ray in howth

ive been reading the shore report forums for the first time and i cant believe that for the amount of lads that fish it they have never contacted a thornie from the bay at the bailey my father fishes there regularly with his mate and he gets a ray or two plus dogs colies and the odd bass on most sessions. its important to fish it in darkness as during the day the ray move out to the bay. Must have sandeel, crab and also live prawn and fish it over a low and up for 3 hours. you need to hit the 100-120 mark but the fish are there. try it. but if you meet the oulfella dont tell him i told you.

which bay is this lampoon? thae lads on the boats never report ray around this area? forgive me for being pessimistic....

the reason the lads in the boats dont get them is because they most probably dont use live prawn or velvet peeler. The reason most lads on the shore dont get them is because again they dont use live prawn and even if they do use peeler most of them cant hit 120 yards with a big prawn orcrab bait. its important to use a one hook up and over which will be clipped down behind an impact shield to enble the bait to be blasted without ruining the bait and it will also make it more aerodynamic to cast, the up and over rig allows a longer snood to be cast easily the snood will flap in the tide well beyond the weight and will help minimise resistance when the fish moves over the bait. try it buddy.

I think someone is fishing?

ah yes, i have a good few in the rig wallet alright. i can get a decent bait out that far, provided the weather isn't too bad and i'm not standing on dodgy rocks! rare to hear of people using live prawn from the shore, although in some areas in the uk anglers swear by them. i'll give it a shot, if you tell me which bay! left or righthand side? hate to be cheeky but desperate times call for desperate measures....thanks lampoon.

This sounds a bit mad to me I must say but then again some marks seem to be very seasonal as well you know MB3. (Bass). There have been several Thornbacks taken out of Bray over the past few seasons although none by me. The Kish also does hold Thornbacks from time to time and at the North end. this coincides with the closest point to the shore there at Howth so maybe they make the journey in there allright. Also take note, from my own experience it seems that when Thornies are coming into spawn that they head for rocky areas like this to deposit their Egg purses where the tendrils can get tangled in weed etc. this stops them being washed ashore... This is how they do it further south. If you have seen all the recent pics of all the big thornies we caught recently you can take it from me that they ARE coming in to spawn at the moment. I witnessed several s*** out mermaids purses onto the boat! They are supposed to spawn in March but they are doing it now for some reason. With this in mind please return all fish you catch. Especially females. It is unlikely you will catch any males as they only travel in groups of the same sex. Males have two big dangly things called claspers hanging either side of the tail just like sharks. It seems that in the last few years that there have been more Thornies around this area. I first started hearing about catches about 3 years ago and hear more and more each year. If they are making some sort of a come back it vital they are not destroyed but allowed to multiply. Ray do not provide the greatest sport in the world but the fact that they are usually big is a great bonus. Imagine being able to catch decent sized fish from the shore in Dublin? :shock:

As for bait. Any ray cut open have always had crabs inside. others have told me this as have i also witnessed it. There is no comparisan however with mackerel. Half a tail cone or head and shoulders is the top bait by a long way. This will outfish anything else but it must be fresh. One of the days we were down in Wexford 2 weeks ago and the were three other boats around us. we were lashing the Ray and Tope out of it and they all caught nothing. The difference was that we were using fresh mackerel just caught. I can not emphasise this enough! It is very unlikely that a Ray would be able to catch a Mackerel in the wild but the sheer scent of this bait that attracts the Ray and they will pick up on it quicker than crab. This will obviously take doggies in force too but that is inevitable. Use big hooks like 7/0 - 10/0 these are fine for a ray and no problem to them. they also help to stop them getting gut hooked and will cut down on the number of doggies you will have to take off the hook! The most important thing to remember about ray is set your line out alarm and ignore the bites. Only bring it in when you are getting regular small pulls of line off your reel. At this point the fish is hooked. strikeing to quickly can result in pulling the bait out of its mouth. Using the big hooks like i told you will stop it being gut hooked. You will not miss a ray by being late. You will by being early.... :wink:

its the bay to the right of the bailey lighthouse looking towards the city. its worth a shot i promise you.

thanks lampoon, very kind of you to tell. apparently thornies become preoccupied with prawn from june onwards in some areas of course won't touch anything else....should i fish the beach or from the rocks?

the ouwlad has had most of his fish in from mid aug to mid sep havnt a clue why! try it from the middle of the bay if youve no luck move up to the rocks at the end of the beach below the lighthouse theres a strong tide rip around the head and this may attract them to this end of the bay at times its also possible to take a bass here with sandeel. tight in to the cliffs they love the tide rip.

that's great lampoon. much appreciated. thanks.

Mark, this sounds like Glenaveena doesnt it?
Right down to the sandbar/rough ground description.

Ray, you say...hmmmmm :shock:

haha! i was waiting for you to see this Wes! yes it sounds very like Gleneveena. Wes have a look at http://www.fishing.co.uk and do a search for 'prawn'. look at the article by Henry Gilby on essential baits and also at the thornie article.

If this is the small beach you two are on about, both myself and Pat have fished this area. water here is very shallow and extremely snaggy. If you want to try and target these ray propperly I am willing to help out. :wink:

Seems fairly big on squid, good ideas.
Ive never used prawn to be honest. But if its as deadly on ray as he makes out, prawns beware!

You going to give it a bash, Mark?

Saturday is a 5am low tide, 11.30am high, 5.20pm low and a midnight high. Anyone want to fish it Saturday??

Ian

Luke it's only snaggy close in. i fished it with a carp rod before and did not get snagged once at low tide. the ground was really clean? 15lb. line and a two ounce does not go very far. i was cleareing it at less than 60 yards- no joke. fished out from the little cave under the overhang.

forgot to say of course i am going to try it Wes! i wanted to fish here anyway! just didn't like the idea of fishing the place at night on my own incase i met a rat that was bigger than me! my mates are right wimps.