Wicklow beach, 19-02-11

People:me, Sparkiemark and Fishface

Duration:5-30pm to 11pm

Tide:low for first hour or so then rising

Weather:foggy, then foggy and drizzle, then fog,etc etc

Bait:lug, crab(theres no fooling Roger is there ),squid, mack

Rigs:2 hook flappers and pulley rigs

Results:Bass,,,,,,,,well almost ,codling , whiting, rockling, and flounder




Report:Met Mark,Sparkiemark, at 5pm and showed him a few marks,,theres a lot of marks in that sentence ,,well I showed him where they were supposed to be but all he could see was fog and more fog. It had descended just as i passed Wicklow town and it was down for the night . We set up at the mark chosen and as i'd heard of a few schoolies caught the night before, i was hopeful of a bass for the species list for 2011 .I was chuffed when i got a tug on the first cast and reeled in to see a schoolie on the end ,,,,,,Was bringing him in , then turned to call Mark, I was thinking camera angles etc etc, then the unthinkable happened, I lost contact for a sec and he was off on the next wave .What . This isnt happening ,,,but it was ,,never count your chickens and all that .Mark was having more luck, a double of flounder on his first cast and he was on fire all night .Being from the Isle of Man , he obviously didnt know that your not supposed to outfish your host, so i'll let him away with it .He had flounder, codling, whiting and rockling, well into double figures of fish, a successful evenings work for him . I had an o.k. night , considering my previous catches off this beach, with 5 codling and a 3 beard rockling, so apart from losing the schoolie ,,,,,it was a fair night.Fishface dropped by for a few hours, and apart from 2 pin whiting he blanked,but he was targeting large bass and tope(so he said ), still ,,he brightened up our evening as usual, courtesy of his Petzl Ultra . We left at 11pm,a nice night of fishing despite the fog and drizzle.

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a great session for wicklow this time of year well done lads nice to see a few bass showen up even if they are small hope it a sign of things to come

Was a real nice nite, apart from the freezing fog for the 1st hour!
I had a real good nite, pulling up fish just about every cast. After my double flounder on the 1st cast, I had to change hook sizes as both flounders swallowed the hooks real deep. I didn't want to spend the whole nite killing flats with my hooks.

So on with the bigger hooks, and near enough every cast I was getting big bites but hooking into nothing, then I'd reel in a few minutes later with the inevitable small codling,whiting,rockling.

Was really starting to bug me, but seeing dave lose his bass in the surf, spurred me on, then when I lost a schooly in the surf I new the nite was going to be all about the small fish. I did land a nice little plump codling, which with the flounders added 2 more species to my list of fish so far this year!

Was a great nite's fishing and being the 1st time on a beach casting a line in 8 years made me get the fishing bug even more badly than what I have it!
Big thanks to dave for showing me where to fish and for fishing along side me for the nite, can't wait for my next trip out!

I had to change hook sizes as both flounders swallowed the hooks real deep. I didn't want to spend the whole nite killing flats with my hooks.

have a look at this post about unhooking flats, only takes a few seconds and most of them will go back grand
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=30031

Well done the lads. Good to see a few Bass flying about, pity they eluded you Dave!

nice session, pity about the bass guys, but there's always next time...

lads it wasnt a bass it was a baby bass it will grow bigger and then i,ll catch it so it wont go to waste i was in the martello in bray tucking into a ribeye steak looking at the wildlife on bray seafront oh to be twenty again,i think i,ll just stick to the fishing much less stressfull at my age still and all ye had some action more than i managed

Hard luck on the bass, they can be tricky little beggars, a bit of slack and they are off.
But at least you had a few fish to keep you busy.

I had to change hook sizes as both flounders swallowed the hooks real deep. I didn't want to spend the whole nite killing flats with my hooks.

have a look at this post about unhooking flats, only takes a few seconds and most of them will go back grand
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=30031

This thing was hooked down in the stomach, was bleeding badly when I reeled it in. Nothing was saving it. Was gutted as I hate killing fish at the best of times for food,let alone killing one cause I caught it.

Good stuff Dave. Hard luck on the loss. Nothing worse...

Nice one, fish or no fish any day is good for go out and fishing ,but again you catch something ,thats bonus,
good pictures too

hard luck with the bass dave . but you would'nt have wanted that little fella anyhow . just let him go back and tell his dad to come up and see you

hard luck with the Bass dave . but you would'nt have wanted that little fella anyhow . just let him go back and tell his dad to come up and see you

I think the camera angle and lighting off his pic wer getting the better of him. We have all done it, lost a fish in the breakers from being to confident!

Was still a good nites fishing! Ant it kept us away from bray pier!