Met Eireann was offering a couple of good days followed by yeeeuch! so it was time to get out while the going was good.
Tuesday 3rd. With the boat launched and car and trailer parked I was soon heading for my first mark; I had a small supply of frozen squid and mackerel so I could start fishing straight away and hopefully bash a few mackies between bites. Conditions were fine with a slight breeze blowing me diagonally across the tide covering the ground nicely. A couple of hours and drifts later I was still awaiting my first bite and no mackerel showed up “between bites”. I had my Water Wolf camera in use; when I had a look later at home, two hours of recording showed only a single dis-interested dab. Anyone want to watch 2 hours of sand go by or will I just wipe the card? As usual when the sand fails to produce, it’s off to the deeper, rough ground. First drop gave a couple of mackerel which were soon filleted, sliced and returned in strips to the depths. First up came a pollack around 2lb to be followed by plenty more in twos and threes, all in the 2-2.5lb range. One was particularly unlucky; after being returned by a kindly fisherman, it failed to escape the attention of a black-backed gull which darted in, grabbed it and gulped it down in seconds flat. A single male cuckoo wrasse and a few pouting beat the pollack to the bait for a bit of variety. With some fresh mackerel I gave the first mark another go before returning to the slip; a small tub gurnard and a dogfish responded but still no sign of the hoped for ray.
Wednesday 4th. A different launch site today, would the story be any different? Again conditions were fine and a stop on the way gave a couple of good sized mackerel to supplement the fillets left over from yesterday. The shoal was holed up in the lee of a new rock mark I discovered on Infomar during the winter, I’ll try there again! First drift with bait was over a stretch of clean sand which has provided rays, gurnard, turbot, dabs and dogfish previously but it gave up just a handful of dabs on the first drift, they weren’t bad dabs with a couple reaching 31cm but still no rays. Second drift gave a couple of dogfish and at last a good lunging bite accompanied by a brief ratchet song yielded a nicely marked 3lb 5oz spotty ray. A move further along the coast to another “ray mark” failed to impress; just a couple of dabs and dogfish. The day was passing, dragging might be a better description, so I headed for the slip but stopped at another new Infomar mark on the way back. The sounder was showing plenty of fish, pouting and plenty of them. Every drop gave instant bites and they came up two by two, mostly of a good size. I could have filled the boat but who wants a boat full of pouting? Surely there must be something else down there, next time I’ll try with bigger baits.
The lack of rays (and turbot) this year is very disappointing, in previous years I’ve had more rays on one drift than I’ve had in 6 whole trips this year. I was recently given a tip about another good spot for rays but I’m reluctant to try it until my usual marks are fishing well.
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