Bray Pier

People: Myself and Ken

Duration: 2.5 hrs

Tide: 3hrs before low tide to half an hour before low tide

Weather: Sunny/with passing clouds. Smidge of rain but nothing to write home about

Bait: Rag tipped with mackerel, feathers and stupid optimism.

Rigs: Feathers to the elusive Mack, bottom rigs for the rest

Results: Nothing, Nada .... Not a feckin sausage!

Catch and Release?:: Chance would be a fine thing!

Report: Disaster. I knew we were being optimistic with the tides the way they were but Ken wanted to try his new multiplier and I just wanted to get my line wet.... and thats all what we did !! After about an hour of enduring light rain and a couple of birdys in Kens new reel the rain stopped and the weather was looking good. Unfortunatly we were then decended upon by every fly and miget on the East Coast which didnt help the mood. All in all we learned two very valuable lessons ..... 1. Dont fish a low tide (oh god the smell!) and 2. Neither myself of Ken have a bulls notion how to use a Multiplier reel.

Next time it's high tide all the way! (Might try the rocks off to the right too!!)

I used to fish there before....first few attempt i fail to get even a bite.Then i started to notice that the bite start when the tide start to move in and will stop at peak tide.So started to come early at lowest tide possible and wait for the tide to start moving in,and never miss a bite,regularly get a lots of plaice of diffrent size....average 10-20 plaice in mixed size each session,saw a boy got a 3lb bass there a few month ago on rag.Thats from my experience there...better ask a local boys bout the place....i am sure the place not regularly produce big fish but the place can really provides lots of fun on light tackle.

Well that sounds a little more promising! Gonna try that next week so .. cheers 8)

One more,i fish the right hand side pier(when ur facing the sea) ,i fish at the end of the pier towards north side,but it wont gonna be fun sometimes when the sail boat going out.... and in.....specially on weekend.....on the left side pier i notice that there too much crab picking on my bait,unless u can get a spot at the most end of the pier towards the sea...good luck...

flounder or dab off bray never had or have seen anyone else catch plaice off bray harbour are you sure they are not flounder they have spots but not as promenent or orange as plaice (i caught 9 sole of the prom one night and have never had another in 8 years)

Not really sure.....according to the local guys that was fishing there it was plaice....they do have an orange dotted/spot.....maybe its a flounder since as far as i can remember the lateral lines is quite straight from gill plates to the tail....by the way they all look the same to me.....

I used to fish Bray Harbour a lot as a kid when I lived there. I used to fish the North pier at half way down where the wall gets lower (it used to be the only spot on the wall that still had remanents of the old wooden seats still semi-intact but I don't know if thats the case now) and cast parallel to the back beach, twitching the bait back in every 30 secs or so. This would often result in decent catches of flounder.

I can only remember ever seeing 1 plaice being caught - and it was inside the harbour of all places! Other than that, I can only remember catching the usual mini-species over the outside of the pier at high-water (with the very occasional decent pollock or wrasse), with mainly dogs at distance (though I have seen the odd conger, cod and bass being caught, but again, we're talking 15 years ago!)

I was in Baumanns tackle last summer getting bait and a lad was showing off photos on his phone of a Tope (I reckon 15lbish) he caught off the end of the North Pier on a mackerel bait, so I suppose anything is possible!

I moved from Bray about 16 years ago. At the time, you could get bass and codling from the main beach in any easterly wind. I had a huge conger once from the beach which took a hooked codling. There was always plenty of flounder all along the promenade and inside the harbour. Fishing from the prom immediately right of the pier used to produce plaice but this was before all the shingle was dumped there. I caught them myself but never had any fish over about 32 cm.