NW donegal beach 22/10/11 BASS and flatties

People: me and jordan

Duration: 5pm - 3am

Tide: down then up

Weather: calm and dry

Bait: rag, mack and sand eel

Rigs: 3 hook flappers size 4 hooks and 2 up 1 down long snoods, size 4 hooks.

Results: ME 4 bass and a flounder. JORDAN 1 turbot, 4 flounder, 2 plaice and 3 brill!




Report:
well it was the weekend again and i had been planning a trip away out to north west donegal for me and jordan. i had a few ideas about where we might head off to and a few of the lads from the site gave us pointers too. but seeing as no one had been out fishing that way in the last 2 weeks it was just gonna be a case of driving out and seeing how the marks looked on the day. we looked at our first 2 marks and they did'nt look up to much . but the third mark looked the buisness. a lovely clean beach with some nice gullys and outcrops of rocks at either end. so we made the 10min trek to a fishy looking spot and got set up. as normal jordan beat me to the punch getting the first fish about an hour in with a double of brill and turbot . he was made up as he's never caught a brill before. so it was another species to add to his 2011 list. a while later he got another bite and reeled in a flounder which put him 3 up on me. something he took great pleasure rubbing my nose in . i decided to get the chair out and sit poised at my 2 rods ready to pounce at the first sign of a bite to finally catch a fish . i saw 2 good knocks and lifted my rod and struck at the third. fish on! happy days . as i walked into the surf i could feel a few good kicks so i knew it was something better than the mini coalies i've become acustom to with winter fishing. so imagine my joy at seeing a bass come through the surf . i only stopped panicing when i walked it back onto the beach and out of the water to the safety of the sand. i was chuffed to bits as i have'nt had a bass this year. so that was another species notched up for myself . so a quick photo and weigh on the scales had him in at 2lb 8oz and seeing as it was my first of the year i reckoned karma would be good to me if we put him back in to live another day .
so with all the excitement over i baited up again and put on another sand eel on the top hook of my flapper and nailed it out to the horizon again in the hope we might have a shoal of bass out in front of us. sadly it was'nt to be as i sat watching my rod's motionless tips for over 50mins before i noticed a big slack line bite. i thought that the surf had spat out my gripper lead but the faster i reeled the line the less resistance i felt i must have reeled in 50 yards of line before i felt something tug back on the other end . fish on! bass number 2 broke the surf just in front of me and we got him weighed and photographed. this time he was a bit smaller weighing in at 1lb 8oz but i was'nt complaining. he was undersized and went staright back in and swam off strongly none the worse for his kisser full of rag he snaffled on the bottom hook of my 2 up 1 down rig. jordan was'nt so lucky on the bass front but was still hammering the flatties with plaice and flounder happily gobbling the rag on his flapper rig .
i decided to bring in my other rod and freshen up all my baits and walked out into the surf and hammered the 2 rods out as far as i could and sat back down to see what was gonna come along next. this was great. a new species for jordan and 2 bass for me. i thought things could'nt get any better, but how wrong was i. i went over to chat with jordan as he was reeling in to bait up when i noticed our lines were tangled. i thought he had a dodgey cast with the multi and crossed me . so i let him reel in his gear and started to sort the tangle out when i felt a sharp tug on one of the lines. but it was a mess and i mistakenly shouted at jordan to stop reeling as the braid was wrapped around my thumb and cutting circulation off to it . but he said it was'nt him and i twigged it was a fish on one of the lines. so i quickly apologised, chewed through his rig, freed my thumb and ran to my rod to begin reeling in all the slack line. i honestly thought the fish was lost due to the ammount of slack it had but thankfully it was still there only 10 feet in front of me in the surf . BASS NUMBER 3!! happy days. this one was even bigger at 48cm and weighing 2lb 3oz. he was lightly hooked and jumping about all over the sand and went back strongly giving my face a good splash with his tail in the surf as he shot off. this was great, but i was really hoping jordan would get one too. so he baited up again with king rag on all his hooks as that's what my last 2 were taken on. i did the same and we cast out and sat down waiting to see what was gonna come next.
the tide was starting to flood back in now and things slackened off for near an hour but jordan was in with another flattie again and i went over to help him unhook it. it was deeply hooked but the reverse hook through the gill with the gripper wire with a crook in the end of it did the trick in seconds. the flattie swam off and as i walked back towards my tripod i noticed my slack line in the surf again . seeing as my last 2 bass hit me with slack line bites i thought it could'nt possibly be another bass!. i lifted into what felt like a nice fish and the biggest bass of the evening was duely landed . i was made up, this was my best bass session ever and i did'nt have to drive all the way to cork or kerry this time. who would have thought that bass fishing like this was only 2 hours 30 mins drive from home
but sadly for the bass he somehow managed to get the hook stuck in one side of his gills and did a bit of a number on them. 2 of his gills were sticking out of his gill case and he was bleeding like a stuck pig. so waste not want not i reckoned the kindest thing to do was to bump him on the head and bring him home for the pot. he was 51cm and weighed in at 2lb 13oz. so was more than enough for me and jordan to have for sunday lunch
no more bites came and by 3am we decided to call it a day and wrap up and get some sleep. besides that the wind had picked up and telling bites was pretty difficult. on reeling in i discovered that i had a flounder on and jordan had a double with the biggest flounder of the evening at 31cm a great way to round of a great evening. as you can guess we'll be back here again for a few days when jordan gets off school to give it a good proper bash

