Co. Sligo, 14/07/10 - 21/07/10

Bit late in posting due to limited net access and a poorly camera memory card.

Landed at Knock on the afternoon of the 14th which was a cue for the weather to turn ugly! After some thundery showers on arrival in Sligo and the power getting knocked out I went out to fish the estuary, with an ear out for any rumbles

Sea trout were active during the flood with an occasional leap every so often. The closest I came to a take was over two consecutive casts when I saw the shadow of a fish following the lure into the shallows right infront of me. Nail biting stuff, on both occasions I tried pausing and twitching the lure before running out of line, but the fish just shot off back towards cover at the end of the retrieve.

As the current eased over HW I headed to a rock mark to make the most of the last light and the flat calm conditions. I managed to get a couple of small pollack on a diving plug over a half hour period before switching to a silver toby. Worked deeper this produced with a further four pollack, including a better fish of 3lb or so, which I kept for dinner the next evening.

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None of it went to waste with beer battered fillets, roasted head with herbs and the frame baked in foil. Lovely

I fished regularly over the course of my stay but that first day on the spring tide was to be the best. None of the short estuary sessions, morning and evening, LW/HW produced anything on the lures as the tides headed towards neaps.

I had a 4hr rock session between the days of big swells, and managed 3 small wrasse to float fished lug. Interestingly ledgered limpet didn't get any bites - perhaps it's too tough for the tiny ones I also picked up a fingerling pollack on the toby. Unfortunately the damaged photos I recovered from the memory card are a bit psychadelic, but there is a wrasse in this one, honest.

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On the 21st my final trip was out to Trawee with the beachcaster to make use of some sandeels and a mack that were at the bottom of the freezer. I tried three hook flappers amongst the broken rocks to the right of the beach during the flood, but soon ditched the mackeral which was barely staying on the hook. It was pretty tough going with a northerly blasting the rain straight onshore, so after only 2 hours and a good soaking I packed it in (as did my camera ). Despite the wild conditions and a big surf I did see gannets dive bombing offshore out of casting range so there must have been something out there at one stage.

It was a shame that the unsettled weather put pay to any ideas of mulleting at a rock mark I'd found last year, so I'll just have to save the mullet induced frustration for a future trip.

Seen some nice reports from Sligo since my trip so good on all those lads involved, some great catches. Cheers

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nice fishing man . it's hard to beat a bit of beer battered pollock

Well done at least you got a Wrasse & a nice Pollock for the dinner strange the Limpets didnt catch any as thats what I catch most of my Wrasse on, from small Corkwing - Specimen size Ballan.

beter later than never to do the post nice fishing well done

Thanks for the feedback gents.

Surprised the limpets didn't work myself, they've been fairly good in the past. Tried one mark that used to have a healthy stock of ballan some years back and not a sniff, even on the lug - maybe the conditions and tide weren't right on the day, but I suspect there's more pressure on them and less C&R.

Yet to hit that 5lb specimen size could be waiting a while!

THumbs up on the beer battered pollock