rockmarks around clonakilty, 16-6-07

People:me

Duration:0445-0800

Tide:hw @ 0700

Weather:overcast with a gentle w/nw breeze(perfect)

Bait:fly

Rigs:

Results:1 1lb bass

Catch and Release:: Yes



Report:

with the tide looking perfect for an early morning trip i decided to try and open my bass season in style.with the inclement weather we've had the last week i had an ocean of new flies tied up which i was itching to try...left the house at half 4 to try a spot Ive fished a few times with irregular success.its the kind of spot the if you hit it right can be awesome but at the wrong time you may as well be fishing in a puddle.on arrival there was a relatively large oceanic swell breaking which was gonna make life pretty difficult.this was realized when a wave broke on the rocks in front of me, shot 8 feet into the air and drowned me, just what you want at 5 o clock in the morn. i fished on here for another hour without as much as a sign of a fish. it wasn't too difficult to guess where the fish were tho because half a mile away there was about 50 gannets bombarding a shoal of bait-fish and i can pretty much guess what was under that shoal, Mr bass methinks.
with the fishing poor at this mark i decided a move was necessary, as the tide was pushing and i was anxious to get a fish i decided to move back to a mark near town. this is where i took my first bass on the fly and has always been good to me. on about my dozen cast i had a very solid take, which i missed, i let the fly sit, gave it 2 tweaks and BANG everything went solid.the fight lasted about 2 Min's as the Little bass was a wee bit out gunned on the 10wt outfit but still for a juvenile gave a good account of himself.i fished on but only had 1 more missed take and the tide had gone past its optimum time so i called it a day, or morning.....oh and the bass took a blue DNA bait-fish pattern.i can put up a pick later if someone wishes.

also forgot to say that there seems to be a vast amount of bait-fish in the water as further out to sea there was a huge flock of gannets bombarding another ball of bait-fish.

[lumpy]

went back out at 11 to fish the low water period of the tide over some exposed reefs.began with a baitfish imitation but had no joy so put on a size 6 white gurgler pattern.second cast i covered some mullet that were sitting on the surface, one strip and a nice bass took the gurgler. it shot off on a 10 yard run, taking me into the backing. this continued for about 5 minutes with it sulking, me gaining line and it running again.finally i was able to lip it, estimating it to be around the 3 1/2 lb mark (52cm).missed one more before retiring home to watch the rugby. all in all a nice start to the bass season, hopefully it may continue

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Last edited by lumpy on Sat Jun 16, 2007 6:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Fair play neil nice fish

Great to be bass fishing again Neil! The two lads and myself had five on Saturday morning and another two late yesterday evening. Biggest would have been 4 1/2lb. Seemed to be lots mixed in amongst the mullet on any of the marks we visited, although the lack of larger fish was dissapointing.

ya was good to have a bend in the flyrod again.pity about the larger fish alrite. was dissapointed about the first mark i fished though, was certain they'd be fish moving down their.interesting about the mullet though, the second bass i got was from a mark where you have loads of exposed gulleys and kelp beds at low water, these were stuffed with mullet (mostly about 3 inchs long). seems that the bass were sitting beneath these, possible waiting to ambush them.theres a huge amount of small mullet up the estury which would be the perfect size for a bass to take