Connemara Fishing

Arranged to go on a shore fishing break at Connemara as my parents went there and rate it highly but now disapointed to hear off someone that you cannot catch bass there. Is this true? Am wondering if I've done the right thing. Is it truly impossible to catch a bass there and what else is there to catch? Is it still worth me going?

if you want to catch bass, come to the south east

Yes I've heard it's better down that end. Difficult for me to change my plans now though. Is the fishing so bad at Connemara. If no bass, what is there? It's a long way to go to blank!

depends on type of fishing youll be doing...bottom fishing will produce ray, dogfish, huss and flatties, spinning & float fishing will produce large pollack, wrasse, posibility of sea trout... there are bass about, but they are rarer this end of the country..
fishing off rocks can produce large conger as well..
fishing after dark you can expect larger fish (Ray, Pollack, Huss ) to specimen sizes :D :D :D

if you know what locations i might be able to tell you what you get and on what...

We'll be fishing from specialised fishing kayaks
A great way to fish by the way. Very good for exploring. No noisy engines to frighten the fish. Reason I put shore angling is I didn't want to give the impression we could zoom 20 miles out to sea. Plus, we may do a bit of shore casting as well (why not)? We could even paddle to an island!

Planning on the last week in August. We usually fish for bass but if there's other species instead? Any advice?
We'll take a spare kayak if you want to join us?
We're camping at Renvyle. What can we fish for in the fyord? What can we fish for in the sea? Which is best?

Dorado,
what type of kayaks do you use?

Prowlers mainly.
Can we fish for salmon in the fyord? Are they there? Do we need a special license? What can we expect off the beaches and further out near the islands?

I take it that be a no to everything then

Dorado

Today is a public holiday - hopefully there'll be more activity on the boards tomorrow once everyone gets back to take advantage of free internet in work.

Yes, please excuse my impatience. I was there 3 years ago and my parents were there last year.
Quite a quandry for me you see. How ideal Renvyle is for a kayak, sheltered fyord if weather's nasty and all those little coves, white sandy beaches right on the campsite aaaaah! But now I discover there's no bass...aaargh! But maybe I'm wrong, or maybe there's other species worth targeting.
I only did an hour of beach fishing when I was there (few coalies and a ray) and that's not enough to judge the area by really. What scenery though OMG what scenery!

Hello,
I was out of touch the last little while (fishing a couple of hours in Clifden area to no avail amongst other things)

Are bass available in West Connemara??
Growing up there we never targeted bass, in recent times I have asked around and I can tell you that bass have been caught in this area.

What I don't know is how rare (and I mean rare), or how available they would be if target ted.
There may be someone reading this saying 'he's going to blow my great bass secret' or there may be someone saying 'in his dreams there's bass there', again all I know is that bass have been caught, and those I heard of were caught accidentally.
I have to say that the best advert I saw for targeting exciting fish other than bass is the photo at this link http://www.sea-angling-ireland.org/bull ... php?t=5346.

IMO this area is largely untested, if you want to try for bass the area generally around Connemara Golf Club (CGC) is where I would start. There are many sandy beaches, access is not restricted as the land is mostly commonage. Maybe beaches all the way to Roundstone (incl Dog's Bay and Gorteen Beach might be worth a try. This is what I would do if I didn't have 3 rugrats in tow at the moment.

Getting away from bass, these kayaks seem a great idea. There is deep water available roughly south from CGC, check out some charts, I have had great deep sea fishing around here, it might be paddling distance, really!
Check out what you could access north and south of Slyne Head, and around the head itself, but beware of currents in this area.

Also you could maybe get the kayaks taken out to Inish Boffin (from Cleggan) on one of the ferry-boats. Deep water all around, north of the island worth a try, also between Boffin and Inish Shark (heavy swell possible in this channel). Maybe you could land on Shark (which is now an uninhabited island) for a look around.

There are wrasse marks available in the area amongst other possibilities.

As always so much depends on the weather, if all fails maybe you could try to locate Lough Fadda (pronounced Fotha) (a challenge to 'out of towners I would say) and cast a line for some nice trout there, not to mention the famous Lough Fadda monster, yes we have one too!!

BTW around Renvyle and north of that I haven't a clue

Blackie Mc[/list]

Thanks. That's a good report. We should swap contact numbers nearer the time and we'll take you out on the yaks.