Hooks, Lines & Sinkers

Ireland 2018 – Part One

Another year and another fantastic week in the company of John and Lynn at Thatched Cottage Fishing Lodge in beautiful County Kerry has come to an end. Fishing was tough at times, particularly to start with – no two days were the same that’s for sure – but really and truly that just added to the challenge. I’ve said it before and will say it again, there’s something very special about this place and I don’t just mean the fishing – it’s the whole backdrop too it – the scenery, variety of ground to fish over, the people and above all it’s the spirit of the place which has really, really gotten to me.

This year’s trip saw the usual suspects of Nobby and myself joined by his mate Richard (‘UJ’) for whom this was a first delve into the wonderous world of lure fishing for bass…. excuse the pun but he was definitely in at the deep end!

After a few early inconveniences, like having a chat with Mr Plod about being slightly overexcited to catch the ferry and then the ferry itself delayed for a couple of hours, we eventually found ourselves on the good shores of the Emerald Isle. It was then the jaunt from Rosslare to Kerry before us…. you could have worse journeys and the anticipation of getting there meant the miles and time were eaten up – before we knew it we were through Caherdaniel, over the hill and before us was Ballinskelligs Bay (with some ferocious looking swells and waves I might add). Shortly after we arrived at Thatched Cottage to be greeted as warmly as ever by John and Lynn. A quick decant of fishing kit, chatter, a couple of wee shots, lovely food, and a couple more wee shots and we were ready for bed ahead of our first day of fishing.

I’ll make no bones about it, the first couple of days were tough – the big swells and waves were still there and the water colour was downright filthy in most places. Not ideal. Between three of us, in the most sheltered and best coloured water John could find, we had one pollack for Nobby and a lost bass to UJ to show for our efforts.

That provoked a change of plan from John for day three with us heading north to the Dingle peninsula to try the surf beaches there – a first for us on our trips to Kerry. There we also met up with a couple of well known bass anglers Ian and Malcomn who were giving the bait option a blast in the surf. The decision to head to Dingle finally paid dividends with our first lure caught bass of the trip landed, albeit only a small fish. The Savage Gear Line Thru Sandeel doing the business for my good self.

I had one one more hit that didn’t hook up as did Nobby but that was as good as it got despite fishing hard into the evening…. tough November fishing all round but at least the bass account had been opened. Our bait fishing friends only managed one in the same surf on the same session so not bad for us lure fishers we surmised…. we called it a draw anyway!

Day four back in Ballinskelligs and dawn brought us brighter, calmer conditions and thankfully clearing water with a nice table of surf running in the bay which John got us fishing first off. Nobby and myself cast out pretty much side by side and he shouted across to me “Looks fishy, doesn’t it?”….. “Oh yes it does” I respond with the devil in my eye as I’m into a bass first cast! Only a fish of a couple of pounds and again the Savage Gear Line Thru was on the money. That was the cue for a few more fish for Nobby and myself, here’s John with one of them…

UJ was still plugging away but was yet to be rid of his lure caught bass virginity – we were all quietly willing it to happen but it wasn’t to be in this surf session. The fish had moved on and that was the cue for John to get us on the road too and off the surf beaches altogether to fish some shallow reef on a flooding tide. This was a familiar and favourite spot of mine from previous trips and it came up trumps again with the ever reliable DoLive stick accounting for this bass…

Both Nobby and myself had further hits – alas no hook ups – but the tide was now pushing us off the reef anyway so it was time to retreat and once again move on. A couple more spots saw no action as we finished after dark but it had been a better day on the bass and a couple of pints of the black stuff made for a suitable reward.

Whereas Nobby and myself still had four days fishing ahead of us UJ was always heading back early so only had one more full days fishing ahead of him…. was he going to lose his lure caught bass virginity?

