Well, it’s old news, but interesting enought to be featured here. Enjoy!

Sea Angler Magazine Aug 2005

Heavy Metal Man

If heavy metal music is your bag, then you will know all about Bruce Dickinson, front man for rock band Iron Maiden. You might not know that he is a keen sea angler. Here he takes his sons conger fishing in the Bristol Channel aboard Lady Helen - an experience he describes as ‘uplifting’

The five-star hotel consierge at he plush McDonald Hotel in central Cardiff was horifried. Within a matter of hours Cardiff’s newest and possibly most prestigious was to play host to the Manchester United football team, due to play Arsenal, and naturally he did not want any disruption in the smooth day-to-day running of ‘his’ plush hotel.

Then, without prior warning, in walked a scruffy-looking man dressed in a pair of grubby shorts and a stained T-shirt that was emitting dubious fishy odours. He made a beeline for the smart reception desk and grabbed an apple from the overladen fruit basket as he walked past. I was that man.

I’d almost made it when jobsworth intercepted me with the panache and skill of a Premier League defender, while demanding to know what I wanted. The tradesmen’s entrance was, he informed me, around the back of the building and would I immediately move my vehicle from outside the hotel; it was blocking the access for hotel guests.

Struggling with the aftermath of an especially vicious hangover, a result of a night of excess in the same hotel just a few hours previous, I started to explain that I was there to pick up some friends who were staying at the hotel; in the Presidential Suite, actually.

Clearly he did not believe me, but thankfully a loud ‘ping’ from the main elevator announced the arrival of one of the lifts and out walked Bruce and his boys, who were all smiles as they saw me standing forlorn in the lobby.

The man in the smart monkey suit and starched shirt breathed a sigh of relief as we tumbled in my motor and headed for Penarth marina.
The charter boat Lady Helen was waiting for us. We were still laughing as the boat slipped out of the marina and into the barrage lock.
Many of our readers may remember the article I wrote last year
charismatic front man, when he flew us to Reykjavik, Iceland, aboard a Boeing 737 for a couple of days of cod fishing. Bruce is a skilled pilot by the way.

It was a great trip during which we caught plenty of fish and it was during this time that Bruce told me that both of his young boys, Griffin, 12 and Austin, 14, had wanted to catch a conger eel.

“No problem,” I’d foolishly replied, “get yourself down to South Wales in the summer and I’ll guarantee you as many conger as the lads want.”

This might have been a foolish gesture because South Wales is not an area noted for conger fishing, but we do catch plenty of eels up to 30lb-plus and best of all we don’t have to travel huge distances to fish offshore wrecks or reefs in order to catch them.
The Welsh catch their congers from open, mixed ground and often from marks located well inshore, the perfect location for a couple of young lads to cut their teeth on obliging eels.

As we cleared the Outer Wrach buoy and steamed out into the murky, swift flowing waters of the Bristol Channel, the skipper of Lady Helen, explained we would be fishing a mark to the east of the Cardiff Sands sandbank, near to the towering Monkstone Lighthouse.

As luck would have it conditions were absolutely perfect. When Lady Helen came to a stop over our first mark, there was barely a ripple to disturb an otherwise mirror-calm sea and within a matter of minutes the first baits were either cast out or dropped over the side to the bottom.
Austin and Griffin were each given a downtide rod to mind, which they eagerly hung on to with great excitement as they waited for the first bite of the day. Bruce positioned himself on the starboard side, where he patiently waited for the tip of his uptider to register a bite.

Griffin got the first tug on his line, a persistent pluck, plucking that is so characteristic of the dogfish that he quickly reeled in and swung over the gunnels. Not to be outdone, Austin caught his first doggie a few minutes later, and during the trip the pair of them caught an almost constant stream of doggies, much to their delight.

It was about this time that Bruce detected a bite on his rod and quickly wound into his first fish. His rod started to bend and nod to the tune of a hooked fish, then everything seemed to lock solid and at first we all assumed he had snagged bottom.As Bruce carefully applied more pressure he gained a few yards of line “Keep pulling, steady pressure,” we suggested, but looking at the now enormous bend in the rod neither of us thought he had any chance of getting his terminal rig back.
“Might as well pull to break,” we conceded, but as Bruce carefully applied more pressure he gained a few yards of line and slowly and surely he started to make some headway.
We were mystifed. We had all seen the bite and nodding confirmation of a hooked fish, but now Bruce’s rod was hooped over at an alarming angle and whatever he had caught was coming towards the boat.

After about five minutes of tug-of-war the line from Bruce’s rod tip pointed vertically down towards the bottom and we could all see that there was absolutely no way he was going to be able to crank whatever he had caught up to the surface, without serious risk of a broken rod.
The skipper disappeared into the wheelhouse and re-emerged wearing a pair of thick leather gloves, which he used to steadily recover line by the slow hand-over-hand method.
By now everyone was fascinated with the ongoing battle, and all eyes watched for that first glimpse of whatever it was Bruce had hooked.
After what seemed an age the leader appeared on the surface and I winced as I expected the huge amount of strain to ultimately pop the knot. Then the leader came on the reel, indicating that whatever he had caught was now just a few feet away.

Was it a huge ray or even a skate? There was much speculation and then suddenly we were put out of our misery. Iron Maiden are one of the most successful heavy metal bands in the world and in a case of perfectly choreographed irony.

Bruce reeled in an 8ft length of heavy steel hawser!

Griffin`s next fish was clearly something more substantial than yet another lesser-spotted dogfish, and the smart money was tipping the youngster to have finally hooked his first conger.
Steadily he played it towards the boat and then after a few minutes Austin, who was fishing alongside him, hooked into what looked to be another decent fish. Side by side the brothers worked at their respective .fish and, in the end, it was Griffin who got his to the surface first. Yes, it was a conger.
But when we got the fish aboard we could see that there were not one, but two baited hooks in the fishes mouth, with the line from the second hook leading back over the side, down into the water? and straight back up to Austin’s rod.
In another bizarre coincidence both brothers who had so desperately wanted to catch their first conger had both caught the same eel.

Conger fishing really rocks - Griffin gives his verdict after catching his first eel

Quick to redeem himself, about half an hour after the heavy metal incident Bruce hooked what seemed a decent fish? it turned out to be the day’s first thornback ray. Impressed with dad’s ray, both Griffin and Austin were keen to catch a ray for themselves.

And sure enough, and again more or less simultaneously, the pair produced a couple of specimen thornbacks.

More rays and lots more doggies followed and then again Bruce hooked what appeared to be something really big. Again the banter rang around the deck as once again he slowly recovered line, only this time the rod was continually thumping as what was clearly a powerful fish attempted to swim off downtide.
With some relief we watched as the leader knot appeared and the skipper slipped on his gloves again. Was it a ray, a decent eel or something else?

Bruce knew what it was his first conger eel, which at around 20lb was a fine mid-summer conger in the eastern Bristol Channel.

On the way back to the hotel I did wonder how the concierge would handle the famous family, now all rather high thanks to the smell of bait and fish? But they did have the key to the Presidential Suite!

Special thanks to Steve Jones

Story and photographs by Dave Lewis , from Sea Angler magazine Aug 2005 issue, thanks to Mel Russ and Sea Angler Magazine for their permission to reproduce from the original.