People: Me, my old man, Moody Marlin
Duration: 12 hours
Tide: flood & ebb
Weather: Cloudy to start, sunny finish. Moderate W wind
Bait: Mackeral, Launce, Crab, Soft plastics
Rigs: varios
Results: Tope, Smoothound, Bass, Bull Huss, LSD, Dab, Grey Gurnard
Report: MM had to work this morning, so I roped my aul fella into coming out for an hour or two, so we launched at 8am with the intention of trying to get a silver fella. I had misread the tides slightly so we spent an hour doing very little really. It was gone 9 before the tide began to run, and after a couple of fruitless short drifts, I had a bass of 50cm. We tried another drift, and then I had to drop the old boy back as he wanted to watch the lions. I didn't fancy Tope fishing alone so I went to some ground where I knew I would pick up some smoothies and other bits and bobs. It wasn't exactly hectic but I managed a few smoothies around the 4-5lbs mark, some dogs, dabs & Gurnard. As the tide began to ease at around lunchtime, MM rang to say he was en route, so I hauled anchor to try a drift to pick up some bait. Alas, there was no Mackerel to be had, but I did get a 4 lbs smoothie on the 20g spinning rod on the drift which was a bit of craic. I picked MM up at the pier at about 3pm and we decided to head straight for one of my favourite Tope marks. We happened to be passing the spot where I'd picked up the bass earlier so we tried another drift, and picked up a marginally bigger bass that fought twice as hard on the same 20g spin rod. Once anchored on the Tope mark we had to wait a little bit for the 1st run. When it came, it was a male in the late 20s. We went on to catch another 5. The biggest was 34lbs, and it picked up the bait and swam towards the boat. I had to reel like bejaysus to make contact and set the hook. It went off on a couple of powerful runs, and then went dead weight, a sure sign it had rolled up in the trace. I spent about 5 mins thumbing the spool and gently pumping it back towards the boat against 2 knots of tide. Eventually got it to the boat and just as MM was about to leader it in, it unrolled itself and steamed off again. Every now and then you get a Tope that totally beats you up, and this was one of those occasions. We picked up a couple of Huss in amongst the Tope, and I fancied completing the Cahore Grand Slam (Huss, Tope, Smoothound & Ray in 1 day) so we headed to a spot where I thought we had a chance of a Ray for the final hour, but all we managed was a few more dogs & a couple of Smoothies. It was great to get my 1st full day at it this year after nothing but a couple of evening trips. Can't wait to get out again.