Duration[/b ] : 3 hours in the 2.5 hours in the evening.
Tide: Rising
Weather: Brilliant sunshine but strong E wind
Bait: Slugo & Sidewinder
Results : Pollock and Bass
Results(b) .
Many of the rock marks that I fished as a youngster are inaccessible now because nobody walks the pathways anymore and they are fully overgrown.
Yesterday we had a strong E wind blowing and as I had the kids on board I was limited in where I could fish. Setting out from Ferrypoint I decided to try some trolling old favourite inshore haunts that regularly produced bass in the 60’s & 70’s. In fact one mark was probably responsible for more of my bass caught on spinners than any other place .
3 rods were set up at the back of the boat. There was a Slugo on 2 rods and Keelan had a Sidewinder. The plan was to troll quite near to the rocks with speed set at 3 MPH. The lures were set about 80-100M behind the boat. The idea being that if they were any nearer to the boat the fish might be frightened away from the lures by engine noise.
We had only travelled for about 5 minutes when all 3 rods bent over together.
There was total mayhem as fish flew every direction and the kids were screaming with excitement. One fish was flying around on the surface and I reckoned that someone had a bass. Ria and Keelan soon landed 2 nice Pollock and then Leon’s silver Bass appeared up beside the boat. We trolled for about another 100 yards and got a Bass and a Pollock double take.
We then moved to another spot further E to give the first area a chance to settle down after all the noise. I believe that bass are quite sensitive to unknown noises and even headlights at night. In fact I have found that at some mark the slapping of the boat frighten them. So when I fish from the boat I only hit an area for a shortwhile , move off and then return a while later. This has increased my success rate. We got no fish in the second spot and the kids were getting a little impatient.
So it was back to the first area and WHAM all 3 rods went together . Leon had a good Pollock. Ria had her first Bass and was delighted. Meanwhile Keelan’s rod was doubled over and it was obvious that he has a bigger fish that the others and it really going berserk running from side-to-side and shaking its head near the top of the water. The poor lad though that he would never get it to the boat but eventually it came to the net. The smile on his face said it all.
- Keelan's bass.jpg (56.09 KiB) Viewed 663 times
Time and the light were running against us but I did 2 more short runs catching more Pollock.
The total was 8 pollock and 5 bass. Not bad for a group of anglers aged 7, 8 and 9.
By the way we had a 3 hour morning session with very few fish….4 mackerel and 3 gurnard. Goes to show how feeding patters can change over period of a day.