Until next time…

Frustrating start but a few bass in the end…

Fishing for me is my time to relax and forget about the day-to-day things in life and very seldom do I let anything to do with fishing dishearten me. However, I must admit that’s how I felt just as the light got up on Sunday morning. My intention was to get some early morning fishing done in the dark for an hour or so before dawn. So, I’d dragged myself out of bed just before 3 a.m., drove for an hour and a half and then yomped for a further 30 minutes to get to chosen mark. I like to fish here at low to particularly get the first push of the tide and the timings were favourable for this early start in the dark at this spot.

It’s usually a fairly reliable mark and I was surprised that for that first hour or so in the darkness I didn’t have any interest whatsoever… top water, shallow divers, soft plastic – zero interest. Then the light started to come up and the reason became fairly clear – if you look carefully in in the cropped photo below you’ll notice what I was faced with…

Nettting

Yep, strewn out for probably 200 metres in front of me was a net pretty much in casting range, in fact if I’d had a metal lure to give me extra distance I would definitely have hit it. Frustrating and above all disheartening. Needless to say I moved on and later I saw the net owner come along in his little boat to retrieve the net with his catch. Really wish there were some ‘no net zones’ for the good of all marine life and not just to appease the recreational anglers amongst us.

Anyhow, the move along the coast was a positive one and soon enough my mood was pepped up as I was into a few fish. As with my last post the bass were all small with the best topping out at 55cm. At least they put a bend in the rod and there do seem to be plenty of them around this year which I guess can only bode well for future bass stocks…. if they’re left alone of course.

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You’ll notice the Patchinko 125 was once again the weapon of choice, definitely my favourite lure of the moment. I just feel really assured it will pick me up fish versus other options… amazing how much confidence plays a part in lure fishing eh?!

Hopefully, will be out again in the coming weeks for a few local(ish) sessions but the countdown to Ireland in November is well and truly on now. Shouldn’t wish your life away I know but I can already picture it… and of course taste the Guinness.

Until next time…

Liking this Patchinko 125…

Well, once again it’s been a while since I’ve blogged and to be frank I’ve disappointingly managed relatively little fishing over the summer period – general life stuff getting in the way and the real need to get a project completed at home…. more on that later. The few times I have ventured out over summer I’ve found to be relatively hit and miss on the bass front. So with autumn knocking on the door it’s been good to finally get out and have two multiple fish sessions in quick succession – albeit all schoolies up to the 3lb bracket.

What has been particularly encouraging is the catching ability of the new Patchinko 125. Let’s face it, it had a lot to live up to with both its’s smaller brother the P100 and the bigger Patchinko II, both of which have been proven ‘catchers’ for a number of years. The problem with the two siblings, in my humble opinion, is there was too much of a size difference. The smaller version would sometimes be ineffective if conditions got bouncy, be out of reach for the fish, or simply be too much of a magnet for smaller fish whereas conversely the big brother can be too ‘noisy’ in calmer conditions and lack the subtlety that is required in a given situation. The P125 looks to have filled that void very nicely with very few compromises. I’ve found it casts slightly differently compared to the Patchinko II which you could fairly wallop out to the horizon if you put your body and soul behind it. To get the best out of the P125 I’ve found it’s all about hitting that sweet spot and then it will give you that distance and there’s no question it can fly! The nice thing about it is it seems to be consistent in the disturbance you can create on the surface with it and by that I mean it seems to work as you would expect equally between it’s two siblings – capable of a bit more disturbance than the P100 but not too much that it puts fish off, it can hold it’s own in choppier conditions and like both of it’s forebearers is incredibly easy to work. Above everything else though it has maintaned that irresistible action that bass seem to love.

That brings me nicely to Saturday when I took a trip down to Dorset where the Patchinko 125 was the weapon of choice and amongst a plague of garfish, and a few mackies, a dozen bass were caught – nothing big as indicated but okay numbers. The white version of the P125 was certainly working well (apologies for picture quality below)…

The second session on the P125 was on Monday for a couple of hours at a venue closer to home and again it did the business with the infamous 500g version a clear winner. This was a classic case where the P100 just would not have reached where the fish were shoaled up. Again, roughly a dozen caught similar size to below… the P125 certainly gets the thumbs up from me!

