Spent the best part of a week in Newport Co. Mayo. As there wasn.t a lot to do in the evenings (working during the day) I decided I would try a couple of spots around the Clewbay coast line to see (more in term of curiosity) what might be lurking in the depths. I didn.t catch a huge amount of fish and for the majority of the time only got to the fishing spots till after dark.
Venue: Mulranny, Mallaranny, Malranny (lots of different signs posts and all spelt differently).
People: Myself and a friend from Newport (never been shore fishing before).
Date / Duration: Thursday 18th 8.30 . 1.30 am
Tide: Two hours before full and there after
Weather: Overcast, Strong Southwest wind, cold and a good swell
Bait: Mackerel and Lug
Rigs: 3 hook flapper and a 2 hook clipped (for distance)
Results: For my friend who had never fished before; 1 decent colefish and 7 flounder, four of which were dinner plate sized. Myself; 1 postagestamp sized flounder.
Catch and Release:: Yes/No (Had to dispatch one of the large flounder as it was very deeply hooked) Tasted great though!
Report: Arrived two hours before high tide at the main swimming beach in Mulranny. Wasted no time is setting up camp just over the concrete pathway that leads down to the beach (near lifeguard hut). As far as I could remember the beech completely floods so we used the path as a fishing platform as the tide rose. It was a fabulous evening to be out and clew bay never looked nicer. I set about showing my friend how to cast and after we fired out the baits fish began to bite after 20-30 minutes. First fish was a coalfish of about a pound and a half, was a great looking fish as it was a completely silver. The flounder appeared thereafter and Steven continued to catch them. I had a consolation micro flounder but hats off to the newbie he destroyed me in the fishing stakes. Out of interest none of the fish went for the lugworm and everything was caught on mackerel. I was also very surprised to see that no dogfish made an appearance. Headed home when the rain started arriving in sideways and it became very unpleasant.
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Venue: Mulranny
People: Myself and Steven
Date / Duration: Friday 19th 9.30 . 1.30 am
Tide: Just short of two hours before full and there after
Weather: Clearskys (some showers), Very Strong Southerly wind, cold and a good swell
Bait: Mackerel (forgot the bucket of lug)
Rigs: 3 hook flapper and 2 hooked down, clipped
Results: One dog and two decent sized flounder each
Catch and Release:: Yes
Report: Had planned to fish the mouth of the burrishoole river (opposite the abbey) as I had been told that large colefish frequent this area during the months of September/October. However, when we got there it was pitch black and it would have been difficult to try and find the channel with a cast, plus I can only imagine the army of crabs that would be lurking in wait. We headed to the first beach at Mulranny (through the golf course), but the tide was still very far out and because it is such a shallow sloping beach we would have had to do a lot of moving of gear continually as the tide rose. So after all of that we arrived back to the main beach at Mulranny. Fishing was a lot slower than the previous night but at least the doggies made an appearance. After three fish each and not much moving we headed home.
Steve with a big smile with his first doggy from the shore
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Venue Bertraw, Roonagh Pier and Oldhead rock mark
People: Myself
Duration: 1hour at each location excluding Roonagh
Tide: Full
Weather: Blueskys but very windy
Bait: Deceivers and Shrimp Imitations and lugworm
Rigs: SWFF setup and float rig for wrasse
Results: Zip
Catch and Release:: n/a
Report: Decided I would fish a few marks on the south side of the bay on the Sunday. Walked the length of Bertraw and started fishing the channel at the very end in the hope of picking up some mackerel but nothing showed. The old man had joined me on the walk and he mentioned that Mr Hewetson (original owner of the tackle shop in Westport) caught roughly 30 bass from this beach in a single session. If only I was fishing 30 years ago! After Bertraw we moved onto Roonagh for a spot of wrasse fishing from the rocks to the right of the old pier, but it was far too exposed for any sort of fishing. Oldhead is nearly always sheltered so we headed to the rock marks around the corner from the beech. Tried float fishing lug but nothing showed any interest. Talk to two northerners who where just leaving on our arrival and they had picked up, coalies, Pollack and doggies.
View of Croagh Patrick from the rocks at oldhead.
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Oldhead pier
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All in all it was a nice few days but not a great deal of fish.
Last edited by deno on Wed Oct 24, 2007 3:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.