Purteen Harbour, Achill Mayo 29.9.19

Landed about 2 pm an hour into a filling big tide to be surprised at how low and clear the water was...
Weather was kind, NW breeze, light, cloud clearing to near constant sunshine. I know. This was Achill?

anyhow baited up a rod with my trusty frozen prawn and limpet collected locally and settled in, thinking there was little point in putting out a second rod owing to how low the tide was. A few tourists wandered up

Then a gentleman with an IFSA hoodie appeared.

The one and only Michael Varley, who by his own words was "the second best angler in Connacht"!

Anyhow, we had a grand old chat and very knowledgeable he is too. We were discussing the merits of circle hooks and I was just about to cast a second rod out, about two hours into the tide, when the first hooped over and practically left the rest. Holey moley... bit of a scramble to find serious weight and power and I was thinking a damned conger... but no. A monster Ballen Wrasse and incredibly another on a lower hook. They had both taken the prawn on the circle hooks (three hook paternoster) which I had cast into the sand in the hope of a flatfish!

After some cajoling we managed to land them both down at the slipway, with Michael holding the rod and me hauling them up by hand off the heavy leader. One was an absolute corker, definitely over 4 lbs, possibly touching specimen weight, quite possibly running well past it. I don't weigh or measure anything these days, preferring to take a quick photo and get them back in the water.

Michael was very impressed with this and successive fish all landed on the circle hooks with minimum fuss, thanks to the hooks always being in the scissors of the jaws. In the end i had half a dozen small Coalfish, a single tiny Pollack to a lure, and a few more Ballen Wrasse for the session. And a very well fed Shanny. Had it been low water, the greedy fecker might have become a Conger bait!

Michael departed before the tide came up over the quay wall, which it did to a level I had never seen there before - that harbour amplifies the tide owing to its design. A local had left his car locked on the quay. It was not looking good. He had departed with a big wake in a large Arvor 20, quite rudely to be blunt about it, so I felt the salt water lapping his hubcaps was Achill's own Karma... someone must have had a phone number for him, he landed back in extreme haste before real damage was done to the car.

Anyhow, a nice session, hope Michael continues with the hip rehab, and we might get out for some flattie bashing some evening,

Photos to follow, although I imagine you all know what a decent Ballen and small Mayo Coalfish look like by now!

Kieran


I'm including pictures with hooks only because I want to show those who are not using them how lightly hooked the fish are when you use circle hooks. For those of you that don't mind paying I recommend Gamakatsu Black Circle hooks, think the brand is Nautilus but you can get 100s for a few Euros online. You can also use them in far smaller sizes, down to 2s, but suggest you use qigher quality "wire" hooks that have some give in them. Unhooking is always quick and easy and the fish go back undamaged...

Coalfish aka "ribble" : https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipMrxBCwW_icFhmtEUJLBNlSVGjHptUtiSj7JZ4c
Big Ballen with 125 gram lead for comparison https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipPwCFCU8PDSttD79pIRCbOHmnkoVCJaaXJf2PHT
Shanny: https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipNEcxrzrfjUKXyeuUvIRq-ce7h0PNg9N0J9mg5h

Think that there are spring tides at the moment..(?)
Fine fishing. Nice account too.
Looking forward to a few pics now

Good descriptive report Kieran and interesting about the circle hooks. Limpet is a bait I've never had much success with....how do you present them on the hook?

Limpet: depends on the hook size.

Big wrasse will take a whole limpet on a 5/0 circle hook. Bind in the guts for the scent trail in a big swell.
Smaller wrasse I then to cut a strip of the muscular foot, bind the guts in with elastic and present it on a 2/0 hook. Leave part of the muscular foot trailing off the hook.

The key is to never strike on a bite; the fish either hook themselves or get the bait.

HTH

Good report Kieran, I'm glad somebody is gettng a few wrasse as I recently spent/wasted 4 hrs at a wrasse mark without even a bite! I've tried using circle hooks for wrasse but the type I used seemed to have no give at all, possibly made from tank grade steel, and once snagged, goodnight. I've also tried them for rays while drift fishing from the boat but found that they still resulted in some deep hooked fish so for the meantime it's back to the J hooks! I like your thinking on the Arvor owner's car.

Hi John

Really surprised at the deep hooked rays. I guess fishing off a boat may alter the dynamics, although its not dissimilar to fishing in a harbour... what size of hook was it?

I have noticed that when you use circle hooks, you need to up the size quite a bit. I don't use anything below 1/0 and typically use between 2/0s and 7/0s

Most people would not use a 5/0 J hook on wrasse, but with a circle, it works just fine... even on relatively small fish in the 2 lb / 1 kilo range.

Limpet: depends on the hook size.

Big wrasse will take a whole limpet on a 5/0 circle hook. Bind in the guts for the scent trail in a big swell.
Smaller wrasse I then to cut a strip of the muscular foot, bind the guts in with elastic and present it on a 2/0 hook. Leave part of the muscular foot trailing off the hook.

The key is to never strike on a bite; the fish either hook themselves or get the bait.

HTH

Thanks Kieran. Appreciate the advice. Time to give the humble limpet another go!

I've had pretty good results using limpes in the past in particular red codling from the kelp as well as wrasse coalies Whiting and gurnard. And just from a beach in balbriggan! Oh how I'd love to be on the pier in purteen ! A lot of good memories from that narrow awkward to fish pier! But to be fair he rocks behind it threw up some cracking codling forwards and octopus 3 years ago on kilty lures bounced along the bottom! If u cast far enough theres clean ground between the rocks and the island!

Forwards???meant gurnards!!!

I've had pretty good results using limpes in the past in particular red codling from the kelp as well as wrasse coalies Whiting and gurnard. And just from a beach in balbriggan! Oh how I'd love to be on the pier in purteen ! A lot of good memories from that narrow awkward to fish pier! But to be fair he rocks behind it threw up some cracking codling forwards and octopus 3 years ago on kilty lures bounced along the bottom! If u cast far enough theres clean ground between the rocks and the island!

how far 'around the corner' did you go?
Were you facing the island itself?

It's awful filthy ground close in and miserable rocks to fish front being slanted skyward...
cheers

K

I'd say half way between the harbour and the northern side of the outcrop if that makes sense. Directly facing the island.

C

Are the wrasse potting vermin not at work down there? Wrasse population has been all but wiped out at many marks on the Antrim coast, bstds are now potting them to clean lice in salmon farms. They can't leave anything alone.

Probably are yea. Beara has been wiped of wrasse and pollack too

Are the wrasse potting vermin not at work down there? Wrasse population has been all but wiped out at many marks on the Antrim coast, bstds are now potting them to clean lice in salmon farms. They can't leave anything alone.

Actually its the spear fishing vermin that are the bigger problem. Keem Bay is now a complete waste of time. Appalling loss, one of the most varied and best marks in Ireland and its been speared to death...

Regularly saw trawlers trawl right up to the beach in keen too . Unbelievably sad they'd spend an hour trawling the whole bay