West Clare Beach/Rock Mark 3/3/12

People:Jizmonger and myself

Duration:2-7pm

Tide:low @ 2.30

Weather:cloudy and cold...

Bait:fresh lug, frozen lug, frozen razor, mack

Rigs:pennel pulleys, 2 hook flappers

Results:




Report:
First session of the year and it was great to get out.
I had done a bit of prep in advance of getting out and had tied some p pulley rigs and respooled my 525 and a general service all round.
I had a some 13lb Lidl mono in the box (different colour every 20m) so i used this as I wanted to see where my casting is at.
We got to the mark early as we wanted to dig fresh lug and also to reccie the coastline and rock/gullie formations at low tide.
We had a little travel spade which didnt help as we had to go deep for em but we persevered and got our few smallish lug, we filled in our few holes and as we were leaving we met other lads digging in a different area with forks and pulling out conger sized yokes.....Lesson no 1 learned
Our first casts sailed out with big lug sausages clipped nicely to the grip lead. on retrieve later I got snagged and when trying to get free the line snapped- not at any of my knots or swivels or leader knot but 25m along the mainline
Not having any more shockleader with me, I tied on another new trace and cast again to crack off sending my carefully made trace flying into the distance. Lesson no 2 learned
Not trusting the Lidl shite anymore I changed to my Slosh which only has about 60/70m of mainline left on it clipped another rig on lashed it out and fished away for the evening.
Baits were untouched after half an hour so retrieved and recast and when there was no signs of interest we took to the rock formations with some lures to see if we could find any fish this way.
Nothing. Later we saw the resident seals swimming around and the penny dropped.

When I got a text from the missus saying she was headed for the pub, was I coming, that was it for me.
€3.50 pints vs freezing our asses off....
We were wrapped and in the car in 20 mins
Slow day fishing but good to get out and learned a few bits into the bargain...
So.....
Any recommendations for mainline?

hard luck mate, sometimes it feels like you can't get a break when your out. but at least you got out and discovered your line was useless while the fishing was pants and not when it was a fish a cast
i'm sure there will be lots of lads with recomendations for line, but i usually like to hunt about so as not to pay too much for the mono as jordan has a habit of overunning his multi now and again and it can get a bit costly!!
for the last year or so i've been using the berkley xts. it's 15lb breaking strain with a diamater of 0.36mm. i've found it to have less stretch than other brands and it stands up well to a bit of abraision. you can get 800 yard spools (720 meteres) of it for around £10. just remember to back your spool out a bit first with some cheaper line. that way if you do get a bad birds nest you can cut the line out down to the backing and lose less of the better line helping to keep costs down

Very true Al, better on a quiet day than a busy day. I'd sooner the traces sitting on the seabed that a fish trying to swim about trailing a grip lead...
Thanks for the tips.
Tight lines
Mike

I remember fishing a competition ,I used lidl line (last minute change of line the night before),anyway I saw a few fish being pulled in and I hadn't had even a bite ,I was using same bait and rigs so I decided to hold the line thinking the fish must be biting gently and realised the line was like an elastic band stretching about 1 centemeter every foot ,absalute muck and I've never used it again !

ultima power steel 15 or 18 lb is good it stretches a small bit but not like normal mono ,its not cheap but most hi tech lines arnt either a very good line for long distance fishing ,but not the best there is when it comes to abraision so not for rock or rough stuff

Spot on Roger... I've been using 15lb power steel for a couple of years now....really nice line!

Try a braid mainline. No stretch, longer casts, lasts forever.

for the last year or so i've been using the berkley xts. it's 15lb breaking strain with a diamater of 0.36mm. i've found it to have less stretch than other brands and it stands up well to a bit of abraision. you can get 800 yard spools (720 meteres) of it for around £10

Thats expensive Al. I use suffix tritanium and cant fault it. .35 is 15lb or 19lb depending on what sticker is on the spool(eu or us) but its the same line. Its €9 for 1100m so works out pretty cheap for such a quality line. Ive heard mixed reports on the coloured line but you rarely see a bad word said about the clear line.