causeway coast rock mark 12th & 13th october 28hrs

People: me, mark and dawsey

Duration: 10am to 2pm the following day 28 hours in total

Tide: HW10.29 LW16.36 HW23.02 LWO5.03 HW11.09

Weather: CLAM, DRY 5MPH NE but cold damp mist and fog from midnight until 8am

Bait: rag, lug, maddies, white rag, mackeral, squid, cuttlefish, sand eel, mussle, cockles and pissers

Rigs: feathers, sliding float, 2 and 3 hook flappers, single size 1/0 rigs and 8/0 conger traces

Results: mackeral poor cod 3 bearded rockling shore rockling corkwing wrasse ballan wrasse coalfish pollock conger eels doggies


Report: with 2 days off work for all of us we decided that a bumper session was on the cards. so with the bait dug, car loaded and a 5am alarm call i picked the lads up and hit the road. we arrived to find our intended spot free, so quickly set up in double quick time. we all fished 2 rods each and a conger rod on the bottom and the fish were coming thick and fast from the first cast. coalies and pollock all seemed to be the order of the day with loads falling to float rigs and 2 hook flappers at our feet and a steady flow of wrasse fell to the worm baits. the dogs decided to hit the conger gear for a bit and we all landed a good half dozen each before the eels decided to play ball. dawsey had a cracking 15lb'er on and got it all the way to the lower stretch or rocks to try to land it. i jumped down to get behind it, but as he lifted it up it gave a spin and shreaded his 80lb mono and tried to get back into the sea. at this point it was half in and half out of the water and in an act of desperation dawsey tried to get under it with his rod to flip it back up outta the water. but it was a lost cause and the eel slipped back to the briney depths. to say dawsey was gutted was an understatment as this would have been his biggest eel to date. but i had warned him before about not going below 150lb mono for his conger rigs . we were gutted for him and needless to say he got a bit of a ribbing about it for the rest of the night. but undaunted he re-rigged and got back out into them again and had a howler missing run after run . he must have missed a dozen runs in a row growing ever more frustrated and i'm sure me and mark were'nt helping by wetting ourselves laughing at him shouting abuse at the water in a rage at every missed run . to make matters worse mark (the jammy git) caught a strap conger and wrasse on the float and made the odd remark about not even needing conger gear to catch one!!! dawsey descended into a howler of a session losing rig after rig to every snag within 100 yards and we named him the "snag finder" by now we were nearing 6pm and i decided it was time to get the pan out and we all munched our way through 8 quarter pound burgers and a pound of sausages and a dozen baps so re-fuelled and ready to go we got set up for the evening leg of the session. the day had been good to us with a bumper haul of wrasse with over 60 between us with a good average size to them. some were boardering on the 3lb mark and there were loads between 1 and 2 pounds. my conger rod had went quiet but mark was having great sucess with landing 4 good ones in the end. the biggest was just under 10lb and almost made off before we got him weighed and photographed . we had unhooked him and before i could get him on the scales he started to slither for the edge of the rocks... not wanting to be known as the bloke who let a conger escape (that was dawseys job ) i quickly lept on top of it, got it in a head lock and wrapped my leg around it's tail and rolled across the rocks on my back to safety. i looked up and dawsey and mark were in wrinkles rolling about laughing saying they had'nt seen a move like that since the days of hulk hogan and the ultimate warrior . but the conger was in our care and was duely weighed, photographed and returned . the mack supplys had run out earlier and unknown to me mark and dawsey were using whole 30cm pollock for conger bait and were getting loads of runs. but i was persevering with a mix of squid, mack and cuttlefish with hardly a touch . so it would appear that pollock was doing the buisness as the no.1 conger bait of choice. as we neared midnight the fishing slowed down and i had a wee run of a half dozen 3 bearded rockling in a row. the biggest was just over 1lb and a welcome addition to the species tally for the session. by 1am a cold damp fog moved in and everything got soaked with condensation. oddly enough the fishing just came to a dead stop with nothing being caught between 2am and 7am and we all got a wee bit of a sleep where we sat. at one point i was the only one left awake and had mark and dawsey snoring away in the backround like 2 harly davidson's being cranked over . at 7.30am i got the coffee and sausage baps on the go and we were ready to get back into it again. the usual coalies, pollock and wrasse all came on the feed and we were all catching again. this was pretty much the way it went until 2pm when we decided that 28 hours was enough and we called it a day. we had a great session and the banter was flying thick and fast through out the day and night. i have'nt laughed so much in a long time and my face was actually sore. poor dawsey was the brunt of most of the jokes but gave as good as he got and they both gave me a bit of a ripping, but sure i'm good for it any hows
we all headed back homeward bound 3 very happy anglers. is'nt that what it's all about

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some more pics

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you guessed it, some more pics

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last pics

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unreal fishing lads, simply unreal

That's some session there lads, you really put in the hours.Great report and great fishing too with a nice mixed bag.

Great report as usual Al. Well done to you all on what sounds like a cracking session .

Great Report.

no mickey mouse session of 5 or 6 hours.28 hours i like it great fishing

Great report and a great endurance session
Well done lads

Sausage Bappppsss!!!! Woooo
Well done lads. Cracking Sesh!

unreal fishing lads, simply unreal

cheers man. and i did'nt have to use up the usual full tank of petrol either

That's some session there lads, you really put in the hours.Great report and great fishing too with a nice mixed bag.

thanks declan. we have'nt done a marathon session in ages, so it was well overdue . when you know your gonna be there for the long haul you can relax and take things at a slower pace

Great report as usual Al. Well done to you all on what sounds like a cracking session .

cheers man. gotta make the most of the rock fishing before we're forced back onto the beaches again

Great Report.

cheers mate

no mickey mouse session of 5 or 6 hours.28 hours i like it great fishing

what can i say,,,, we needed our fix real bad

Great report and a great endurance session
Well done lads

cheers man, gotta paln the next one now

Sausage Bappppsss!!!! Woooo
Well done lads. Cracking Sesh!

cheers drew,,,,,,and you can't be doing without the red sauce too nothing like a hot meal to get the energy levels back up again. and a few pints of coffee helped matters too

Nice session lads

28 hours you dont do things by half

Well written Jonah Lomu, best rugby tackle i'v seen in my 17 years of playing I had one of those sessions were things seemed to go wrong, but when you think back on all the fish caught you realise that it actually was a stonking session for ALL of us.

Now lets roll on another marathon session

well done lads super session with a great haul of fish and great report sound like a very funny day and night

thats a good mixed bag happy days

Jez boys you threw everything at them there! Well done, some nice eels on show!

28 hours!!!!!! are you mad? I am knackered after a 6 hour session
Great session and report.

we all munched our way through 8 quarter pound burgers and a pound of sausages and a dozen baps

Sounds like you worked up a big appetite with all the fishing.

that was some session al 28 hrs but great fishing well
done to ye all ,and you sure were not going to run short of
bait ,that was some assortment 11 different types of bait ye
had every angle covered ,the fish never stood a chance

Some session 28 hours well done lads & good mix of species