People:me, Neil and Derek
Duration:7pm-11pm
Tide:rising
Weather:cold Northeasterly breeze
Bait:rag/lug/mack
Rigs:2 and 3 hook flappers
Results:Pollock,Coalfish, Dogfish, Ballan Wrasse, Corkwing Wrasse, Shore Rockling, 3 Beard Rockling, Codling, Short spined sea scorpion, Dab
Report: Not having been out fishing for a couple of weeks due to the various ups and downs that life throws at you from time to time, I was anxious to blow the cobwebs off the rods, hit the road and hopefully have a good session

. With Dublin Angling in Walkinstown now closed I had to get rag from River Range Mountain in Tallaght and in fairness to them it was not bad, €5 for 20 and with Fishface out digging lug in all weathers I knew I wouldnt run short

I arrived in Greystones just after 7pm and set up 2 rods, which I kept close to the wall as there were boats coming and going from the Harbour entrance. I had a couple of corkwing wrasse and some small pollock by the time Neil(Fishface) arrived with his mate Derek. Derek was fishing a small rod and Neil gave him some of his hard dug wicklow lug. I exchanged some rag with him for some lug and he gave a couple to Derek. Derek put one of these ragworms on his dinkyfishing rod and tossed it over the Harbour wall,,,where it settled a couple of feet away from mine. He started to tell me that he hadnt been fishing in 4 years when ,,,,BANG!!!,,his rod bent over and he sprung into action

."This is a decent fish" he said as he struggled to get it up and over the wall . Decent it sure was as after a nice tussle he landed a fine chunky Ballan Wrasse of 37cms

.

Neil got in on the action next by landing a fine coalie of 37cms

I was catching plenty of small fish but the decent ones were coming in on either side of me

. Neil was even pulling in 4 and 5 ounce leads from snagged rigs which litter this mark. At least I was doing well in the species tally,,,,with Horny gobblers, shore rockling , wrasse and pollock but even this was cancelled out when Fishface landed a couple of doggies , some decent pollock, a flatfish and even an East coast codling

.




Derek headed off about 9pm a very happy camper after having a rod rattling night with plenty of wrasse and pollock to keep him busy. I started to cast out a bit further when darkness fell and the boats were all back in the harbour. At last I started to catch a few decent sized fish and had a couple of coalies and pollock.


37 was the magic number and it was honours even for us all. We couldn't seem to get anything over the 37cms mark,,,kind of like when the pin whiting all stop at 29 when you're looking for a 30cm one

,,,,but we weren't complaining as it was a long time since we had such a decent session,maybe it was the rising tide into darkness and the northeasterly putting a bit of a chop on the water

. It was one of those nights when no bait was wasted,,which doesnt happen too often. Neil headed off at 10pm and missed me landing a lovely 3 beard rockling ,,,you guessed it,,,,37cms

. I was delighted as I had been trying to get one all winter from here . Hopefully it will be the beaches of North Wicklow /South Wicklow for me from now on but what a good way to finish up on our go to winter mark. Roll on the Silver lads next then Summer and the Smoothies
