donaghadee harbour co.down monday 26th jan 09

People: me and then immunecfg turned up

Duration: 5pm-1am

Tide: low to high

Weather: flat calm at start, ending windy and wet

Bait: lug, rag, mack, sand eel and squid

Rigs: 1 up 1 down and 3 hook flappers

Results: 4 pollack, 3 shore rockling, 3 coalies, 2 poor cod, 2 pouting, 1 whiting and 1 codling




Report: i dug some rag and lug on saturday so i would have some bait at the ready as soon as this windy weather cleared off. and true to form monday was looking good for a wee short run at donaghadee. i got set up around 5pm and started landing the fish as soon as the light faded. the first 2 hours were pretty busy with rockling, pollack, poor cod and coalies all coming on the feed. the first rockling was a scarlet colour a new one for me and the first poor cod was a good size at 20cm, just 2cm short of my p.b. i saw another angler walking along the pier at 7ish and i thought, great someone to chat with as i fished, and as he got closer i realized it was immunecfg. i met him on saturday when i was digging bait too, great minds think alike . his first fish was a nice poor cod a bit bigger than my one, quickly followed with pouting and coalies. around 9pm the surface of the water came alive with wee bait fish splashing every where . this was a good sign as they were being forced to the surface by something big and predatory my wee rod got a good knock and i landed my biggest whiting this year at 24cm. i know.., i know, you can all stop laughing now , but compared to the pin whiting this year he was big . not to be out done immunecfg got a bigger one in the 30cm bracket with a tail sticking outta his mouth he tugged on the tail and out popped a poor cod who was about a third the size of the whiting . i've always known that whiting are ferocious feeders, but the poor cod was the same size as the shads i would normally target big pollack with. so if he was feeding on one that size i might need to scale up my shad size for the summer pollacking season he then landed a couple of wee codling and i got one too along with a couple of pouting. i was baiting up my rod when i heard him say 'what the hell is that!'. i turned to see him pointing at the surface of the water. about 2 foot below the surface a large deep bellied fish of about 3lb was circleing and all the wee bait fish went crazy jumping out of the water i a bid to escape luckily my float rod was set up behind me and as quick as i could, i baited it with a sand eel and cast it in that area . we could'nt see the fish anymore and i never got a nibble on the float, but it certinly got the adrenelin going the funny cioncidence was that the fishing now went dead. and we both came to the conclusion that whatever the big chap was he'd scared the bejeasus outta the rest of the fishies and they'd all cleared off . around midnight immunecfg packed for home and i braved it out another hour without a single bite. so i admitted defeat and headed on as it was now raining. even as i sit here this afternoon writing this i'm still drooling thinking about the big chap and what he might have been and will he be there when we return

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more pics

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Nice session ... I just had a boring session!

Diego

great report as usual alan,and nice fishing too! hope that big one is there when ye go back!!

thats some amount of species lads well done

Cracking report there man! Wish I was about for that! Nice to see the codling about. Hmmm any ides what the big 'un may have been. Nice to know that there a few about.

great stuff again alan
i'm going to have to pull my finger out and get stuck in again, from this weekend i'll be back at it again BIG TIME!!!!

Goodwork Alan, plenty of fish caught there

Goodwork Alan, plenty of fish caught there

nice fishing lads. Thats a good mixture of fish. At least somewhere is fishin semi-good. Lol

nice session lads, good variety there lads.

Well done Alan, great session there.Plenty of species.

Al,

It was me !! not immunecfg.

It was a lovely night for fishing not much wind and not too cold and a good variety of fish. 3 more to add to my species count for the year and some people say Donaghadee is crap. I admit there was no monsters last night but there was plenty of variety.

Wish I could find out what the mistery fish was it was a strange nearly diamond shape and seemed to glide slowly through the water. It had the small fish dancing on the surface.

Tried fishing the same spot on Sat night was a bit breezy to start with then just got ridiculous. When packing the stuff up in the car I could barely stand without being blown around and I am no light weight.

Jonny

It was me !! not immunecfg.

sorry jonny, my bad. you're both called jonny i was so intregued by the big chap last night i went down again tonight for 5 hours. much the same apart for a 2lb doggie and a 5 bearded rockling

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Nice session ... I just had a boring session!
Diego

great report as usual alan,and nice fishing too! hope that big one is there when ye go back!!

thats some amount of species lads well done

Cracking report there man! Wish I was about for that! Nice to see the codling about. Hmmm any ides what the big 'un may have been. Nice to know that there a few about.

Goodwork Alan, plenty of fish caught there

nice fishing lads. Thats a good mixture of fish. At least somewhere is fishin semi-good. Lol

nice session lads, good variety there lads.

Well done Alan, great session there.Plenty of species.

cheers lads it was a great night. ok no monsters, but plenty of action and a good variety to be had

great stuff again alan
i'm going to have to pull my finger out and get stuck in again, from this weekend i'll be back at it again BIG TIME!!!!

no doubt you'll get the bragging rites to the first thornie taken on a donegal beach

Nice session lads you'll have to get the big fella so we'll know what it was fair play Al your chalking up the species fairly lively ..........

thanks conor, i would love to think he was a cod, but if he was he's likely in one of the nets of the 3 trawlers 2 miles off shore that another angler pointed out to me tonight

well done again big lad, thats some collection you got yourself
over the two nights, its good to see the fishings on the up, i've
been stuck in doors with the man flu. but its good to read the
reports, so i know i'll have to get a line wet before you lads have
the place fished out. hoping its this weekend but if not then most
definetly next week............................................................
hope your lucks in next trip with the mystery fish

Dont Worry about it Al. Easy mistake to make.

Why couldnt I have got those 2 species I need them for my list lol.

That 5 beard is a good size and quite dark looking the two I caught last year were much lighter in colour.

Good size doggie as well nice one. Guess you didnt use all the bait up from the other night then.

Jonny (Nifisher)