternoon when within a space of just a few minutes we hooked up to three powerful fish. One came off quickly, while myself and angling friend Byron Way played our fish for over half an hour when unfortunately Byron's fish rolled up the trace and bit through it, leaving just me attached to a fish using a light 20-30lb class outfit. After 40 minutes we got our first glimpse of the fish, confirming what I was already starting to suspect that it was not a blue, but a far more powerful Porbeagle and it was just under the hour when we got her aboard. At 160lb she proved that so far as potential goes, we are only just starting to discover just what is swimming in the fish rich waters off the Welsh coast.