Had a few hours to kill so I headed over to Rossanrubble this morning. Conditions were quite good. A bit of wind coming in from the south west but it wasn't too strong. Low tide was sometime before noon with a 4.5mtr high at 17.30 this afternoon. The water was a bit dirty after the last few days and there was a bit of weed moving about. I had wanted to fish it for a while but had never gotten around to it. There was one other car at the gate when I arrived and the farmer had spread slurry across the field in the last day or so, so there was a grand smell coming over towards the car as soon as opened the door... When I got down to the waters edge, the guy ahead of me had just tackled up. I moved further down to the point maybe about 200mtrs inland of the old slipway. Fishing two rods with frozen mackerel and sandeel, it wasn't long before I had the first bite. I had chucked off to the left, not too far out but still the current and wind was catching the line. A 4oz grip lead on a pulley rig with a 2/0 was the end gear. Anyway first take resulted in a small ray of about 4lbs or so... Crabs were doing a fine job of stripping the hooks so reeling in every 15mins or so to rebait seemed the order of the day. We didn't stay too long, just a few hours. The tide started making quite early so I finished up just after my neighbouring angler had tidied up his gear. Final tally was 2 ray for me and one for the chap beside me.... My second one being a bit smaller than the first. Thankfully there were no dogfish around, although maybe later on I'll go back in the evening for a huss or two. If the wind had dropped off a bit the day would have been very nice indeed...
I must say if fishing was about catching lots of fish every time we go out, then it wouldn't be a great sport to take up. We had a great chat together and I learnt lots about the weigh in procedure for competition sea angling, which I had wanted to find out for a while now. Many thanks to Fiachre McKenna for the friendly chat and for supplying me with a nicely tied flounder rig, some mackerel fillet, sandeels, a few maddies, and a nicely painted lead. I continued on to try out a new spot on the far side of Newport for an hour. But no good today... maybe on another day though. I must say that Fiachre was a true gent. I hope we'll bump into each other again some time. When learning, it helps to meet someone who knows what they're doing. Although I'm fishing for years, i'm still very much a novice in so many ways. So much to learn yet....