First sessions/first bass of 2016 - East Cork/West Waterford

[RockHunter]

It has been a while since I last did a post. My fishing for 2016 got off to a slow start, I didn't have my first session until late March. Normally I would do a lot of fishing in Jan-Feb but I couldn't be bothered to go out in the cold wet weather. Eventually on a dry mild day in March I got organized, dug some lug at low tide and later headed to flat beach that can fish well in daylight in the 2.5 hours before high water on big tides. I was not too hopeful of catching anything big so scaled down my hook sized to 2/0 circle hooks on one rod and 1/0 J-hooks on the second baited with lug. After about half an hour I had a good tug on the rod with the circle hooks and felt a strong fish on the end which put up a good fight all the way in. It was a plumb 4.5 lb bass, my first fish of 2016 !!



I had a couple of tugs after that but the fish were not hooked. Close to dusk small coalfish came on the feed and I had about six in quick succession, all but one on the rod with the circle hooks.



I had some lug left so the following day I headed back to the same beach for a couple of hours. I got there at about the same stage of the tide although this time the surf was much weaker. I fished about 200 m farther along in a location I had spotted the previous day before the tide came in. A trough had developed behind a sand bank, and was drained by a shallow channel that cut through the sand band. I thought it looked a like a good mark. The first fish was a small flounder quickly followed by a small bass.



Again small coal fish appeared close to dusk. I caught five before all the lug was used up. I had some old refrozen razor but the fish were not interested in that so once the worms were gone I packed up about an hour before high tide.



I returned to the same mark last Saturday to fish the big tides. I got there just was the tide was filling in over the flats. I used the same set-up with 2/0 circle and 1/0 J-hooks. The surf was weak and the fishing was slow. I got two flounder and a coalfish before dusk. As there was a storm forecast for the following day I decided to save what lug I had left and head out early in the week after the storm had passed.



On Tuesday evening (12th April) I ventured out. It had been fairly calm all day and when I got to the chosen beach I was surprised that there was still such a big surf, probably too big as the scent of the bait would just get lost in the cauldron of churning surf. But since I was there I reckoned I would give it a go regardless.

I got set up and had only been fishing for about 10-15 minutes when there was a good tug on the rod with the circle hooks. At first I thought I had a small bass but when I hauled it out of the surf I found it to be a 35 cm flounder.



About 15 minutes later I had a stronger knock on the same rod. There was no mistaking it this time; it definitely felt like a bass, pulled strongly and thrashed about on the surface as I got it into the shallows. It was a 3 lb fish, but a fairly energetic one which gave a stronger fight that you might expect from its size.



As the light faded I had a flounder-coalfish double followed by another four coalfish after dark.



All fish were taken on the circle hooks which were baited with lug. I was using razor on the other rod but did not have a single tap on it all night. When the lug was used up I switched to razor on both rods but the bites eased off. I got one more coalfish, again on a circle hook, but as the tide began to drop the fishing died off so I packed up about an hour after high tide.

Last edited by RockHunter on Fri Apr 15, 2016 3:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[chuckaroo]

That would be classed as a few very successful sessions up here on the north coast RockHunter. good stuff
stunning fat fish in that first pic

Last edited by chuckaroo on Fri Apr 15, 2016 3:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

How do you keep the lug on the circle hooks when casting out ,what brand of circle hook do you use.

How do you keep the lug on the circle hooks when casting out

I just thread the lug along the hook and pull part of it past the knot, that seems to work fine.

what brand of circle hook do you use

I bought a few packets a long time ago so had to search for one - they are Mustad Demon Circle Ultra Point, Ref 39951R

Nice fishing there Rockhunter. Lots of magazine articles say that circle hooks are useless for lug, too hard to bait up; you seem to have knocked that theory on the head!

Good fishing and nice to see a report Frank

Well done on the fish Frank,good variety.
Always good to get out and wet a line
Alan

I use circle hooks with lug a lot on clean beaches and it is a very successful bait, although I find it generally gets you the 2 to 4 lb bass, with the bigger ones coming to razor. Occasionally I get a bigger one on the lug.

One thing I do, which I believe is important is to use two circles, one at each end of the worm. First I thread the end circle hook all the way through the lugworm (harder to do that with a J hook, but OK after you've done it a few times) and then nick the pennel circle in the upper end of the worm, so you don't need a bait stop. I would say that I hook an equal number on the end circle and the pennel circle, sometimes both, but in 99% of times just hooked in the scissors so easy to catch and release.