Whats your highlight of 2006?

Just wondering what everyones fishing highlight was this year! Whether it be a new PB, new species, great session, new marks or whatever, would be interesting to hear peoples different stories.

Well I've a couple, firstly I took a surface lure fishing "class" with Jim Hendrick down in Wexford (http://www.bassfishing.ie). Some great tips and ideas from Jim not just on how to fish but where and when and with what lures. I've caught a fair few bass on very sporting tackle since, the best just over 5lb and IMO a good spinning rod & rucksack of lures can give so much more fun and enjoyment than lugging heavy tackle boxes & rests etc. but it's horses for courses!

Next will be my first trip down to the dingle penninsula in August. There was a shocking northerly blowing the 4 days I was there but I managed to do a fair bit of fishing. My best session of the year was my first on the Southside of the penninsula with over 30 Wrasse in 2 hours between 2.5 - 5lbs all on floatfished hardback crab and one pollack of 4lb which fancied the crab too!

Tight Lines in 2007!

highlight of the year was 8 wrasse over specimen size between three of us in one session, best of 5lbs 3oz, all on crab on the float after heavy groundbaiting

also a good session was 30 pollock in half an hour between three of us at dusk on a cracking summers day..all on lure and best was about 7lbs. (also having groundbaited a gully on the rising tide with bits of mackerel at regular intervals for an hour before fishing)

the highlight of my year was catching my first bass on the first cast of the second trip on inch strand Kerry and it was 8lb.

catching 16 mullet in 2 days of 3hr sessions. smallest 4lb 8) .

bass 8lbs 8oz (PB)caught while flattie bashing.. 17lbs conger eel from the shore.. and 5 huss over 10 lbs

Fishing against 167 others in two days of competition and tying first place but got beat on tie-break into second. Works national competition. Best result in a big match to date. Very satsifying after about six years of at least one day blanking if not two.

A fantastic tope season in Lough Swilly with 39 tope brought onboard, tagged and released

A couple of good bassing sessions in Cork and Kerry not as many caught as the previous year , but still enjoyable, best fish 9lb 12oz all photographed and released.

Andy

a bass of 4lb (PB) Conger of 12lb on light tackle and winning the ulster under 21 league and watching my wee bro catch his first ever doggie and the girl catching here first ever fish which was a cod

my best would have to be mnth spent in spain fishing ebro and the time spent on the beach i got to use a few different rods and target fish i would never see.

Got to cast with a grauvell designer and see thier way of fishing. And got invited to fish in a local meet but fished for fun only as i was well out of my deapth.

Have to practise and learn more from you lads this year as i am fishing this aug again and this is the main reason iam sticking to fixed spool this year.

over 50 mackerel on fly rod in one session absolute madness..Lazy

Last edited by lazycod on Mon Jan 01, 2007 11:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

My only bass this year. 8lbs caught on a cheap 6ft telescopic rod while spinning for mackerel. My first wrasse. But what I'm most thankful for is getting back to fishing after 20 years without.

first bass, first doggie and coming 2nd in the under 17 league to get in the ulster team!!! :D happy as.... :D

The hignlight of my year was to actually make the effort and fish a few new places, which sometimes turns out very interesting, and catching my first and only Flounder.

I didn't have any amazing sessions or fish so my highlight would be gettin consistent catchs of ray from the Estuary again this year. My top fish was a 7 and half pound huss. Not really spectacular but I don't get many huss this size and its what fishing the Estuary is supposed to be about.

Low light was the poor returns seen from competitions again this year which led me to avoid them in the second half of the year.

Donagh

did you catch much on the ebro pookie? I was there on the delta before a few times, in the best session had carp to 21lbs, barbel to 10lbs, mullet to 6lbs, cats to 154lbs and then headed out to the river mouth and had bass to 4lbs and some tuna to over 20lbs, all in a few days.

amazing place.i saw shoals of mullet at the sewage outlets that were literally hundreds of meters long with the cats slamming them from underneath.

probably was researching a mark that we thought held ray, fishing it 5 times without a bite and eventually getting 5 over 2 trips, and also a bonus 8lb huss. its the fact that we spotted the mark, researched it, fished it over a number of different tides and conditions before eventually figuring out how it fishes.there was a good sense of achievement.

Similar to lumpy. Myself and m.b3 found a local mark that we thought must produce bass and through trial and error found when the fish move through resulting in some nice fish towards the end of the summer.

Winning Derry compo in very bad weather but a great thrill all the same.

After 8 or 9 sessions trying finally catching a tope was one of the most enjoyable moments of the year. Catching good whiting up to 35cm from a spot that they had virtually dissappeared from in the last ten years gave hope for the future. Getting to fish as much as I did and breaking the 30 sea species barrier was just as good :)

mine would have to be catching 10lb Huss from the shore in Galway