Lisacoppal, Ballycastle, North Mayo 20.09.2006

Anglers Myself and Suresh

time 2 hours 6:30 to 8:30 light is now gone by this time :(

weather incredibly nice given I drove through torrential rain to get there, cleared into a beautiful but unfortunately very calm evening

tide around HW

baits Nil

Rigs soft plastic lures and metals, mostly tobys and sprats

Cockups! Yes, new title! Dropped my reel and bent it so that it seized completely! Had to spin with a Penn 535 holding 30 lb braid on a 10 foot travel rod, not an ideal combination. Do not try this at home! :wink: Mental note to self: bring a spare reel!

C/R like you have to ask!

report

Flat calm. Massive spate outrun from the local river turned the water bog coloured so after a few casts each from off the pier outside the stella maris hotel, which resulted in one spectacularly colour pollack (500 grams, picture to follow), we lumped it up the fields (around five) past some nice looking rock shelves (Doh! forgot this is mainly a low water mark) to a rock arm that has some nice white water and "boils". It proved very difficult to fish, being very slabby, shallow and deep holes and shallow again, and if you could not get the lure down, nothing was caught. Coalfish appeared at dusk, pollack were thin enough and small beforehand. Had one very decent bang on a Storm mini-mackerel which is the business in the water, will be trying it again at St Johns on Saturday! Suresh took most of the fish, damn amateurs showing me up again :D still it was really wonderful just to be out fishing again...

Good spot, nicely sheltered from the SW, real potential but it has to be fished at low water. Excellent for wrasse too, known locally as bream just to confuse you... Watch out for one big drain (jumpable) and some boggy ground. Good waterproof boots with good grip essential...

Laughing at the thoughts of a 535 as a spinning reel to cast tobies with..... Spill the beans Kieran, how many birdies did you get once you got over the 10 yard distance....???? :D Had to use Seaniebos 525 teamed with a Triplex at Kilmore meet, wasnt bad for 1oz leadheads but Braid, Tobies, 535 and a travel rod would take some handling!

HI

:D Ermmm.. three times I think, and three lost lures of course!
Ended up using a really heavy lure and using the thumb directly onto the braid which is a delicate option shall we say. Worked out okay to be honest but I will have to strip the line off and rebed it carefully under some sort of tension to be sure I can use the reel over the winter...

Like I said, not something you want to do at home! :wink: