I am excited at the prospect of exploring new waters but at the same time a lot of groundwork will have to be put in to assess what sort of waters I have available to me, what to target in them and when the best times and conditions to go out will be. It's going to be a learning curve for a lot of it but one that I am looking forward to and I do relish a decentchallenge.
I have been stationed in Clare for the last couple of days and I haven't had much opportunity to kayak fish. I paddled in a local marina the other night but that was more to give a colleague the chance to try kayaking for the first time. A beach with a swell probably wasn't the best option to take so we settled on the marina's sheltered waters.
Last night I did manage to finish work early enough to allow me to get a couple of hours out on the water. Travelling light on a very much exploratory expedition, I took a lure rod, a couple of lures and just the kayaking essentials. I hit the waves to a rising tide and paddled out over the lazy swell. Soon enough, the echo sounder told me that I was sitting over a rough bottom in seven metres and I fancied bass.
I chucked lures and searched the bay for this trip and although the bass eluded me, I had a fantastic time with what is fast becoming my regular adversary, the pollack. I fished on the drift and for a short session I managed to take six crash-diving pollack. These guys were big, some of them easily coming close to, if not surpassing, the magic double figure weight. The rod was bent double, the reel was singing and the braid was kept taut. Such a predatory hunter and such fun to catch.
This session marked a final session for me for a few weeks. I am off to work on a research vessel for the next couple of weeks. Kayak fishing will not be a feature of these trips but for anybody with a passing interest in marine science work please keep checking the site for updates of what I see and what the team are doing on the research vessel. Today's pollack and the last couple of sessions were very much the result of a tweak to my lure fishing and I will be putting together a piece on this while I am at sea so stay tuned for that!