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Generally, it’s nice to experience, see and hear of more fish being caught as autumn looms large so let’s hope for more of the same in the coming weeks… particularly ahead of the now annual trip to Ireland which is in November this time around. Just cannot wait!

Before I finish, you remember that project at home I mentioned earlier? To cut to the chase it was basically a shed building exercise that got out of control…. I’d got so far with it so thought why not make it into a part fishing den/man cave sort of shed thing…. somewhere to hang the Patchinko’s up at least!

The Tackle Box

Until next time…

New season – unexpected start…

After a long lay off and the annual bout of cabin fever my fishing urge finally got the better of me yesterday and it was off to the coast for my first session of the season. To be honest with the March cold snap, relatively low water temperatures and only a few catch reports my hopes of a bass weren’t high but my head told me ‘you got to be in it to win it’ so I dragged myself out of bed at some ungodly hour to give me a good couple of hours before the published high water.

Arrived and the water was already much higher than I expected and I thought I must have mis-read the tables so I tackled up and hurriedly got going. It was still dark when I started but you could see there was a nice little chop to the water. Nothing at the first couple of spots so I gradually made my way west along the shoreline switching lures in the process and it was after one of these changes to the smaller Tackle House Feed Shallow 105 that just as the light was up I got hit… for all the world I thought I’d got lucky with an early season bass but was beyond surprised when I saw it was a mullet!

After that brief excitement nothing more was happening at that spot so I was on the move again but a significant landslip right to the waters edge stopped me in my tracks and there was no alternative but to turn back. The slip was slicking into the bay making it horribly coloured… it will certainly need a storm or two to break it up otherwise, unfortunately, this spot will likely be unfishable for a while.

Fished my way back but nothing further to report though there were a few mullet there in the shallows. Did meet up with some familiar faces on the walk back and in discussion we’d all faired much the same on the bass front. Last year I had my first bass at the end of March, this season seems a good few weeks behind probably as a result of the colder Winter with water temperatures definitely down.

So, the mullet was a blank saver, it was good to be back out after a long lay-off plus good to catch up with some familiar faces but in all honesty I think it’s probably a few more weeks of cabin fever before I try again!

Until next time…

Ireland 2017 – Part 3

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Day 5

Refreshed from a good nights sleep and another hearty breakfast it was probably mid morning before we headed out and this time it was out of Ballinskelligs Bay itself to try and fish somewhere where there was a bit of movement in the water in the hope of bass being around. Again we had bright skies and a fresh northerly wind to deal with which weren’t ideal conditions but when we got to the piece of coast John had earmarked, despite the lack of fizz and the pretty clear water, we were encouraged by the water movement.

Rossbeigh 1

First area we could only manage several small pollack between us despite seeing a large bass mooching around with some equally big mullet – none of them appeared interested in feeding at all but then we were at the bottom of the tide by now. Soon enough John had us moving on and after an early lunch we were off fishing some likely looking reef with relatively shallow ground, intermixed with lots of boulders and plenty of weed. It looked good and it was time to clip on the Do Live Sticks for sure.

Cave 1

It was slow to start with but then as the tide started to push and we found a particularly interesting looking boulder field we found fish. First I had a couple of plucks but no take and then a few casts later the rod slammed over and I thought I was into a really good fish the way it fought but as it turned out it was a feisty fine conditioned fish of about 4lb.

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A couple more followed on this stretch of coast and one was lost, all on the Do Live Stick, and all went like the clappers as if they were fish caught in highly oxygenated surf! Terrific ground to fish on and not a bad result in the end considering the bright conditions over head and the water clarity. We had a fair walk to get back to John’s car and set off in good time for dinner…. only to be way laid by an old boy who was repairing gate… I swear if we hadn’t rolled up our sleeves and helped him out he would still be there now! Nice too help out though and he was very grateful… not that we understood a word he was saying!!

A few pints of the black stuff that evening at Tig Rosie’s finished the day off nicely!

