South Mayo Ray

Hi all,

I'm off to Louisburg for the weekend with friends and was going to bring a few rods in the hope that I can escape for a few hours at some stage... I've never been to Mayo before so obviously haven't fished any of the marrks. Is there anywhere in the area worth having a go for ray?

Failing that, is there anywhere in the area fishing well at the moment?

Cheers
Pete

i havent fished in mayo in a few months but some good marks around the area are lakin pier+strand. aughris head + strand and eniscrone in sligo(its 10 mins from ballina) lakin can produce plenty of conger,wrasse and pollack. the strand can produce flatties and the odd sea trout. eniscrone pier can produce nice conger(got em up to 21lbs)..doggies and huss but can be good some days and bad the next! ive caught pollack up to 5lbs at aughris head.some mackeral and people have caught tope there before. its very deep water, rough ground and sand in places so you never know what else there would be there! again its been a few months since i was there but i hope this info can be some help to you!

er.. chris.. thats all north mayo...






the beach near louisberg is supposed to hold ray... but that is only what i have been told


there is a beach near killeen.. seen it a few times.. looks like a good surf beach as well, you could try there, dunno about chances of ray though..


the beaches on the northeast of crough patrick look promising for ray

the beach near lusburg cant rember the name is a surfers beach unless you like the idea of using surfers for target practice

id go down and see if there is surfers there if there is id try ithere end of the beach the beach is huge as far as i rember so there should b space for evryone

there might be other smaller beaches in the area worth ago
never fished there but probly would hold ray and the usuall flatfish

Thanks for all the help so far. I was looking at a map since and saw that the North of Kilary is only down the road from where we are staying. Does anyone know if access is easy and what can be caught there?

Thanks again
Pete

if you look on google earth you will see that there is one road that leads to the north of the beach.. so, if you follow the road south from killadoon it should get you there, but you'd be best to get an ordinance survey map and figure it out from that.. plenty of small side roads to get lost on :shock:

does look like a good beach though :D

Hi

The only spot that gives access to sufficiently deep water to encounter rays in the area is off the rocks behind Louisburgh head - follow the path up through the trees and down the far side. Fish mid water up and at distance with a sandeel or mackerel bait. Close in there are pollack and wrasse, but to no significant size. Bass reported from here last year but I would take that with lots of salt. Options of flatfish, gurnard, and odd socks... especially if there is sandeel in the water. Fishing into darkness will significantly improve your chances, decent flat platforms here...

The north shore of Killary is a superb mark but beware how slippery dry grass is. The fjord is a problem however in that it drops in steps of about 5-10 metres down from the shore into 30-50 metres with a MUD bottom. The result is that you plug on the bottom - bad in a boat, worse from shore. The second problem is that if you contact a fish - lots of thornies and bull huss to double figures - these steps have sharp and weed encrusted "edges" to them. A lead lift is vital and a big heavy and long rubbing leader is a good idea. You need not cast more than 50 metres to get into seriously deep water...just make sure you do not fall in! A friend recommended ground baiting just in from the shore to bring the fish up from the bottom... not a bad idea, just I think it is kind of cheating! :wink:

Hope this helps...

Cheers for all the help lads... I'll be sure to post how I got on!

Thanks again
Pete

Just back from Mayo and thought I'd let you know how I got on. Fished the Mayo side of Killary Harbour on the Saturday for about 4 hours from full tide on. Started with 2 rods but with the amount of dogs around I had to switch to one - as soon as the bait hit the bottom I was getting bites and on a 2 hook rig more often than not it resulted in dogs. Towards the end of the session I noticed a few sea trout jumping so I switched to a spinning outfit which resulted in 2 small pollock.

Sunday I headed to the South side of Killary Harbour and out towards the entrance of the fjord. I parked at a hostel by a harbour and headed for the rocks. Thanks to Kieran I had 2 lead-lifts with me but I lost the 2 of them on my first 2 casts! (I was using a pair of 6500 multipliers - they didn't exactly have the pulling power needed for this mark!). After losing about 5 or 6 traces I lost heart and tried spinning for a while and it only took about 10 casts to catch a couple of mackerel so with fresh bait I decided to go back to ledgering. This accounted for my remaining few weights in no time at all (I think I had about 15 with me!) so spun for another while and then called it a day after catching a few small pollock and a few more mackerel (which I shook off the hook). No ray or huss, but deffo going try the mark again...

Thanks for all your help with the marks. I know this should have really gone into the "Reports" area of the forum - when I stared writing it I didn't realize it was going to turn out like this!

Cheers again,
Pete