People: Me, Keary, Danny Mac, 5 others and ArthurG
Duration:10.00 to 5.00
Tide:No Idea
Weather:Breezy but Sunny and hot most of the day
Bait:Mackerel, Jellies
Rigs:Baited Feathers, Shads, Jelllies, Flowing traces
Results: Approximately 15/20 pollack, biggest around 4 1/2 pound, 1 red gurnard, numerous pouting, 2/3 LSDs, 1 small whiting, 5 thornback ray.
Report: Started with the traditional bait stop and moved over to the Laurentic Wreck, a combination of spring tides, wrong wind direction (NE) and numerous RIBs filled with divers prevented us from fishing the wreck to any great degree of success. The drift was proving much too fast to attract anything other than voracious Pounting of varying sizes and the occasional Pollack. Due to the wind and lumpy seas we headed for a smoother sheltered area on the eastern side of the Lough. Drifting down along and close in to cliffs produced pollack sporadically to baited feathers, shads and jellies. Long periods of inaction would be followed by 2 or three coming into the boat together. We headed back towards Rathmullan and anchored up just past Dunree for Thornies. The biggest messiest bloodiest baits seemed to do the trick here. 5 Thornies were landed, got 2 myself and was pleased to tick another species off the list with those as they were my first.
A poor enough day aside from that, despite one or two of the lads best efforts at "groundbaiting :wink: " in the lumpy seas! Granted, not the skippers fault, Cecil tried his best to put us over fish but conditions prevented us from fishing the wreck properly and from some of the better ground on the west side of the lough. I cant help wondering what has happened to the fishing in the Swilly this past year or two. Maybe its just me but the results on the trips our group have both this and last year had have seriously declined from what they were. Anyone out there got any other opinions on it?
Did get to meet ArthurG from the forum though and a civil big fella he is too. No sign of the madness that seems to grip him when he is sat in front of a PC posting a report :D (check back through some of his posts and you will see what I mean!)
A special mention by the way to Keary Smith who unfortunately went to buy 2 bags of cement on Saturday and arrived home 10 hours later rather the worse for wear (with no cement I might add) Fair play to ya mate for turning up and heading out. They say blokes are no use at multi-tasking, rubbish! Good old smithy managed to rid himself of all that evil beer and chinese food from the night before and continue pulling in his pouting! Maybe thats what put the fish off?