rock marks the north antrim coast 8th august 07

Thu Aug 09, 2007 9:56 pm

People:just me :cry:

Duration:toal of 7hrs(including climbing time)

Tide:

Weather:clear calm and sunny

Bait:Sandeel (frozen and artifical)frozen mackerel ,and some ragworm

Rigs:single hook flowing trace, single hook paternoster, pulley rig.

Results:pollack,ballan wrasse,doggie and conger

Catch and Release:: Yes/No



Report:Had a day of work and the missus away so i had the use of her car , the weather was brilliant so I decided to make hay while the sun shined and headed up the north coast after a few pollack ,I called into belfast angling centre on the way past to see if they'd any rag and was lucky enough to get half a pound ,so now had wrasse on the agenda as well :lol:
arrived to find the sea like glass and virtually no wind so after a bit of a hike I arrived at the edge of the boulder field to find the path totally covered in shoulder high ferns ,so another 15mins spent picking my way through to get near my favourite boulder to fish from .
Unpacked the gear and set up the beachcaster with a pulley rig baited up with a mackerel fillet to try for a stray bull huss ,got the carp rod set up for pollack and baited up with a storm sandeel ,first cast confirmed the tide was still running hard to the left ,so i reeled in the beachcaster and fired it out as far as i could uptide from were i would be fishing for pollack .
3rd cast on the pollack gear I could feel a couple of light pluck on the eel as i retrieved ,slowly started to get heavier then all hell let loose as the fish realised it was hooked ,it took of trying to get to the bottom/into the kelp and boulders and even with me hauling and holding the rod as high as i could it still got its head down into the weed ,but with some gentle persuasion it was hauled from the kelp still running and diving so after a couple of minutes I was delighted to land my first pollack of the session and a cracker at 7lb 2oz ,It was another 3 hrs before i got another fish :cry: wasn't even getting touches ,the next fish came in at around 4lb then i noticed a few knocks on the beachcaster ,,so a mad scramble over the rocks to it and quickly struck into a bit of weight but nothing massive ,a bit of hauling reeling like mad and somemore hauling saw me land my first conger from this mark ,it was small at around 3lb but i reckeon you'd struggle with anyhing much bigger due to the nature of the ground your fishing .though i've had huss and doggies near specimen weight from here .
Gave it another half hour and then decided to make a move to another mark further down the coast ,so another 40mins walking back up to the car saw the sweat lashing of me and a swarm of flies following me up the hillside ,saw a few tourists in the car park giving me strange looks as i swatted flies whilst doing a bit of swearing and slapping myself around the head :lol:
Headed on down the road to the other mark and on arrival remembered I'd forgot to bring my rope with me ,found the rope at this mark a bit rough looking but the ground was dry enough so i knew I'd just be lowering the gear down as the rock was grippy enough to climb down ok ,I thik the sightseers wondered were I'was going to as i dissapeared down the rock face only to appear again in 5 mins on the rocks below .I set the wrasse gear up and stared exploring the gullies and rock faces but things seemed quite with only a few bites before the first fish arrived ,lovely deep red wrasse but only weighed around a pound or so ,the next fish was a bit better at just over 2lb ,but still not alot of bites .chucked the beachcaster out with sandeel on it and managed a doggie of 2lb 5oz , ths was only to be a short session so I'd changed the wrasse gear over to the pollack set up and started to deep spin sandeel again trying for the big pollack that haunt this place ,first cast saw me losing a good fish that I tried to bully from the weed another couple of plucks over the next few casts didn't produce anything ,so i packed the gear up and made the scramble back up the rock face ,not alot of fish around compared to previous sessions in this area but still a good day out ,though knackered ,I really must try to travel light .
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Thu Aug 09, 2007 11:24 pm

Nice session there ronald and one hell of a pollock. Seems a bit of a climb down to your mark (maybe there's some Mountain Goat in you) I think I know roughly where you where fishing from, fantastic spot. Weell done

Fri Aug 10, 2007 9:01 am

cracking report ronald. some size of pollock :shock: , well done

Fri Aug 10, 2007 11:28 am

nice pollack and a cracking pic of the country up there!

Fri Aug 10, 2007 1:04 pm

Its well worth the hike down to this place ,even if it is just for the peace and quite ,you'll not normally see another person all day bar the climbers on the cliffs behind you ,and even then they're normally a few hundred feet behind-above you :lol:

Fri Aug 10, 2007 7:30 pm

excellent report ronald nice pollack mountain goat tactics not for the faint hearted like your style :lol:

Fri Aug 10, 2007 9:48 pm

nice report and after all that climbing it must be worth it, i have a wee question for you, how do you take a picture of you and the fish if your on your own, do you use the timer and have a mini tripod for the camera?

Fri Aug 10, 2007 10:06 pm

Nice fishing that looks like a lovely place to fish.

Fri Aug 10, 2007 10:08 pm

theres only one logical answer to that mc, he's a magician, :lol:

Sat Aug 11, 2007 8:59 am

MC wrote:nice report and after all that climbing it must be worth it, i have a wee question for you, how do you take a picture of you and the fish if your on your own, do you use the timer and have a mini tripod for the camera?

I'd normally set the camera up with the tripod before hand ,picking a flatish rock ,doing a trial photo ,when this looks ok I'd unclip the camera from the tripod using the quick-release foot plate and put the camera back in the bag ready for when i need it ,then its just a case of clipping the camera in and using the self timer .It takes a minute or 2 to set up, but its saves time when you've landed a decent fish and want a quick photo before returning it .

Sat Aug 11, 2007 1:18 pm

Ronald wrote:
MC wrote:nice report and after all that climbing it must be worth it, i have a wee question for you, how do you take a picture of you and the fish if your on your own, do you use the timer and have a mini tripod for the camera?

I'd normally set the camera up with the tripod before hand ,picking a flatish rock ,doing a trial photo ,when this looks ok I'd unclip the camera from the tripod using the quick-release foot plate and put the camera back in the bag ready for when i need it ,then its just a case of clipping the camera in and using the self timer .It takes a minute or 2 to set up, but its saves time when you've landed a decent fish and want a quick photo before returning it .


thanks mate must see if i can find one of those wee tripods