Kilkee and the Shannon Estuary

Hi Guys

I am living in Wales and i am coming over to Kilkee at the start of June.

I am after some local advice as to where is fishing well at the moment, plus baits, tactics etc.

I would love to catch a Shannon Estuary ray, but i am not sure if it too early in the year for this? :?

Unfortunately, i will only be in Co Clare for a week, so would like to hit the ground running so to speak with the right venues/tactics.

Any information would be greatly appreciated, and then maybe in the future i could repay the favour with information for anyone visiting wales. :wink:

I look forward to hearing from you

Tight lines

Richard

hey richard, the fishing is pretty good around the area lately, in kilkee bay, the pollack fishing seems to be picking up nicely. we had three respectable fish lastnight at the mouth of the bay on jelly worms and dexters wedges. for the past couple og weeks i have been getting small pollack in and around th bay on spinning tobys, and clousers on the fly rod. lastnight were the first good fish we've had.i feel that the change in wind over the past few days has caused the fishing to pick up a bit, we're getting a steady south by south westerly since the weekend. the estuary seems to be fishing ok too, i had my first thornback ray ever on thursday of lastweek. he was around 12lbs. i caught him on cappa pier just outside kilrush.there do seem to be occasional thornbacks showing up here and there. there are also loads of doggies in the estuary at the moment. sandeel seems to be working best. fresh mackeral are a little scarce, i'm still waiting to catch my first of the season. Ross from the forum fished poulnasherry bay earlier this week and had plenty of dogfish, and a small thornback, again on sandeel. pulley rigs, and 2 hook clipped down are the rigs i've been using at the moment. there are very few people who fish around kilkee regularly, so it's hard to know where the very best spots, tactics, and baits are. i've spent over three months just fishing trial and error, and am starting to get to grips with the area. by early june, there should be plenty of pollack to be had on spinning and fly gear, and last year on the june weekend, poulnasherry bay(on the shannon estuary, between kilrush and kilkee) was alive with thornies feeding on peelers
so hopefully lightening will strike twice!! i'm heading out to carrigaholt pier on the estuary this evening to see how that's fishing. should be plenty of dogs, but thornbacks do show up.
all venues that i've mentioned are easily accessible, and distance isn't an issue. the estuary seems to fish best on a flooding tide into the evening, but kilkee seems to fish well through out the tide, as many of th places are onto deep rough ground. if you need any more info just give me a shout.

Patrick

Thanks for the quick response Patrick, it sounds like We should be in for a good weeks fishing if things keep improving! :D

Fingers crossed :wink:

Chris
Told you Frodo would help you out, hope you have a good week there, don't forget to let us now how you get on :wink:

Patrick still did not get your email with pics.
If you PM me with youremail, i will try to email you.