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a few more pics

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bet that made a welcome change from coalie bashing in portrush harbour
good stuff indeed

Excellent report and pics as usual, well done on the bass, now i know where all the bass have disappeared from my usual marks, there all on holidays on NW Donegal

awesome session Al - for bass in a session on the west coast is some going!

Great fishing and report The elusive Donegal bass conquered!

great fishing lads well done

Great fishing lads well done ,did any of them bass have laytown accents,they all headed off for the summer somewhere?

Great fishing well done

brilliant stuff Al, great informative report.
fantastic result with the bass.. with a few nice wee brill to boot! great session, well done

btw, people insist that bass are sensitive to bright white light, but cant see red light.., whats your take on this seeing that yous both have white head lights on here..?

and well done on getting out!.. saturday night / sunday morning was the only break in that deadly weather all weekend!
great pics too

Great read Al & well done, some fine fish ye caught I'd say ye can't wait to get back out for another cast

Great session guys. Luv the bass. It was 1 of my target speicies this year but ive failed maybe next year. Sum great flatties there 2 guys well done.

bet that made a welcome change from coalie bashing in portrush harbour
good stuff indeed

very true man. nice to get something that you don't have to scale down to mini rods to enjoy

Excellent report and pics as usual, well done on the Bass, now i know where all the Bass have disappeared from my usual marks, there all on holidays on NW Donegal

cheers man. i thought the first one was a fluke, the other 3 were just the icing on the cake

awesome session Al - for Bass in a session on the west coast is some going!

thanks davy, and a lot cheaper than driving down to kerry or cork too

Great fishing and report The elusive Donegal Bass conquered!

cheers man. i think jordan will have us back out that way now until he gets one for himself

great fishing lads well done

thanks stevie

Great fishing lads well done ,did any of them Bass have laytown accents,they all headed off for the summer somewhere?

no man, but one did have a suitcase

Great fishing well done

cheers alan

brilliant stuff Al, great informative report.
fantastic result with the Bass.. with a few nice wee brill to boot! great session, well done
btw, people insist that Bass are sensitive to bright white light, but cant see red light.., whats your take on this seeing that yous both have white head lights on here..?
and well done on getting out!.. saturday night / sunday morning was the only break in that deadly weather all weekend!
great pics too

cheers charlie. i have heard the same thing myself about the lights, but we were both wading out waist deep in the surf to cast out as all the bass i got were over 100 yards out. so it did'nt seem to bother the 4 that i caught
but then again i suppose you'll have someone jump in saying that if we had have had red lights on instead, we might have caught more than 4 i guess we'll never know
mabey the next time we fish that beach we'll bring the red lights and see how many we catch

Great read Al & well done, some fine fish ye caught I'd say ye can't wait to get back out for another cast

cheers brian. i'm already checking the forecasts for the weekend. jordan finishes school on thursday for the haloween holidays. so you can guess where we're gonna spend the holidays

Great session guys. Luv the Bass. It was 1 of my target speicies this year but ive failed maybe next year. Sum great flatties there 2 guys well done.

cheers fagan. i had almost given up on catching one for the 2011 species list myself. but as usual with fishing. when you don't expect to get something, that's usually when it turns up . theres nothing more unpredictable than this oul fishing lark

Great fishing lads well done ,did any of them Bass have laytown accents,they all headed off for the summer somewhere?

Alot of the bass headed off for the summer...!!

Great to see some bass up north.

That was a good nights fishing

Great report and fishing Al and Jordan.

It's great to fish a new spot and even better when it produces that well

excellent session, especially with the weather lately, well done guys!!!

Great fishing - 4 bass from NW Donegal now that's a surprise.

class report and fishing there guys wicked flatties and nice bass and congrats on yet another species for this year!

ferg

AL!!!!!!!!!

those boyos were supposed to make it round to me on north coast!!!!!

a big well done to you and jordan - despite my sour grapes!!!!!

dave