After a wait of several months, I was off to Donegal at last, didn’t matter how poor the prospects were, I was going.
18th December, South Donegal Beach. After an absence like this I usually manage to forget something but this time I had everything packed. Arriving at the mark, I was greeted by a less than ideal surf; periods of flat calm interrupted by 3-4 big waves coming in and crashing onto the sand. If some of those bigger waves had landed on a flounder they would have flattened it! I set up anyway and fished prawn, mackerel and lugwrap on flappers at all ranges to no avail. After a couple of hours with baits untouched I moved to a different mark, slightly deeper though with the same surf pattern. At least the first mark was deserted and I had peace and quiet; the second mark was a bit less remote. I wasn’t halfway out of the car door when somebody pulled up alongside and asked “What do you hope to catch here?” “Anything but Covid” I replied. As I was preparing to launch the second rod a beachwalker asked the inevitable” Any mackerel?” I have a Tee shirt designed for next year, see below for details. If there’s enough interest I’ll take orders. Anyway, back to the fishing/not catching; baits returned untouched and it was looking ominously like a blank, the first of 2020. But then the ubiquitous small coalie turned up! It must have been a shoal of one for the next 2 hours failed to produce another bite. Well it was a comeback but not exactly a stunner.
20th December, North Donegal Beach. Today was a group effort with Chuckaroo, Jonty and my humble self meeting up, Three Wise Men or perhaps The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, (modesty prevents me from stating which one I would be). We had some success here before but the ever shifting sands had completely changed the beach structure, no obvious hot-spot today! We had the stiff southerly wind at our backs, shelters with us in case of heavy rain, and a selection of fish and worm baits so all we needed was the fish to do their bit. It was a falling tide as we set up and six rods were soon searching the water. It was quite a while before anything happened but one of Chuckaroo’s rods starting rattling and he swung into action. As the fish came into the surf he thought it was just a dogfish; yeah Chuckaroo, one of those silver doggies with lots of black spots. Pretty sure it’s a seatrout! It was certainly a long fish at 60cm but very lean, perhaps it had recently spawned. It would have been a superb fish with the appropriate amount of flesh on and back it went to pile on a few pounds. It was almost an hour before the next fish appeared; a nice 39cm flounder and new p.b. for Jonty who was understandably pleased. A while later, someone shouted over ”Have you not caught a fish yet ?” “No, not YET” but I was getting worried. But an hour later I had a good bite which developed into a small seatrout. Another hour and a half later I had my best fish of the day, a 36cm flounder. As dusk settled upon us a few coalies put in an appearance and I managed another smaller flounder and coalie double shot. Things went quiet, even the small coalies seemed to have gone and with long drives ahead of us, we called it a night. While loading up the cars, my headlight caught a pair of eyes watching us from some way off, a fox out looking for supper.
23rd December, South Donegal Beach. With new Covid restrictions tightening their grip, Chuckaroo and myself planned one more trip to beat the imminent lockdown. The dunes behind gave shelter from a strong north wind but the sea was almost flat calm, no surf to stir things up a bit. We set up, two rods each carrying mackerel, prawn, lugwrap etc and for quite a while all baits returned untouched. Eventually, over two hours later, I reeled in a 27cm flounder and allowed myself to consider that perhaps the fish were starting to feed. Sadly there was nothing more until three hours later I had a small coalie. Chuckaroo had his only bite of the day, a persistent rattle from what was probably a small coalie but it failed to convert to a blank saver. The ebbing tide mirrored our hopes and enthusiasm and again with a long drive ahead and work in the morning for Chuckaroo, we decided to pack it in. I reeled in my second rod to find another small 20cm coalie hanging on. Every year I select 100 photos from my fishing trips and get them printed out and put in an album; I always include the first and last fish of the year. I checked when I got home and sure enough I finished the year as I started; with a 20cm coalie. They look like bookends. It was appropriate enough I suppose as the year itself has a 20 at the start and finish…..
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