Andy's Kerry exploits September 2011

People:Me

Duration:couple of days

Tide:low, flood and high

Weather:erm, Ireland ? What do you think !

Bait:Fish, crab and lug

Rigs:Pulley, flappers and float

Results:Pollacks

After deciding we'd grab a week's late sunshine we booked a cottage in, err, South West Ireland - Hmm, not usually sunlounger and swimming pool territory but hey he fishing should be good !

So we arrived at a lovely cottage on the South West tip of the ring of Kerry but had the tail end of Hurricane Katia to contend with which meant the sea looked like this:

It stayed like this until the Wednesday which killed off over half our week from a fishing perspective, still the pubs were welcoming and the guinness as good as ever.
With Wednesday forecast as the best day of the week we visited Kevin Brain in his tackle shop on Waterville seafront - a veritable mine of information on the local spots and source of good (if expensive) bait. My thanks to Kevin and those who put me in touch with him.
So Wednesday and I headed out to the local beach at Derrynane which is a beautiful expanse of sand with rocks round the edge - apparently an excellent Bass mark with a host of other species thrown in as well:

Despite my best efforts and belief that I was fishing into a sandy channel between the rocks I ended up losing a load of gear with nothing to show fish wise.
Afternoon came and I moved round to a spot known as Lambs Head, it's a perilous drive and not one for the faint hearted, but well worth it when you get there:

I fished for a while with Jelly worms again to no avail so getting thirsty decided to pack up and whilst doing so these guys turned up and started catching pollack from the very spot I had just left:

So next morning I got up early but forgetting that the extra daylight in the evenings given Kerry is further west than Kent also meant that it gets light later in the mornings too. Given the drive to Lambs head and the fact I'd be clambering over the rocks in near darkness I sat with a coffee admiring the view from the cottage:

Once I did get to Lambs head I tried a variety of lures before switching to float fished sandeel and Bingo ! almost straight away the float slid under and a fiesty pollack of about two pounds appeared:

It went on and on after that with fish after fish, some of them a bright reddy golden colour but nothing any bigger than the first. Still it was a great session and I'm sure I'll be back to fish this spot next time as it throws up Conger, Bull Huss and Bass.
Sadly I was out of time with the weather deteriorating again on the Friday but we did find this rather unusual house complete with a ships wheel on the top !


I can't recommend Kerry highly enough, it's a smashing area though the roads are interesting !

Also a warning to those flying to Ireland, I made the mistake of assuming that having two bags with a 20 kg allowance each would mean that booking a third would give me another 20 kg allowance - it doesn't, you just get to have another bag with the same 40 kg total for two people - thankfully we scraped in weight wise on the way out and clearly on the way back given the amount of leads I lost !!

So not a bad trip, not enough fishing given the weather and no hope of a boat trip this time.

Cheers
Andy


Report:

nice report the weather is always lovely when i go to kerry NOT ITS NORMALLY A CASE OF HEAVEN OR HELL!!!! no wishey washey weather down that way

good report a pity about the weather though hard to pick a worse time for a fishing trip.but hey karma and all that buckets of fish on your next trip!lovley pics well written!
tightlines
fergal

Was down that way myself from the Saturday until the Monday. Fair play to you for sticking it out, I managed 2 casts and called it quits. Never seen seas like it or indeed the amount of weed.