Loop head/shannon estuary june 26
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 5:26 pm
The brother(Hangover in tow again) and I made the run out from kilrush to loop head yesterday in glorious sunshine. A high tide and little or no wind saw us cruising at 25 knots out to the head. The intention was to catch bait for the tope fishing later in the day at low water, and to try general bottom fishing in the area.
On arriving at the head we set about feathering up some mackerel for bait, and the area now seems carpeted with them. Every drop a full house. We hoped to target some of the bigger pollack in the area with leadheads and shads, but the reefs are now stuffed with 3-5 pound fish which hit any lures with reckless abandon. Getting past the smaller fish proved impossible, so we baited a couple of flappers on flowing traces, and yet more of the same pollack! We continued fishing in this fashion for perhaps an hour when the brothers 20lb class rod suddenly showed a bit of weight. After a peculiar struggle of 10 minutes, just a solid dead weight, the fish got lighter and more animated. A minute later, and we landed a lively and lucky 3lb pollack with a big bite mark across its body. I’d love to know what that was!
As the tide approached low water, we made the run back up the estuary and anchored for tope. With the big tides this week, slack water was a very short affair.We baited up mackerel fillets( seem to get more runs than full flappers), and were into fish staright away. We landed four tope between 21lbs and 27lbs and had another couple of dropped runs. These shannon tope put up a great scrap in the strong tides.
I then had a slow run on a tope bait. A doggy I thought, but after striking ,we revised that opinion. The fish didn’t move from the bottom and was in a very strong tide.All I got was weird head shaking and short powerfull slow runs. After 20 minutes on an uptider, we had still made no progress on the fish, bar that it had moved upstream away from the boat. Not wanting to lose any more braid than it had already taken from the reel, I leant into the fish even harder in an effort to turn it, and the trace parted .
After 10 minutes of expletives and two cigarettes later, the speculation began in earnest. Our best guess is at a stingray, but really we’ve never really hooked anything like this is pure speculation.
The big tides meant slackwater finished all too early, so we motored home, treated to the sight of a pod of shannon dolphins playing in the waves
Cracking day out, how did I ever fish before without a boat?
Kev
On arriving at the head we set about feathering up some mackerel for bait, and the area now seems carpeted with them. Every drop a full house. We hoped to target some of the bigger pollack in the area with leadheads and shads, but the reefs are now stuffed with 3-5 pound fish which hit any lures with reckless abandon. Getting past the smaller fish proved impossible, so we baited a couple of flappers on flowing traces, and yet more of the same pollack! We continued fishing in this fashion for perhaps an hour when the brothers 20lb class rod suddenly showed a bit of weight. After a peculiar struggle of 10 minutes, just a solid dead weight, the fish got lighter and more animated. A minute later, and we landed a lively and lucky 3lb pollack with a big bite mark across its body. I’d love to know what that was!
As the tide approached low water, we made the run back up the estuary and anchored for tope. With the big tides this week, slack water was a very short affair.We baited up mackerel fillets( seem to get more runs than full flappers), and were into fish staright away. We landed four tope between 21lbs and 27lbs and had another couple of dropped runs. These shannon tope put up a great scrap in the strong tides.
I then had a slow run on a tope bait. A doggy I thought, but after striking ,we revised that opinion. The fish didn’t move from the bottom and was in a very strong tide.All I got was weird head shaking and short powerfull slow runs. After 20 minutes on an uptider, we had still made no progress on the fish, bar that it had moved upstream away from the boat. Not wanting to lose any more braid than it had already taken from the reel, I leant into the fish even harder in an effort to turn it, and the trace parted .
After 10 minutes of expletives and two cigarettes later, the speculation began in earnest. Our best guess is at a stingray, but really we’ve never really hooked anything like this is pure speculation.
The big tides meant slackwater finished all too early, so we motored home, treated to the sight of a pod of shannon dolphins playing in the waves
Cracking day out, how did I ever fish before without a boat?
Kev