Day 6

We woke slightly bleary eyed to be met with an overcast sky and hardly a breath of wind on our penultimate full day in Kerry. Tides weren’t the best for bass fishing in the morning so we spent a few hours on deeper water marks having a blast at the pollack. We had a fair few in a short space of time up to about 4lb again I guess but no beasts!

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It wasn’t the easiest bit of climbing after a couple of those lovely Guinness drinks the night before and our general feeling of unsteadiness today was probably best demonstrated by Andy as he made his way across a particularly precarious little gully…

Andy staggering on rocks

After a spot of lunch on a nearby beach we headed around a headland with shallower reef looking for bass but it was still pretty calm and we only managed further pollack so John had us on the move again back into Ballinskelligs Bay over a shallow reef as the tide flooded. The wind had picked up but it still had a lot of northerly in it so wasn’t conducive to any swell or disturbance and the water was absolutely crystal clear… there were no bass to be had today.

Day 7

Our last full day in Kerry and it was raining with a nice bit of breeze…. the surf beckoned and we were joined by Nick and Ian at the same spot we’d caught right at the start of our trip. Conditions looked almost identical and we all waded in with hopes high…. but nothing! Not a single fish or even hit between the four of us!! So, John moved us on again to a more reefy spot where Ian quickly picked up a small fish…

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The rest of us were struggling until Andy moved further on round with John and found life! Cormorants on the water and terns overhead he fizzed his Hound Glide out amongst them and within seconds…. wallop!! Nick and I were probably some 300 yards back along the reef at this point but we heard the whooping as Andy pulled in the best fish of the week going 67cm on the tape…lovely fish!

Nobby Bass 5

What a cracking way to end our final full day in Kerry and of course with a pint of Guinness to celebrate.

We did fish briefly on our final morning for one small bass but in all honesty we were fished out by now and it was time for us to reluctantly turn our thoughts to de-rigging, packing up and heading back cross the Emerald Isle for the ferry home. What an absolute blast it had been yet again!

Final Thoughts

I think one of my opening observations in the Ireland 2017 – Part 1 blog article about this trip was that this place gets under your skin and all I can say is that every time I come away it just gets that more tucked under. It’s not just the fishing… it’s the scenery, it’s the people, it’s the pace of life, it’s the quirkiness, it’s just the whole craic of the place…. it truly is magical being in this part of the world and it just wants you coming back for more.

I can’t finish without saying thanks to Paul, Rick, Ziggy and Monica for your company, to Nick and Ian (and Eileen!) for sharing fishing time and plenty of laughs but above all, once again, on behalf of Andy and myself a huge, huge, “Thank You” to John and Lynn not just for the guiding and the wonderful hospitality but for all the banter, laughs and friendship you show which makes our trips out to Kerry very, very special indeed. We will be back…. if you’ll have us!!

Until next time!

Ireland 2017 – Part 2

Salmon on 1

Day 3

John had jokingly said “no two days are the same in Kerry” and he was right! After the wind and rain of the previous day we were greeted with sunny blue skies littered with broken fair weather cloud and calm winds on this the third day of our trip. It had all the hallmarks of a tough day on the bass front but with the previous days rain it did give us a different opportunity which John put to us… the river would have a bit of flood water so the option of trying for a salmon was now definitely in play… why not eh?

Quick stop off en-route to get licences and we were on our way for a completely different day in Kerry. Fishing for the salmon here is all single barbless hooks and strictly catch and release. It was spinning gear for me and both spinning and fly for Andy who had done a bit on the fly in years gone by. After a drive up the Inny valley and a couple of stop offs by John showing us marks we would fish later in the day we arrived at the start point for our jaunt on the river where he gave us the insight into how we should be spinning for the salmon here as well as giving Andy a refresher on the fly technique required. A little walk upstream until we found a pool where John said I should start and suggested a practice cast or two… I only had a follow first cast with the fish turning away last minute! That however was nothing compared to Andy who walked maybe 100 yards upstream from me to another pool where within a matter of minutes he hooked a salmon on the fly…. pretty good for a bloke who, by his own admission, has not fly fished in years and never for salmon! After a lovely scrap John slipped the net underneath and within the first half hour we had a salmon on the bank and then safely released!

