People:Myself, Donal Domeney, Don O'Neill, JD, JW, Dave Green, Ferg, Marco, Scotsman.
Duration:9.30-3.30
Weather:Lashed for first half hour then turned out lovely
Bait:Rag, Mack, Crabs.
Rigs:Various
Results:Cod, Pollack, Coalies, Ballans, Cuckoos, Pouting.
Report:
MA 4 saw the SAI crew return to the venue for our opening competition of the year, back to Kilmore Quay. Its a decent venue for competition angling given the large charter fleet based there and plenty of fish to keep people interested and scorecards ticking over. The peg draw was held and aboard Karen Anne skippered by Sean Radford were Donal Domeney, JD, JW, Mr. Green and Ferg. Aboard the Sailfish skippered by Leslie Bates were Myself, Marco, Scotsman and Don. We had a no show and we took a passenger on to make up the numbers, a presumably Polish lad called Teddy(?).
We Steamed out, taking the first half hour to source a few fresh macks for bait but aside from a couple of Launce there were none to be had. With a small amount of frozen mack and sandeel and most having plenty of rag we headed for the marks and lines went dowqn in earnest at 10.30.
Aboard Sailfish, Marco and Don got off to a flier. I had opted for a 3 boom spreader rig to start with, decorated with coloured beads and a luminous yellow lead attached. Marco was using a small shamrock rig that looked like bloodworm lures, I cant remember the name, and totally unbaited, started lifting into a variety of fish in the first 20 minutes or so to storm away. Don was using a set of white feathers to great effect as I, as is typical these days got off to a very slow start.
Codling, Pouting, Pollack and a solitary coalie made their way to the boat with the absence of numbers of wrasse prompting a change in tactics for myself. I wasnt picking up codling initially on the spreder rig so opted for a long gilling trace, decorated with yellow beads, with an artificial eel on the end and Ragworm on the 2 droppers. Pollack started to come but what was more surprising than anything was I was picking up numerous codling in mid water that must have followed the trace from the sea bed....
We fished on, Marco and Lee went through a somewhat quiet spell while Don O'Neill was continuing to terrorise me with his bloody white feather trace baited with rag... :evil: He was putting together a fine card with numerous high scoring cuckoo wrasse and codling coming to the boat. After moving to a slightly different much snaggier mark, it became a straight scrap aboard our boat with myself and Don trading fish for fish for some time. A brief check on the cards had Don ahead by 30 or so with maybe an hour and a half to go. Things went somewhat quiet with baits being fished on the bottom so I switched again to gilling tactics. A steady stream of pollack and codling began coming to the side of the boat with plenty of doubles. Don was fishing a flowing trace himself, the white feathers having done their job and fishing it hard on the bottom was picking up wrasse and codling.
Snaggy ground meant tackle was being lost with frustrating regularity but organising and baiting a spare trace and leaving it ready in the box meant keeping such frustrations to a minimum. This is important, especially when speed fishing on a boat as tackle can be lost and the last thing you want to see is a fellow competitor pulling in 2 or 3 fish while untangling and retying rigs.
A few nice wrasse began to make up the bulk of the catch before time was finally called on what had been a busy busy day! The scorecards were totted up and aboard Karen Anne it finished with myself first on 405 points and Don 2nd on 364. A fine battle was had between myself and Don all day and I had to work extremely hard to eventually pull away with numerous changes in tactics during quiet spells and prebaiting rigs etc to keep the line in the water and the card ticking over. pollack had to be specifically targetted as there were very few caught as a bycatch to baits fished on the bottom. I had 17, everyone else put together had 19 proving that. They seemed to be feeding or holding well off the bottom and were proving quite finicky to hook on occasion with lots of frustrating plucking. Small rag baits on size 2 hooks fished on a trace of around 15 feet of fluoro were what took the majority of them.
Leslie stayed an extra half hour or so and some lads fished on for a bit for a few wrasse and the odd pollack before the boat turned and headed for home. Karen Annes Crew had a similar enough day with Donal Domeney finishing top of the boat on 385 points with Ballen Wrasse (26!) making up well over half his catch. Dave Green fished very well to finish 2nd in that boat with a nice haul of codling on 294 points.
The totals and percentages were worked out and following a stewards inquiry (johns dodgy writing... :D ) The final result was as follows:
1st Pete Davis 44 fish, 405 points, 100%
2nd Donal Domeney 47 fish, 385 points, 100%
3rd Don O'Neill 36 fish, 364 points, 89%
4th Dave Green 26 fish, 294 points 76%
5th John Waldron 19 fish, 267 points, 69%
6th John Diamond 23 fish, 263 points, 68%
7th Ferg 16 fish, 218 points, 55%
8th Marco De Kleer,21 fish, 219points, 54%
9th Lee Meiklejohn, 16 fish, 158 points, 39%
A big thanks to
http://WWW.Crabrock.com (for the hats :lol: ) once again for their generosity in sponsoring the competition. First prize was a very nice Abu Uptider with 2nd and third getting packs of shamrock tackle.
A good days fishing in comfortable conditions it has to be said with plenty of fish coming aboard to make things interesting. Its hard to pinpoint a winning formula as the fishing was strange at times. I had to constantly chop and change employing different tactics to keep fish coming to the boat all day with them hitting certain tactics and lures with gusto then 10 minutes later they wouldnt look at it..... Days like that raise more questions than they answer, for example, why did all the wrasse fall to Donal out of 69 wrasse caught in total between Ballans and Cuckoos, Donal had 28 of them..... Strange stuff but an enjoyable day, next stop is Cobh in September....