People: Me, Fra & Craig
Duration: 18 & 19th June
Tide: All States
Weather: 3-6mph NE Friday / 18 mph NE Saturday
Bait: Crab. Lug, Rag, Razor, Mackerel
Rigs: For me : Up & Overs and Flatties Rigs
Results: Tope, Starry Smooths, Common Smooths, Dogs, Flounder, Pollock, Coalies
Report:
With the car sorted the night before only the bait was left to be added to the mass of luggage into the boot of the car. With two car loads leaving Belfast in the early hours of the friday morning (5am). In one car there was the campers down for a bit of sight-seeing and occasional drink!! and us the smooth hunters!!
After a few body fuel and toilet stop's. We met up with Dave Tilly in Dublin and I picked up some fresh popping crab. An amazing set up and great quality of crab. Thanks again Dave
We headed to bass alley but with only flounder caught here, we packed the car up and headed round to the B&B (St George Guest House) to get signed in and get some food.
Kilmore Quay: After a few mis-directions and uncertainees we opted for the strand at Kilmore quay. With the sun setting and a few beers the night was good. There was plenty of Dogs, Coalies and Flounder caught. It was nice to catch some decent flounder for a change. I wangled out a couple of nice treble shots of 35-40cm flounder.
We got a very nice tip from a local fella who very kindly put us onto a mark for the smoothhounds for the saturday night. Thanks to Jonny and John. Fra and Craig got a case of the munchies but i went onto bed from exhaustion.
I woke to the smell of a lovely fry wafting from the hall better than the smell that greeted me as the odour from fra trunks in the next bed quickly followed as I lifted my head into the danger zone haha.
so the plan was hatched to do a bit of spinning and plugging in the morning and afternoon. We went round to St Helens and then to Hook head with plenty of pollock being the order of the day. Apparently the Bass didnt know we were down this weekend with the killer easterly winds being a pain.
We headed to the smoothie spot for about 9pm and quickly set up.. intially the wind was kicking up a gear but it died around 10pm with an amazing sunset around 10.30pm..
I picked the sexiest fresh peeler out of the pack and baited this bad boy up.. in.. out.. turn the head.. look up.. left arm out.. snappppp!!! ...Mother F%%%%R!!!...
another reel out onto the rod and a medicore crab on this time... I cast out and seen the rod dancing within minutes.. then lunge.. I struck into it and started reeling thinking that get this in and photo time... for all the size of this fish it had me running up and down the beach.. loosing the drag off i eventually landed my first ever smoothie (being a loner I usually set my gear a mile away from anyone else and not having a camera on me I ran up to the other two with the beautiful smoothhound 'in-hand' and screaming 'SMOOTHHOUNNNNDDDD' ... A quick picture and back down to the base camp to lash another bait out.... this time I got the biggest fresh peeler in the box and whiped it on. I cast out and what followed was a different kind of fight... The fish just kept running everytime it got close.. 15-20 mins later the fish finally admitted defeat and I reeled in a scrapy tope of about 8lb!! with still plenty of crab left on the hook I cast the same bait out and got another smoothhound. This was the story of the night with smoothhound and smoothhound..starries and commons every cast.. only one tope though!
I lost the best fish of the night after trying to beach it.. I ran back and got it to the water edge but at the very last second it threw the hook. I got a couple of pictures of my very last smoothhound on my phone. The smoothhounds were ranging from 4lb - 8lb. All fish Came to fresh peeler for me.
So finally i got my smoothhound and a tope!! Wexford is a very special place I cant wait until I am down again.
We stayed in St George Guest house in the town costing us 30 euro a night with a great breakfast and very helpful staff. They even sorted out a fridge for us to use for our bait. Big thanks to John, Jonny and Craig for driving. Also thanks to Dave Garvan for supplying fresh and frozen crab
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Last edited by round_ourway on Tue Jun 22, 2010 4:48 pm, edited 2 times in total.