Salmon 1

Nobby Salmon 1

Salmon release 1

What a cracking start…. this salmon fishing must be easy eh? Oh how wrong one can be! We then fished the river hard for a few hours for nothing at all until an inspired spinner change from John got me into a fish! The take on the spinner felt for a split second that the lure had been snagged but then all hell broke loose with the fish hurling itself out of the water and running first up then back down stream. Just when I thought I had it under control and it was coming towards the net off it went again at a rate of knots. Finally, though it was beat and John was able to slide the net underneath a lovely fresh run grilse with a hand shake to follow! A proper good scrap!

Salmon handshake

Andy had a another take on the fly that dropped but other than that we then went fishless for the rest of the time on the river but we were more than happy to both have had our first Irish salmon!

Now, I can’t really leave our day on the river there without fronting up to my clumsiness and the general hilarity at my expense which John, with that Irish mischievous tinkle in his eye and knowledge of my blunder-bus ways, had the foresight to have his camera at the ready for!!! Let me set the scene… we needed to cross over two barbed wire fences about a metre apart with thicket in between – things looked ominous when first John and then Andy both struggled over the fences which were, let’s just say, less than rigid. So, John – camera at the ready was in prime position for what followed… I’ll let the video do the talking!!!

Needless to say both John and Andy were justifiably wetting themselves with laughter barely able to talk in the field beyond that damn fence!! It goes down as a classic that’s for sure!!

Anyway, back to the fishing! With the day on the river done and back at base we still fancied having an evening session for the bass at the mouth of the estuary where it met the surf and met up with Nick down there as the tide ebbed. White senkos were the order of the day in the small tables of surf where we waded to waist height and cast out. As darkness fell (though the full moon made it feel somewhat lighter), we started to notice sand eels skitting across the surface and all around our feet – literally thousands of them – when you moved you stirred them up even more! We started to get pulls on the senkos but no definite takes which was frustrating and which we put down to small bass though of course we could not be certain. We moved along the bay and it was the same all the way – just thick with sand eels. Eventually, Andy and myself decided our day had been long enough and bid our farewell for the night to Nick and started to walk back to the car…. only to get a wolf whistle as we were half way back – a quick flash of red beams on the head torches confirmed it was Nick and we guessed what was coming next! Sure enough by the time we got to him he had a nice 65cm bass on the sand in absolutely beautiful condition which had rammed into his senko! That was pretty much it though and we headed back to Thatched Cottage to get our heads down.

Day 4

Tough day. Don’t ever go to Ireland thinking the bass fishing is easy and if you want to talk about fishing in weather that’s all over the place then today was the day. We covered a lot of venues in quick spurts but could we find bass…. not so much as a sniff. The wind direction was inconsistent at best starting north to north westerly and for August it was cold with what seemed like incessant heavy squalls coming through…at times it felt more like November! We did hook into some small pollack and a surprise coalfish at one mark but that was it – not even a hint of bass during the morning. Back to base for lunch and a brew where we met John’s mate Ian who was over for an extended period from the UK – another fishing fanatic! The afternoon took us east around the bay to some decent looking bass marks but by now the skies had cleared and it was bright sunshine with the wind still coming in from the north but ever so slowly dropping off. We just couldn’t buy a bass so decided to bail early with a view to heading out under the cover of darkness which, after dinner, we did along with Nick once again. The water was much calmer now and it didn’t look too promising but the sand eels were back in their droves so it was on with the senkos again with more occasional plucks before yours truly finally caught a small bass of a couple of pounds…. it wasn’t really happening though and we all took the opportunity to have a relatively early night and were back at the ranch by midnight pretty tired out!

Ireland 2017 – Part 3 to follow!

