The Apprentice’s Day, Donegal Bay. 30th September 2016

The grandson, aka The Apprentice, had a day off school so with a half decent day forecast and to fulfil babysitting requirements, I took him fishing with me for a go at the wrasse. First stop was to gather some hardback crabs and my favourite flat rock mentioned in my last report produced the goods again. With bait for two needed, we gathered a few more until we had about 30. When I say “we”, I gathered about 30 and he gathered the rest. There were numerous big flat stones at the top of the beach and I moved 5-6 of these lower down the beach to hopefully produce more crabs in the future. Off to fish and with both rods set up to float-fish the crabs at about 12ft deep, the Master got things rolling with what turned out to be my best fish of the day, a 3lb 7oz ballan wrasse. I followed up with a small corkwing and a 2lb ballan before the Apprentice got stuck in to a good fish which put a serious bend in his rod and peeled some line off the reel, then it was gone as the hook came free. Another ballan to me at 2lb 14oz and the Apprentice was definitely worried but he struck back with a fine wrasse; 3lb 13oz, the best fish of the day and a new p.b. for him. My next fish was another nice ballan at 3lb 5oz but it failed to impress the Apprentice who decided to rest on his laurels and go exploring, pre-empting my expected warning to be careful by telling me he’d be careful. The bites started to slow down so I had time to set up a beachcaster to fish mackerel strip and stale lug at distance. This produced a solitary dab, 3 doggies including a dog and flounder double, along with three small coalies, mostly to the stale lug. I managed another three wrasse from 1lb 8oz to 2lb 14oz while the Apprentice managed another two at 2lb and 2lb 8oz. We both lost a few good wrasse that seemed well hooked but after a couple of ferocious dives, shed the hook. I must put my hand up and accept the blame; I had forgotten to replace some stronger hooks in the tackle box and the hooks I had left were springing open under pressure. Of course I didn’t tell the Apprentice, I would never hear the end of it. At the end of the day, I won the numbers game with 8 wrasse to his four but having caught the biggest fish, the Apprentice considered himself the winner and who am I to argue? I don’t know for how much longer I can call him the Apprentice; still, shouldn’t it be every teacher’s ambition that the pupil outshines the Master?

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Great stuff Paddy, perfect wrasse fishing

Some fine looking wrasse there Johnwest!

great fish

The apprentice reports always make comical reading great reports. That's what it's all about nice one jw