People: me, Tim, Luke, kids at various points
Duration: whenever
Tide: all
Weather: westerly breeze, sunshine, showers, cloud
Bait: mackerel
Rigs: size 2 flowing traces, feathers, flappers, plugs and spinners
Results: bass, tub gurnard, dabs, plaice, sea trout, pollack, whiting, grey gurnard, and a brill?
Report:
Enjoyable weekend down around Brandon, plenty of fishing in between other duties.
Sat 02/08 (me Tim and Luke) -
Headed out from Brandon around 11.30 am somewhere close to low tide, picked up some mackerel for bait off the head and proceeded round the coast to Sauce bay. Little bit choppy, so what with the nights previous alcohol intake and the fact that I was sitting there tying traces up, was a bit queasy before I got there.
Headed into the lee of the bay and did a slow drift with flowing traces (thanks to Pete for the design) allowing me to recover. Got nothing.
Headed out again and drifted back in towards the other side and picked up a nice plaice while Luke got a dab at almost the same moment.
Did a couple more drifts picking up a dab each to me and Luke, Tim had nothing. The guys then lost the traces I'd tied on some rock near the end of the drift. We tied more and then drifted further out. The ground seemed to be a bit more mixed, no snags though and we were in about 100' of water. Picked up loads of dabs and grey gurnard and a couple of tub gurnard to Tim, double and treble shots not uncommon. Found a rock on one drift which we did a few times and I always picked up pollack as we went over it, to about 6lbs, but the other guys didn't??
I wanted a tub for my species count, so we drifted over where we'd had them again. Lukes 12lb class rod bent double and after a bit of a tussle he brought in a fine plaice, easily the biggest I have seen, nothing to measure it with unfortunately.
We concentrated on this drift after that and after a few more dabs, I picked up my very first Tub at last.
Good fishing out there, average size of dabs was bigger than I'd be used to here in Cork. Some nice plaice and gurnards and the odd whiting.
Picked up some mack and scad as well on the drop, which I was pleased about as I hadn't had a scad yet this year.
Headed home about 6 very happy with our catch.
Sun 03/08 (me, Tim and kids)
With the wives out, it fell to us to entertain the four kids, so what better way than to take them out for a boat ride? :lol:
They were all great considering we had them out from 12-5 and they range in age from 2 to 6.
They had great sport catching mackerel off the head, weren't so impressed with drifting off brandon bay as they weren't catching anything, so we headed back out towards the head, staying inside as the chop was getting up. Nothing much doing until we hit a shoal of whiting and everyone brought in 2 each, causing a good bit of tangling.
My son then got into a decent sized pollack, and after a good fight on his small rod he managed to boat it. Around 6lb, just glad none of the younger kids got into it :lol: as it would have been rods overboard.
Mon 03/08 (me, Tim and Kyle)
Were going to go out in boat again, but my son Kyle wanted to go spinning, so we took Tim's small tender out about 10am into the estuary and went spinning for trout and bass using some Japanese lures that Tim had. Nothing for the first hour.
I fired one out as far as I could manage and as I retrieved, felt a bang, another bang, a third, then finally a good strong pull. I was into a good fish, it stripped some line from me and headed down stream. I tightened up a bit and got it back up stream towards us. After a minute or two I had it back up. Kyle asked me if it was going to jump, and as if it heard him, it leapt out of the water shaking it's head and tail. Great sight, but I was worried I was going to lose it. Anyway, survived and was delighted with my first sea trout of the year and my biggest ever, not huge, but thick with a fine big tail. He went back happily enough after his exertions.
We all flogged the water until about 12, but apart from a couple of follows for Tim we had no more luck.
We then let the dinghy drift down the channel out to the open sea. Pretty shallow over most of it, and we managed to land plenty of bivalves and shrimp that were getting impaled on our hooks. As we approached the surf, I pulled in a teabag sized flatfish which had been impaled on my treble, which at first sight I took to be a turbot, but Tim assured me was a brill. (Have to say not 100% on the id, but he seemed sure, so I'll take it :D ).
Tim had changed on to a bass bullet plug by this point in readiness for the surf, as we navigated out way through (or over it) he took a quick cast and was instantly rewarded with a take, which was fun on his small spinning rod and reel. Anyway, he managed to boat himself a bass of aroubd 3lbs I'd estimate.
Despite the imminent possibility of getting wet (the surf was small and no danger of capsizing, but big enough that a breaker could splash a bit of water our way) we weaved our way outside the worst of the surf plugging back into it. Poor Kyle was getting tired and hungry by this point and the last straw was when we did get wet as a breaker slapped off the side of the boat and splashed us all.
Poor Kyle hadn't caught anything, so as we drove back to Brandon, we trolled a plug out behind us and he got himself a pollack and a mackerel to save the blank.
Had a great weekend overall, managed one or two new species and a couple of others that I was needing for the count this year. What great surroundings to do it in though. Especially the Sunday in the estuary. Best thing is I'm doing it all again in a few weeks 8)
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