Until next time…

Ireland 2017 – Part 1

Release

Where on earth do I start? Yet again my pal Andy and myself have just got back from another quite fantastic and awe inspiring jaunt down to Thatched Cottage in Kerry under the excellent stewardship of John Quinlan. This being my third trip to Kerry and I’m actually struggling to find the words that best describe this quite magical part of the world…. what I do know is it gets under your skin and you just want more of it.

We took the same route as last year via the early Irish Ferries sailing out of Pembroke Dock to Rosslare followed by approximately 5 hours on the road in Andy’s van down to Ballinskelligs Bay. After a quick cuppa with Lynn what else was there to do but get out for a couple of hours fishing…. and it didn’t take long to produce with Andy having this nice 63cm fish… and we hadn’t even started properly!

Day 1… proper!

The nature of the trip meant there were other people coming and going whilst we were there and it was first good to meet up with Nick and a couple of Dutch lads Paul and Rick whom we fished with on our first full day. John had us on an estuary to begin with and as the tide started to flood the fish moved in. Strangely in an estuary my first take was from a large garfish which nailed a Savage Gear Line Thru Sandeel but then the bass moved in – several bass were taken here amongst the four of us, – nothing big but nice rod benders all the same.

Fish on 1

The scenery of this area is breathtaking it really is and the beauty of fishing here is the diversity of the marks in relatively close proximity. After a spot of lunch within fifteen minutes we were at a rocky mark where once again John put us on the fish with bass in the 3-4lb bracket – Andy with this nice one…

Nobby Bass 1

All in all a damn fine first day in Kerry…. and that includes a bit of roadside maintenance on John’s wagon after his driver side front tyre, well, let’s just say may have perished slightly on the inside!!!!

Day 2

We woke on day two with much more ‘bassy’ conditions, bit of rain, bit of wind and a nice looking swell coming in which meant only one thing…. get in the surf after the bass. The Dutch lads had headed home but Nick joined us for the session. You certainly needed a lure that was going to give you a chance in the strong head wind and the weapon of choice was most definitely the Savage Gear Line Thru Sandeel which proved very successful almost from the outset…

Line Thru

In a relatively short space of time there were circa. fifteen fish landed in total with Andy again nailing the best of the bunch after a really good fizzed up scrap in the highly oxygenated water. In the picture below he’d walked this one in a fair bit which doesn’t do justice to the way the conditions were playing out – there was certainly no clean tables of surf with the wind giving it a very random chop and standing waves up in multiples right in your face!

Nobby playing bass

Nobby Bass in surf

All good things come to an end and as if someone turned a tap off they were gone. Hung around to see if there were any big stragglers hanging on but alas it really had died off so it was back to base for a cup of tea and a change of clothes… unless you had 100% watertight clobber on you were always going to get wet in those conditions!

After all the mornings activity the afternoon was a bit of an anti-climax on the fish front… after another quick burst in the surf with nothing happening it was on to some more sheltered reef but even on a now flooding tide things had calmed down considerably and we couldn’t coax a take between us…. but it had been a good day and a pint or two of the black stuff topped things off nicely.

Ireland 2017 – Part 2 to follow!

Until next time…

Small fish

Have headed off to Wales now for a week of walking the hills but not before I managed a quick session on the lures early doors the other morning. The trouble this time of year to get fishing for first light means I have to get out of bed at 2 a.m. to make sure I’m at my mark fishing before sunrise! With the weather forecast set to be bright and sunny later in the day it was always likely to be the best time to fish on a rising tide and so it proved. Managed to pick up half a dozen bass in total though none were of any size, in fact, three of them were barely longer than the lure itself! Size wise, it always amazes me what small bass think they’re capable of digesting!!

The first of them was taken still under the cover of darkness within the first half a dozen casts on the Salt Skimmer close in…

Another even smaller fish followed so I moved on and kept working the rocky gullies changing tactics to soft plastics to see if that enticed anything but all I seemed to be getting were the tell-tale signs of small wrasse plucking at the lure – the teeth marks just confirming it. So, I switched to the trusty Tackle House Feed Shallow and again within half a dozen casts the lure got nailed by a bass which after a short scrap was ready to release…

Within a couple more casts a bass of a very similar size was landed from the same spot, same lure but then as the sun started to make an appearance, and top of the tide was reached, it seemed to kill things where I was so I moved on again finding a sheltered spot in the shadow of the cliffs where the sun hadn’t reached just yet.

