Ballycroneen, Co. Cork, 14th March 2008

People: Me

Duration: 9.00 pm to 1 am

Tide: HW at 22.40

Weather: Moderate S/SW wind, mostly dry with a few short showers, mild

Bait: crab, squid, lugworm, mussel, oyster, razorfish

Rigs: 3/0 pennel pulley, single hook flapper (4/0), two hook paternoster (size 2 hook)

Results: 4 coalfish




Report: My first beach fishing since early February. After the recent storms I though it would be worth seeing if any bass were about. The morphology of the beach seemed to have changed quite a bit since I was last there - there is now a broad steep gravel foreshore - a lot of the sand seemed to have been washed away by the storms.

One rod was set up with size 3/0 or 4/0 hooks and baited up in hope of a bass. But it was not touched. The second lighter rod had the size 2 two hook paternoster and that took all four coalfish.

The first coalfish was hooked about an hour before high tide on lugworm. It was the largest - 35 cm and exactly 1 lb. The second was caught about 20 minutes later on a cocktail of oyster and squid. It was slightly smaller 33.5 cm and a little under 1 lb.

The remaining two were small, 20 cms or so. One was caught on lugworm wrapped with a thin sliver of razorfish. The second was taken on oyster/mussel/squid cocktail on the receding tide.

Tonight I am going to try a different beach - I need to catch something other than coalfish soon :roll:

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Colourful stones :shock:

best of luck hope the fishing picks up for ya

how do you find the oyster fishes?

Hi Eric,
The oyster seems to be a good bait.

It is a b*****d to get on the hook - I usually thread some on to a bait needle and wrap lots of bait elastic around it - but it is messy. So I tend to start off fishing with something easier such as lug or squid and then when I get the chance bait up some oyster. But it does seem to very effective - well coalies like it anyway.

I used it for the first time a few weeks ago in Youghal - during that session I caught 6 fish - 3 of them on oyster - the session lasted about 3 -3.5 hours and I only used oyster for about half an hour but it still accounted for 50% of the catch.

good stuff, hope you get a bass soon 8)