flyfishing, clonakilty 18th july

People: me

Duration: 3 hours

Tide: high water 11.45ish

Weather: sunny but starting to cloud over

Bait: fly, mainly rustlers

Rigs:

Results: 6 mackeral and 5 pollack to 3 and a half pounds


Report: i decided to give the mackeral a go as i had got sick of pollock on the fly. or so i thought. started of quite slow with only a few mackeral follows. as the tide began to run i got the first mackeral and fishing was pretty constant after that.as i was only fishing my 7wt the macks gave a great fight, regurly making 1 or 15 yard runs, with one of them taking me 10 yards into the backing. as the light began to fade and the tide began to run faster i hooked the first pollock of about 2 lbs which gave a brilliant fight on the light rod. i usually fish a 10wt with a heavy sinking line which stunts the pollacks fighting ability somewhat because of the power in the rod, but this light tackle was a bit of an eye opener to their fighting abilities. i was sumwhat to actually get the pollock as i was fishing a floating line and a 2 inch rustler fly which i tie for mackeral so that it fishes only a couple of inches under the surface, not the area that i generally catch my pollock, they tend to be significantly deeper.

after this i had 3 more smaller ones before i hooked the 3 1/2 pounder. he took the fly just under the surface completely cleared the water as he hit it, he then proceeded to make a 30 yard run, again not ure typical pollack take and fight. it took a good 5 minutes to land him, definately the best fight ive had from a pollack, even tho he faught more like a mullet. a few casts later i hooked and lost a bigger pollock which hit my fly and ran 20 or 30 yards before busting my 10lb tippet.

all in all avery enjoyable evenings fishing. gonna hav to invetsigate floating line fishing for pollack

Nice fishing Lumpy. You must have been getting the fish in quite close with the 7wt. Sounds like serious fun. I have an old Trout 7wt outfit that I might look into using. All I need now is a good location.

A quick qusetion, what is the rustler fly like?

Chat to you later,

Kev

were getin them about 30 yards out, shooting most of the line, but i was lucky cause i had a following wind which made casting easier.

the rustler fly is quite simple. its basically a size 4 stainless, orange arctic fox tail, pearl mylar body, and a wing made in 3 layers, silver flashabou first, then chartreuse arctic fox and finally a big bunch of pearl flashabou. just fish it about 2 or 3 inches under the surface with a long striping retrieve, takes are pretty explosive as the fish clear the water when they hit the fly. one thing about the area im fishing is that at high water it is only about 12 or 14 feet deep, hence the pollock taking a sub surface fly, hope this is of help

Cheers Lumpy.

I'll be tying a few flies over the weekend so I'll try get a few of these done. Any sub for the Artic fox?? I'm thinking squirrel :?: Is the tail long?

Kev

squirrel is quite stiff when compared to fox, fox tends to naturally take on a tear drop shape when in the water and pulsates like no other material i know, although polar fibers are pretty close. squirrel probably will do fine or maby immature busktail. these are a very fine fibre and do have alot of iife in the water. the tail its about 1 1/2 times the lingth of the hook, with the wing approximately 3 times. the finished fly looks quite gaudy, but in the water it is quite realistic, and i think all the flash present in the dressing helps it in low light conditions in late evening.

hope thats of help