Switched lures to the Komomo SF-130 Slim and with a couple of peregrine’s squawking overhead a tiny bass, who was determined that it wanted this lure, was finally successful after a couple of failed attempts at grabbing it! Proves the point about the size of prey even the smallest of bass will attempt to ingest…

One last lure swap to the small Patchinko produced my final fish of the session before it was time to head off and get myself packed for the week in Wales.

Always good to be out there and at it… just need some bigger fish to turn up now! Will try and get at least one more session in over the next couple of weeks before the much anticipated trip to Ireland at the beginning of August…. cannot wait!

Until next time…

Quick session

Combination of a holiday and other commitments meant that Saturday evening was the first chance I’ve had to wet a line in over a month and then it was only for a couple of hours. After a good start to the season in April and early May the fishing went quiet on me thereafter with a couple of blank sessions so I was interested to see if things had picked up over the month I’d missed.

It was also only the second outing for the new DFR Entice 9’6” 6-28g rod that Richard at Dorset Fishing Rods has once again come up trumps with for me – stunning piece of work to say the least. After a blank the first time I used it I was very keen to get off the mark with it as you can imagine!! Once I’ve had a chance to get a few more hours on the water with it I’ll put a review up for all to read but early impressions are mighty impressive…. I don’t think I’ve used a rod that casts and recovers so effortlessly, and my word, do those lures fly with it! Watch this space…

Anyway, to the fishing…. was still a bit tough going if I’m honest which was a shame as there was a nice chop on the water with colour not bad either. Tides were OK as well for where I was fishing but sometimes it just doesn’t work out how you would like I guess? Did manage a single bass – though of no size. After casting out I gave the lure a good crank back for a few seconds, paused the retrieve for about a second and then began cranking again…..this small bass then hammered into the Zonk almost immediately! Gave a nice scrap to christen the rod…. and saved me a blank as well! Did connect and hook another fish a tad bigger on a Salt Skimmer but dropped it at my feet which was annoying.

Only a short session but a bass nonetheless and pleased to have christened the new rod! Hoping to get out a bit more regularly over the coming month before heading to Ireland at the start of August which if previous trips are anything to go by will be pretty God damn awesome!

Until next time…

After the storm…

After a spell of extremely calm conditions over the last week, with water clarity as clear as I have seen in a long while, it was nice to see a bit of swell and white water yesterday for a few hours. Bit of a yomp to get to the mark with my pal Nobby but nonetheless a mark we had been thinking about for a while and on arrival at low water it looked promising enough with that decent swell breaking over reef and weedy gullies. What we hadn’t bargained for on arrival was the huge thunderstorm that hit us… definitely an occasion to keep the rod tips down and boy do those hail stones pack a punch when they’re coming down in that quantity and velocity! It blew over soon enough though and we were able to start fishing properly…

It looked so ‘bassy’ but we spent the first couple of hours with no reward at all working surface, sub-surface and soft plastic lures in and around the gullies. It was only when I switched back to a surface lure – the Gunfish 115 – in a calmer piece of water that there was a definite swirl behind the lure…. encouraging I thought but then the next few casts…. nothing. Nobby meanwhile was fishing a similar gully a bit further back along the reef and it was just as I was walking back to where he had perched himself that I saw a bit of a bend in his rod and he was in! Not a huge fish but a blank saver nonetheless and taken on the reliable OSP Do-Live stick hooked perfectly in the scissors of its mouth.

Fished on into dusk but no further action to report. Nice venue though and one to keep in mind over the coming months as it just looks like on it’s day it could throw up a decent fish or two. Just need to work out best state and time of the tide to fish it etc. One thing we were thankful for was we seemed to dodge any further storms which were obviously skirting along the coast – spectacular from a distance though!

Until next time…