Lenan Pier, Co. Donegal

[delmonte]

I arrived in Donegal on Monday evening with a bucket load of rag, peeler and frozen Mackerel just in time for storm Ellen. Spent the guts of the first day and a half looking out the hotel room window at the rain bouncing off the less than picturesque flat roof complete with a series of noisy air conditioning vents only to be broken by baby feeds and changes.

There was a break in the weather today and after getting some good advice on marks around the Inishowen Peninsula I decided on a trip up north to Lenan Pier in the hope of catching a ray. I arrived at 1pm and observed, if nothing else I was fishing in quite spectacular surroundings. I was a bit slow to get going though as another angler was on the quite narrow end of the pier and I didn’t want to crowd him. There’s a high wall on the seaward side complete with lamppost at the very end. As it’s a working pier a couple of boats came in with vans turning up to unload and fuel them. I didn’t fancy putting a 6oz lead through a windscreen so in the end it was about half two before I got going proper.




I was fishing two rods, one with a multiplier and the other with a fixed spool. The fishing was slow to start off with only a massive crab to show for the first 45 mins of fishing proper. An elderly gentleman arrived and began fishing beside me with his grandson. With the three of us on the end of the pier it wasn’t long before I clipped the lamppost with the lead and the freshly spooled multiplier exploded into a red icey birds nest. Eventually I teased it out only for the same thing to happen again half an hour later! Eventually the lads headed home and with a bit more space, I managed a mackerel on rag worm followed by a 6 inch pollock, both on a wishbone rig. The fishing began to improve with a couple more mackerel landed followed by the old reliable doggie taking mackerel on a pulley pennel rig meant for ray. Alas, at 5pm the war office wagged the finger at me with crying baby in tow and it was time to go.






A ray still alludes me but I might try Buncranna pier if I can get up early enough in the morning, then it’s down to Donegal town. All in all though I was happy to catch a few fish, especially with a baby along for the spin and as I said, the surroundings in Lenan couldn’t have been more pleasant.

Last edited by delmonte on Wed Aug 26, 2020 11:21 pm, edited 5 times in total.

"war office" that gave me a good chuckle nice report!

fair play delmonte. Grand part of the world
nice report

Nice one delmonte, lovely scenery.
War office Might have to start using that instead of "the call of duty"

Fair play Delmonte. Lenan is an unreal beautiful place to fish.