Duvell Point, West, Belmullet 23.6.2015

Where to start?

Omg its deep! It's like fishing of a boat in places...
Omg its a long walk, mostly through sheep encrusted boggy fields, that last bit over very broken rocks, the strata tumbled at 45 degrees just to keep you interested in where you put your ankles!
And its wet. Seriously, there is sucking bog and then there is this stuff. It even boast potholes. Weather was crap too - misty rain rolled in around 7 pm and stayed ...



Duvell Point is accessed from the Pullacoppal Beach road. Head to the blind harbour and after the last farmhouse, swing slightly inland to take the track up the hill to the end. Walk due north from there. There are three massive cuts into the headland, so stay in the centre to find the land bridge between the last two otherwise you will add to your walk. I checked out all these channels thinking they would be wrasse central, but despite the weed (and fertilizer bags!) there wasn't as much as a nibble...

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Most of the cuts run to the west towards the blind harbour. One runs to the east. Next day, we'll tackle the east...as it might be more productive (shouldn't be hard!).

Anyhow, got down to about 100 metres short of the headland and found nice barnacle encrusted rocks on which to set up.
Out goes a mackerel head on the boat rod looking for a conger - Peter is a bit of an optimist. I told him he has sand in front of him - turns out there's a few kelp covered reefs close in and on a coming tide, there was a nasty current pushing along and back into the rocks. Worse still, his mack bait looked very old and unpleasant.

Out went sandeel and black lug on a three hook flapper perhaps out to 50 metres, into a fair depth of water, but even with grips (and braid main line) they were working loose and coming in... so had to rebait and recast every ten minutes. Only had the greys triplex with me, which is a bit of a monster, so will be bringing a lighter flattie rod the next time. An hour in and all we had to show was a small sculpin. Long or short, I don't know, but check the photos to follow and make the call for me...

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Decided at this point to take a spinning rod and a German sprat for a walk - sorry stumble - along the rocks. Found an amazing deep square pool full of blennies etc. cut from the rock, quite bizarre, about 4 metres deep straight down. Walked past this and found a nice boil and cast out... and waited for the lure to touch bottom... and waited... and waited... 33 Mississippi ... never thought it would be that deep but it is shown on the maps... nothing much until I had the lure almost out of the water than then bang, Pollack on, turned out to be quite small, just shy of 40 cms, but beautifully coloured. Fought well in the white water boils on a light rod.

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This massive square "cove" looks fantastic, with cliffs rising sheer up 10-15 metres on the far side but despite thrashing it with lures, hard and soft, high, mid water and even a few dodging the rocks and kelp, there was no further action. Heard a shout and headed back to find Peter had landed a big edible crab. It wasn't going back.

Another hour with the baits found lots of floating weed coming in on a weak tide. Saw what was almost certainly a peregrine, certainly too big for a kestrel, and not the right colour or shape for a sparrow hawk or kite. Took the spinning rod off for a walk again, this time inland towards the blind harbour, thinking maybe any fish would be collected there. Gutting the Pollack had shown it was gorged with sand eels. Some auks popped up beaks laden with them too, so clearly lots of bait fish around...

Another very small Pollack fell to a German sprat - the are greedy buggers - again beautiful dark colouration, with purples mixed in with the deep bronze. Stunning when you look at them closely. Popped him back.



Arrived back to find Peter getting a knock on the conger rod but he hit it too early and missed. We've all done it and when you've been waiting for a few hours, its hard not to force the issue.

Rain arrived, a slowly moving misty blanket that seemed to calm the sea even further. Some gannets passed by heading for somewhere else - as they usually do!

This was supposed to be monster hunting but having given Willie my beastmaster uptider, I had to make do with an ancient 8 footer two piece with all the casting potential of a poker. I took it and some mack fillets for a walk right up to the final point, - appalling trek, really smashed up rocks, lots of debris, not pleasant - and all this after I had discovered that the reel seat was cracked and had to use a coaster to reinforce it (and I did my usual trick of putting the reel on upside down!). Between that and missed a ring threading the line through on the triplex, its fair to say that I was not on my game!



Decided to try to use a running leger with a mack fillet on a 6/0 to wire with another six feet of 80 lb leader, now tied with a double uni knot (excellent, thanks for the tip) to the 30 lb braid. Casts quite well, even if the rod was very short and inflexible. Pushed it out into the mild currents on the point using a six ounce gripper and sat back. Used the spinning rod to go looking for wrasse straight down below, but only had mashed up local mussels as bait so wasn't expecting much. Didn't find any...

Rain hardened into proper rain making non-barnacled rocks very unpleasant to slither on... and with nothing happening - not even dogfish !!! - we called it quits at ten.

So four rods and six hours fishing produced two Pollack, a sculpin and an edible crab. Pretty awful but that's what happens when you try new marks for the first time.

On the plus side, we met someone who gave us more information about some of the north mayo marks we're been checking out, including a nice walk down to one of them. It's a new route, shorted by about a mile to the track we use and he confirmed that the channel is always full of big Pollack. Peter headed home with the crab muttering under his breath about winning the bet for the first porbeagles off the shore!

Tight lines all, photos to follow shortly when I figure out how to get them out of the iphone (is it just me was is android so much easier?)

Great stuff- looking forward to going myself in the very near future

Re photos : Apple products must be amongst the most user-unfriendly out-there, but folks are still prepared to pay silly money for them.

After that walk I am glad you didn't blank,better luck next time

Nice report! they are tough out in Belmullet!
The channel into tippe on a flooding tide is a really good pollock spot just around the corner from where you were I think.
Had great day there with sandeel lure last aug/sept - getting nailed virtually every time by big pollock.
its quite rough weedy ground though and the rocks on the climb out seem to be formed into long sheets pointing up at 90 degree angles - very uncomfortable.
Thanks for the report

Cheers Jimmy

I did look at the section close to the mouth of Tippe Pier / Blind Harbour but it seemed quite shallow and is a sandy bottom.
Have you ever fished the east side of the headland? There might be more weed growth given it is sheltered from the prevailing storms.
I have the informar sea bed map which shows the massive cut extends down far into the sea, producing a deep channel which might hold fish.

And yes, it's an absolute curse to walk on, once you get past the grass!

Cheers

No never ventured out there only ever stuck to the mouth of the channel.
Have fished the small beach just down from where you were as a young fella - we would have known it as duveela - looks promising (we blanked on it!)

[Pyreneenguy]

Double Post

Last edited by Pyreneenguy on Thu Jul 30, 2015 1:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Got over to Belmullet a week last Monday. It was rather cold and breezy but we still did the Erris Head Loop walk. Afterwards I fished off the rocks into Danish Cellar. The float accounted for a few pollock and wrasse. Mack and pollock on spinners and only dogs on the bottom. I gleaned some very useful information off a young guy who came to recover a few lobster pots. He talked of decent quantities of codling / ling and mack taken just off Erris Head by their boat, on long-lines. Apparently I was casting onto clean sand into obviously deep water. Unfortunately conditions deteriorated in the late afternoon, with torrential showers and gusts of wind which made fishing on the rocks treacherous. I had intended fishing into darkness . At least I managed to get a few fish. All the other marks that I had a look at that evening ( Ballyglass, Tippe, Pullacopal and Duvell Point) were being swept by the strong winds which would have made fishing extremely unpleasant.

I'll certainly return to Belmullet next time I visit Sligo / Mayo but I wouldn't want to spend a week or more there; it's a bleak and barren place !

Ha... looking forwards to the reports Pyreneen! it's not as bleak and barren as it seems... and almost not as wet as Sligo (ok that's a lie)...