How i spent my weekend

Bangor, Friday 7pm-1130pm

Landed down at a rock mark to try for conger, plan was to spin until dusk then see if I could get my first eel of the year. When I got there I knew it wasn’t happening. The wind was blowing right in my face from across the lough, its wasn’t strong enough to make it unfishable but strong enough to create a good bit of chop in the water and fishing was difficult. Spinning was a dead loss as the water was full of weed and every retrieve came back cover so switched to bait fishing and after a couple of hours of not even a bite I head round to the fishing platform for a spot of picker bashing to save the blank, even that took an hour to pull out a single pouting. So with blank saved I headed home.

Blackhead, Saturday 7pm-11pm

Drew and me had plans to head up the coast on Sunday so went into Belfast Angling Centre to get my bait for the day, Drew was working and saw me noticing the Penn Powerstix 13ft version they had on sale for £60, I already had the 15ft version and thought I like the rod I find the length a bit cumbersome so I didn’t take much convincing to buy the shorter version. Went home and puttered about as you do on a sunny Saturday afternoon and decided I would go fish in the incoming tide at blackhead for the evening and hopefully get a few wrasse, landed down, there wasn’t a breath of wind and sea was like a mill pond, set up the float then realised I forgot my ragworm. No biggie, started fishing mackerel strips but nothing doing so broke of a few limpits and was soon catch small goldsinneys. Broke out the LRF rod and started spinning with a small 5g jig and was soon picking up fish on that as well. There were a bunch of guys down there already who packed up not long after I left and left me their left over rag so used it and continued catching wrasse. I got about 7 or 8 wrasse on the float, all of them goldsinneys, not a single ballan which was odd. Also got about the same number of Pollock on the spinner, nothing of any size maybe up to half a pound but good fun on the light rod. Around half 9 I cast out and was watching the line some off the reel as the lure sunk through the water when suddenly line started peeling from the line at an amazing rate, took a second or 2 to realise what was happening but struck into a fish which immediately started stripping line from the reel, was playing it into the side and the fish was going bananas, making long runs left and right and stay deep so it wasn’t until I finally got it to the surface right at my feel did I see it was a mackerel. Ill be honest, that was the last thing I was expecting was the fight from it was the best craic I’ve had on the LRF rod so far. I know opinions are mixed on LRF but ive now decided this is the ONLY way to catch mackerel. Stuck it out for another hour and a half with no more fish. Had the conger rod going the whole time and not even a sniff. Usually there is a good few knocking about up there but ive yet to tempt one. Maybe next time.

Ballycastle, Sunday 1pm-8pm

Drew broke the bad news on Sunday morning he couldn’t get the car for the day so our options of fishing together were pretty much limited to the Dee, personally I didn’t fancy trying fish among 40 screaming kids jumping into the water and wanted to try my new rod so I set off on my own (sorry Drew) to ballycastle-oh, landed down about 1 and there was quite a strong wind blowing right to left, just strong enough to make fishing the light gear a bit difficult but set up the new rod first and chucked it out. Was impressed with it straight away, much easier to cast and get the same distance. Put out a float and started spinning with the LRF rod as well. Fishing wasn’t exactly frantic, I got about 4 fish on the float up to half a pound, and 8 fish on the lure all between 1lb and 2lb, the 2lb coalie really tested that wee rod and my knots ill tell you what. The big rod was in the weeds with a one hook flapper with rag for wrasse but not even a touch all day long. Shame I didn’t get to christen it. I did lose a cracker on the float, must have been a good 4lb but when I got it to my feet it done into the weed and snagged and couldn’t shift it, the price you pay for using light gear but it’s a risk worth taking I think.

All in all a weekends fishing that started off a bit crap and just kept getting better and better. Sure there were no monsters caught but I had fun and at the end of the day that’s all that matters



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Are those Quantum Mahi lures I see there? i thought I was the only one who knew about those!

Went to Ballycastle too, was over run with Polish, they had every spot covered and even had 3 of them in a rubber dingy! They were camping, women, children, dogs, place was a mess, rubbish every where, one guy was eating a pollock out of a pan whole, could not have been more than 1/2lb

Well done , good report ,,,you got some nice fish there over the weekend

Are those Quantum Mahi lures I see there? i thought I was the only one who knew about those!

Sorry mate, we use em a lot for trout amongst other fish. Great little lure, good weight too for banging it out.

good to see the mack starting to show but that will be blackhead bunged with every tom dick and harry good goin anyway gettin afew fish in tight conditions

nice weekend wha! good read too lad...busy fishing a handfull of rods..the only way to go,kudos

nice wee read. average sessions for up round this way.. dead on. mackerel on light gear some craic
nice lookin wee lures indeed mate, where are you getting them from..??

Fairplay on a good report and photos to go with it .

John Ainsworth