Fishing along Ireland East Coast

Has anyone in the last 6 weeks managed to catch anything decent along the east coast.

I've fished myself stupid, using all sorts of baits, lures, rigs and I'm just fed up.
Even mackerel, squid, rag are producing nothing but the odd whiting or pollock, all well below 2Ib and the odd Dogfish.

Has anyone any tips on how I could improve my chances?

Admittedly, I haven't put the usual hours in 'cos of the new arrival, but this year has been the worst for me ever. Went spinning for pollack for an hour this evening at Sandycove - not a single bite. So many blanks this year- I'm glad its not just me.

tried the back of dunlaoghaire west pier for bass and also got a blankity blank 2nite

If you had written this last week the young lad and I would have agreed with you on the east coast but last Saturday he and I caught our first bass ever, followed by two more within an hour.

I used a flyer rig with a ragworm on it to slide down the young lads line and enter the surf very close to the beach after he had cast his regular ledger rig.

I was setting up a second rod when the tripod keeled over. Thinking I had not stuck it down far enough into the sand I asked Sean to pick it up and when he did the rod was going hell for leather and we landed a nice bass about 4/5lb.

We had been catching nothing worth talking about prior to this and Donagh (fair play to ye Donagh) posted a topic on the forum on flyer rigs which I subsequently tried and it worked a dream.

Sunday morning I attempted the same thing again but the ragworm were not very lively to say the least and there wasn't as much of a surf.

I did however keep one bass 22inches long, didn't have a scales to weigh him and when I checked his stomach he had a load of crabs in there the size of a euro coin.

All of the crabs I have used to date are much bigger than this and I am wondering if we are using baits which may be too big.

Anyone know where one can buy crabs this size? I reckon if I'd have been using crab I would have caught a lot more fish.

The flyer rig is the way to go. The beach I was fishing was quite a steep beach and previosuly I would have been casting to the third breaker for bass but all of the takes we got were on the last breaker right in close to the beach.

I think the next time I will fish a lighter rig close in with a small crab on a float or use a freelined sandell on a bubble float.

Keep the faith lads, the fish are there. Its amazing how much you grow in confidence once you hit something decent.

Tight Lines,
Donal.

I was back in wicklow for a week in August and Was told and found the fishing poor. Lots of immature codling around in greystones south beach and wicklow. The common joke being you should sell them on to John West for tinning. Usually in september the first of the storms occur which should change things.

Good to hear the flyer rig is doing the biz. I'm still waiting on them to produce a gar.

Donagh