north and east antrim sessions 17th to 26th march

WATERFOOT PIER 17TH MARCH

headed out with dan and jordan intending to fish a rock mark on up the coast. but as we passed the pier it was oddly vacant. so the plans were changed and we set up for a session of comfortable fishing. this is by no means a lesser mark to fish from as it can throw up the odd decent sized fish and unusual species. but it is comfort fishing at it's best
the usual suspects all showed up as we lost the light and we fished it hard from 5pm to 10pm. between us we all had a good mix of coalfish, flounder, pollack, whiting, plaice, sea scorpions, dab and the highlight of the night was jordan picking up his first ever herring on the baited sabiki mini feathers . another new species for him and a decent herring at 28cm too. it was a bit starved looking thow as it was long but slender. but never the less a new species for the wee man and bragging rights went to him as that's another species he has over me this year . we fished on our own for most of the session until a car full of early bashers landed in and decided to cast over our gear repeatedly every time they saw us land a fish . poor jordan was getting squeezed out of his spot so i just told him to strike every time his rod tip twitched regardless if it was a bite or just another crossed line. his 35lb fine braid soon made short work of the 10lb mono the bashers had as mainline and they soon got the message after a few lost rigs . it's amazing just how much it improved thier casting abilities when they started to lose half a wallets worth of rigs and the lines were crossed no more at one point dan walked passed me shaking his head in disgust as these idiots were killing fish after fish just for the hell of it some people seem to have no respect and really don't deserve to catch a bloody thing i honestly can't remember what dan ended up with, but i know he caught more than me
i ended up with 18 coalies, 2 pollack, 2 whiting and 1 plaice and jordan was having his usual fun with the coalies on his mini set up ending up with 44 coalies, 1 herring, 2 whiting and 2 flounder.

PORTRUSH HARBOUR WEDNESDAY 23RD MARCH

just me this time. this was a sort of an off the cuff session i really had'nt planned on. but with all the waiting about with hospitals recently i needed to get out for some personal time to get my head cleared for a bit. so with jordan dropped off at school i lifted a few mackerel out of the freezer and loaded the car for portrush harbour. the weather was great. dry, calm and mild for a change . i arrived and set myself up at the end of the harbour casting out across the bay in my usual fashion with one beachcaster nailed out at distance and my spinning rod just 30 yards out in front of me just off the kelp beds. the fishing was slow with low tide an hour after i set up. but it was just good to get out for a bit of quiet time. i decided to drop a conger rod out at my feet and sat having a chuckle at a game wee lobster who kept grabbing the full joey and tried to scoot off with it. but he was'nt much bigger than my bait and had no chance of dislodging the pound of lead i had on the sliding trace. but god love him he was'nt for giving up easily and spent a good 2 hours hanging onto the bait for dear life only to repeatidly drop it and bolt for cover every so often when he felt threatened. kinda put me in mind of that wee squirrel type critter in the animated movie ice age and his misadventures with his acorn
i fished from 1pm to 8pm and only ended up with 5 coalies and 4 flounder. but one of them was decent enough at 32cm and the wee lobster kept me entertained for a few hours. about an hour before i left a small boat came in to moor up at the ladders along the harbour wall and fouled his prop on one of many pots strung along the inside of the harbour i could hear the guy effing and blinding from where i was and went over to give him a hand to tie up. to say he was'nt too amused was an understatment. the fella was baying for blood . who ever set the pots had'nt accounted for the high tide and all the small floats were a good foot below the surface and in the darkness were impossible to spot. absolute madness to set them at every ladder down the harbour wall as thats where any boat coming in is gonna head straight to . i packed up and left the fella to it as i did'nt want to end up being the whitness to a murder if he got his hands on who ever set the pots

