Kerry 18-21 June 2015

This has been the main event in the calendar for the year a number of months. Weather, especially when compared to forecast was patchy and I think things are a bit behind this year generally with temperatures only recently starting to pick up. However, I had 2 main target species that I was after and got them, so overall a success.

Stopped for a go at hounds on the East coast on the way down. Complete burnout with only 2 pin dabs. Where these fish are this year I do not know as they were showing in good numbers at the very beginning of May last year. That was a bit of a dampener and put extra pressure on us to produce the goods in Kerry.

After kipping in the cars on Thurs. night, we headed down to the apartment in pretty good time, dumped our stuff, picked up bait and headed to the first spot. Got there a couple of hours into the tide, probably a bit late. We were after rays; undulate and sting specifically, both on all of our Ten Most Wanted lists.

The first hour or so went fairly slowly, probably due in part to getting a feel for tides, leads, depth, baits etc. Now my memory is a bit hazy, but I believe that I drew 1st blood. A nice pull down and I knew I had a ray. What I didn’t know was what. I could tell it felt heavier and a bit feistier than your average Swilly thornback. However, in the back of my mind was the niggle that the lesser tidal flow could’ve been accentuating the fight. My concerns were allayed when I saw the unmistakable undulating markings of a very angry ray. Got it lifted out for measuring and weighing. To put the cherry on the cake, not only was it my first undulate but at 8lb 1oz, it was Mission Accomplished! on the Shimano badge front, only just but they all count.

Things then got busy for a brief period with Eddie, The Tipperary Terrier hooking up another slightly smaller undulate and the BiL producing the pièce de résistance, a stingray. The stingray fights totally differently to the other rays, being more compact and rotund in shape. It actually scrapped like a round fishing, darting and diving as opposed to kiting, so much so that we thought it was a bass or a trout. Aided by the hand-towel over the sting, we got it photographed and measured. Not big for the species at about 4 lbs but something we had to travel to catch and catch it he did.

By now we were working out that the “crab is the only bait” commentary on many sites for these species in the area was nonsense. We’d spent a small fortune on live and frozen but, as with all bar one ray I’ve ever caught, it was fish that they were after. Sadly we were limited based on the aforementioned info. as to what fish bait we had and I believe that this cost us fish on that day. Still, making the most of what we had, I hooked into another hard fighting fish a few minutes later. Much as I love them, I was slightly sad to see this was a thornie as I can catch them in The Swilly all day long : ) The TT had another thornie shortly after. A pin flounder here and there and the session was quickly over.

That evening we tried the old faithful bass mark, one that had been kind to say the least on our last trip. Sadly, the cycle dictated that we were fishing an ebbing tide and the bass did not show up. The only catch of any note was a nice turbot of 1lb for The Terrier, darn hard to get these days and I was envious.

Next day it was back to the same ray mark to try and replicate the busy period which we felt we now had a fair chance of given info. gleaned from the previous session. This time we were well armed with the correct bait. I set up quickly in anticipation and whacked a rod out. As I was taking my second from the bag, my tripod lunged forward. Luckily I had an eye on it or it almost certainly would’ve been 2 broken tips on the stones. Another lovely undulate just shy of 8 lbs followed. Shortly afterwards, another good knock on the other rod. This time I knew it wasn’t a ray I’d had before as the fish was diving. The question was what was it? After a quare tug of war getting it through a big patch of floating weed, a stingray was swimming up in the water shooting straight for my leg. I quickly lifted the leader to stop him in his tracks and got him up on the bank. The fish was slightly smaller than BiL’s at 3.9 lbs. Not securing the Group Best was an easy enough pill to swallow now that I had both my target species in the bag and the pressure was off.

After a fast start, anticipation of a fine day’s raying was high. However, unfortunately strong westerlies came in which brought weed and terrible water discolouration. Those were the last fish we saw on the session.

Battered by the wind and wet from some wading mishaps, we decided to head to a pier for some armchair angling over HW. After my last highly unsuccessful attempt at fishing this mark, I was less than enthused and when met by an even stronger westerly, it took me some time to muster the enthusiasm to set up a rod. The only thing that led me to do so was the knowledge that a species I have never taken from the shore is said to reside there – the garfish. I have had small ones as a wee-un’ from the boat but never the shore.

I set up a float with a very short 2 foot drop and a sliver of mack. The float went out and sat stationary to no avail. I decided to walk it up and down to produce more movement and after a few steps, bang and something was off with the drag. I must say that these things are fantastic fun and spectacular, I really wish we had a decent head of them up here. After a bit of playing about and enjoying the scrap, I pulled a good-sized gar of 76cm over the edge. I was absolutely delighted with this as a bonus species and a good finish to the day. As expected, nothing else happened here and we headed back to the apartment for some rest before a planned night session.

We went to bed planning to get up for the flood but I think that the wind and tiredness made that unlikely. Probably unwisely, we slept through a rising tide in darkness until 6am and sacrificed our best chance of bass in doing so. Another factor was poor knowledge of the area. We knew that old faithful would be covered in weed after the westerlies and didn’t really have a plan B. Still, the Bob Moss books have now been bought and I will not find myself in a similar position again – we live and learn.

To compensate and try to get rid of our copious supply of bait, we got up at 6 and drove around to find a sheltered beach. Found ourselves on a beach with the wind to our sides but still a nice healthy surf and no floating weed just an hour before HW. Everything seemed right bar the daylight. It wasn’t and none of us got a sniff! A bad note to go out on but I look at these weekends holistically and I’m very happy with what I caught on the whole, hard as I had to work for it and much as I would’ve loved a bass. Already planning the next trip and hopefully I’ll be a bit savvier for it.

Tight lines,

G

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looks like a brill in that picture - great report

Great fishing mate heading down in 2 weeks hope to have results like yours on the ray front

Super fishing mate well done

That's some fine fishing, well done.

Great report and great fishing hitting your target species....well done all!

great report but you got the upper hand of the weekend not fair


We shall organize another weekend shortly just checking out what time i can get off work

From the tipperary terrier :L :L :L

hats off lads. well done!