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Loop Head - Sat 18 June

Tue Jun 21, 2005 5:21 pm

Dave B and I started off badly sat morning. Engine wouldnt start. After removing the spark plugs and drying them with a small gas torch, we got off.

I dont know whether there was a large tide at the weekend, but it seemed as if there was an awful lot of water pushing up the shannon estuary, and conditions with the strong southerly winds really slowed us up. All in all, when we eventually made it to the head, the large swell was quite pleasant in comparison. The head is stuffed with mackerel and 8 drops for bait saw us fill the bait box with mackerel and added an 8 pound pollack as a bonus.
So, then the return trip to the tope mark which was a hot spot last week.Due to the conditions slowing us down, we missed the slack water, and found a monster run of tide . We were unable to hold bottom with a pound of lead, and there was lot of weed and debris in the water. In short, unfishable.
To round off a tough day, Dave B was sea sick and I had to cut a mackerel feather from my finger with a filleting knife. The lock gate keeper neglected to show up and were an hour late in getting in
A day to forget
Bigkev

On the other hand, my boat really handled the nasty conditions well, and you cant catch great fish every trip.Thats why they call it fishin' and not catchin'

Tue Jun 21, 2005 5:35 pm

Ah well Kev we have all had days like that...

fishing

Tue Jun 21, 2005 7:32 pm

hi kev
sounds like a good day to test the boats ability alright, was it a predator you got, ? they seem to be getting good reviews.
cheers steve

Predator?

Tue Jun 21, 2005 9:08 pm

Hi Steve
I took delivery of a predator 160 in february. I have to say its a fantastic little boat, and I bought it off the back of all those good reviews.
However, I have no prior experience of sea boats so my views must be treated as suspect.
But ,!! it is fast and handles choppy conditions beautifully.
On the downside, it is small (16 feet,comparable to a warrior 165 in size), and 1 month into my boat fishing carreer, I am already hankering ater a bigger boat
Ah well, come that lottery win
Kev

Tue Jun 21, 2005 11:14 pm

Hi Kev,
It's a big learning curve starting out boating allright, i'm still finding out new things after a good few years now, must say ive been damn wary of those hooks when there are other Macks dancing about for a while now though (bet that was painfull!)
Regards to holding bottom i've found uptiding works really well in a good run of water, its taken me a while to get the hang of it, but in depths of up to 50' you can hold bottom with a big lump of Mack and a 160grm gripper, thats with 50lb braid though, that makes all the difference as well. We have had our fair share of weed down here as well again its surprising how long the gripper hangs in there though. Another trick I only tried on the last outing as well was rather than struggling to hold bottom fishing downtide i put on a grip lead dropped to the bottom as fast as poss and keep letting line out to give a good bow in the line, this make the line pull flat to the seabed on the lead rather than liting it further down tide/up off the bottom, the other advantage is when the boat swings side to side at anchor you keep contant pressure on the line very much like uptiding, you will be suprised how bites show up with such a bow in the line. I used to fish out from Stranraer/Portpatrick in Scotland there was some fair old tide runs there, Dingle/Castlemaine harbour where we fish now fairly rips through as well [url=http://mapserver.maptech.com/homepage/index.cfm?lat=52.100120738109446&lon=-9.935891767655208&scale=150000&zoom=50&type=0&icon=0&searchscope=int&CFID=1310456&CFTOKEN=18178242&&latlontype=DMS/url]see this map[url][/url]
All the best, tight lines!
Sean,
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