Buncrana Pier, Co. Donegal, 10/10/09

People: Myself and a friend

Duration: 21:30 - 01:30

Tide: Rising to full tide

Weather: Breezy and overcast

Bait: Frozen mackerel and frozen bluey

Rigs: 2 hook flattie rigs

Results: 8 dogfish, 1 dab, 1 ID?


Report:

A friend and I were all set to fish Benone for the first time but bottled it just before we left due to sporadic fishing reports on here giving the impression it can be a hard fish. Decided to try Buncrana instead for the first time in search of rays. Arrived and were set up for around 21:30 with no idea of what the tide was doing due to darkness and no prior experience (couldn't notice a tide line either).

The first hour was slow and we were absolutely tortured with crabs stripping our bait On one of my retrieves I had foul hooked a small white fish, at first I thought it was a pollock but on closer inspection I am not so sure. It had a row of tiny teeth around its mouth opening, was a similar kind of shape to a pollack, but had a pair of fins below its dorsal fins which were long, thin and completely white. I've googled, pollack, coalie, whiting and pouting and I'm not convinced by any of them... but have no picture of my own to contrast against Ahh well, was tiny anyway..

We finally got into the motions of rebaiting every 10 min and before long one of the rods took a massive lunge and started nodding like mad. Result = my first ever dogfish Unfortunately it was deep hooked and I had to cut the line and return him with hook still in Over the period of the next 3 hours we had a total of 8 dogs on board with plenty more missed. All returned to fight another day, though I did mull over the prospect of maybe keeping one for a "rock salmon" dish but decided it would be best to research how to eat them before actually taking one. I must say - having never caught dogs before, the bites were savage, it seems like they just grabbed the bait and wolfed it and swam on, rather than having a look, nosing at it and taking a nibble. It was quite exciting to see the little glow stick on the end of the rods suddenly going ape and reeling in to find another angry dog at the end of the line.

Amongst the dogs I managed one small flatfish which was smaller than the palm of my already small hands; I am near sure it was a dab, but you might like to verify this from the pics below. Quickly returned to grow bigger

Towards the end of the session, the bites changed a bit and became a bit more subdued; the rod would twitch, and then twitch, and then maybe a bit of a rattle and then nothing, and twitch again. This went on for about half an hour but we didn't manage to connect with anything on either rod. I wonder what species this might have been? Certainly did not seem like the fiesty doggies we had been catching.

The fishing was still in full swing but we decided to call it quits at 1am and head for derry (almost fell asleep driving back!). Tucked up in bed with the smell of mackerel and thought of a great night's fishing, I went out like a light...!

Pics:

nice report scrob

defo a dab

Well done lads, nice busy evening

nice session guys well done. might be taking a run down there tonight if i can get away, think full tide is around 1.00 am