WHITEPARK BAY SATURDAY 26TH MARCH

with my dad finally getting his date for his op the following monday. this was gonna be the last chance we had to fish for some time. so we decided on giving WPB a go as we had'nt fished it from last year. mark joined us for this trip and we arrived at 6pm around low water intending to fish it to high tide around 1am. as we trekked down the path onto the beach ther was a group of foreign looking twenty somethings enjoying a day out with a BBQ and a few beers. ahh reminds me of my misspent youth, beers, BBQ and more girls than lads to party with. all the ingrediends for a good night out . we opted to fish about 50 yards to the right of them so as not to disturb them and got set up with jordan to my right and mark to the right again. the weather was nice enough with no wind to speak of and what wind there was, was blowing onshore with a nice small surf. sadly the fishing was useless. we threw everything at it right up to high tide. i blanked, mark had a flounder and a coalie. and jordan stole the show again getting a coalie and his first turbot of 2011 . no monster by any means, but still a new species for the 2011 tally and anotherspecies on me so far this year . but i was just made up for him and we got a few nice pics of it with an entire 5 inch sand eel in it's kisser. gotta love the blind ambition of some fish when it comes to taking baits half thier own size . other than that it was a pretty poor session. but anyone who fishes that beach knows it's a sort of feast of famine sort of mark. so you just gotta take the good with the bad i suppose. and besides that, i't only march. so the place still has a few months before it really livens up anyhow . only other thing of note from the session was the holidaymakers i mentioned at the start of the report. at about midnight i had my headlight on it's low setting when from out the corner of my i spotted this mass movement towards the water about 50 yards to my left. now this is my new headlight i've been using for the last few months. it's a cree that throws out 300 lumens of light on it's high setting. just 60 shy of what the petzel ultra can do but at a fraction of the price at just £6.99 off ebay . i quickly spread the beam from it on the high setting to light up half the beach to be confronted by the sight of a dozen skinny dippers heading for the surf. i gotta say the sight of a half dozen naked chicks brightened up an otherwise dull session no end a nice end to an otherwise lackless session

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Great report as ever Al
No pics of the skinny dippers
All the best for your dad's op

Cathal

great report al. thanks for that.

pity i didnt make it out to catch a glimpse of the wildlife on wpb.

about the pots in the port - a recent addition to our heavily potted area has seen a gentleman with a liscence for 100 pots also join in too. it seems that he has potted nearly every rock mark around portrush. this guy is getting some seriously bad press from the locals at the harbour and alot of ones who had fished areas for many many years have come down to find his pots everywhere in a pure blanket tactic to start early and beat everyone else to potting areas.

point that gentleman you met towards the little blue hulled boat in the harbour third row back that looks as if it can only handle ten pots......which is all it can hold at one time!

dave

fine fine fine fish a mighty shot of the turbot mighty session welldone

Great report and well done to Jordan on his turbot.

i quickly spread the beam from it on the high setting to light up half the beach to be confronted by the sight of a dozen skinny dippers heading for the surf. i gotta say the sight of a half dozen naked chicks brightened up an otherwise dull session no end

A couple of summers ago I was fishing a beach in West Waterford, nobody else around. It was quite a dark night. I had my lamp switched off and suddenly heard a noise like people running behind me, turned around a switched on my lamp to illuminate 2 naked couples running towards the beach - I think I gave them quite a shock

Brilliant report as usual Al!
Why oh Why didn't I go to WPB? Damn work...

great report al,,,,id say jordans eyes popped out his head !!

bloody hell ye have all the fun!..wheres the pics of the skinny dippers? your normally very quick with the camara al!:D and well done jordan,nice one on the new species!

great report al nice turbot for jordan there, keep it up well done!!!!

he is lucky on the turbots jordan is.....well done

feck the fish pics wheres the naked females!! lol

great report as per usual al!

Super fishing lads i would love to catch a turbot ,good to see use out again and hope the pop is doing ok. .

some nice fishing there Al and Jordan fair play on yas lads, well done on new spesies of 2011, good job lads

well done lads great pic of jordans turbot.

Gd job guys,excellent report!
Well done on the turbo jordan,cracking wee fish
Hope all goes well at home,I'm sure me and drew will get out 4 a session when the wrasse r back

Great read Al if only ther were some skinny dippers on the marks i fish & well done Jordan thats a nice Turbo. I've been out trying some new marks the past few weeks but apart starfish & crabs its very quiet but I'll be back at the spinning next week so happy days have some serious fishing to catch up on

well done to all great fishing also great report al hope things go well for your da best of luck

the wee pricks killing them fish really pi$$ed me off what mde it worse one of the boys mother was there. if i would of done that infront of my mum when i was younger i would of ended up with a swift backhander. those wee lads have no respect for the fish and will proberly only get worse. i have a 4 year old son and i am looking forward to bringing him fishing but with wee lads like that there is going to be feck all to catch. thanks again al for letting me tag along mate not to long now until we hit norway!!!!

Fascinating report as ever Al and Jordan, congrats to Jordan on 2 new species, lovely turbot, a species I'm hoping to catch some day. Well done.