Not the World Championships in Donegal Bay

Not having been selected for the World Boat Angling Championships in Donegal Bay this week, there was nothing for it but to go out on my own again. The forecast had given several days of reasonably light winds and little swell; of course you don’t always get what you want...
Day 1. I headed off to my erstwhile favourite mackerel mark where at least pollack were normally a dependable standby. Feathering for at least half an hour produced nothing so I decided to try elsewhere and en route to somewhere else, the sounder showed up a small shoal of something hugging the bottom. Down went the feathers and up came a pin whiting, barely bigger than the lure. Those things would eat their own twin. Moving along to another rocky spot, a small coalfish turned up followed by a 2lb pollack and in dribs and drabs, a further 5-6 smaller pollack. Not prime bait but better than nothing. I steamed off to the ray mark and was straight in with a small thornback. I set up a second rod with a smaller hook (2) and thin strip of bait to see if there was a flattie or two about but this produced a few more thornies including the best of the day at 6lb 8oz. One dogfish was the only other species to show up along with a total of 26 thornbacks including what is probably the most handsomely marked thornie I’ve ever caught. Now it was a productive day, my best bag of thornies ever, but I was a bit disappointed not to see a few painted rays and flatties; this time last year I was getting good numbers of painted rays of specimen size, this year I’ve got only one. Time to head in and on the way I was escorted by a pod of dolphins playing around the boat, swimming alongside, bow riding and coming up for air in groups of 5-6 right alongside the boat, talk about synchronised swimming!
Day 2. Passing Lough Melvin, I could see the lake was like a mirror so I was anticipating the lightest of breezes. When I got to the slip, which is not a million miles away, there was quite a stiff south westerly blowing which made leaving the channel on a fast ebbing tide a bit more exciting than I would have preferred. Wind against tide made for a very choppy 100 yds with short steep waves from seemingly all directions. However once out a bit it wasn’t as bad. I still headed for a bit of shelter and ended up within a good cast from the shore. A few small shoals were showing on the sounder, these turned out to be small scad. One lucky drop produced 5 mackerel so that was some decent bait sorted. I tried a different ray mark from yesterday to see if I might get a bit more variety. First drop produced a small spotty ray so I thought the tactics had worked. However that was the only ray, 1 dab (28cm) and 4 doggies completing the catch. I called at yesterdays mark on the way back to the slip and added a further 4 thornies to the tally including the best of the 2 days at 8lb 4oz. Spending the day in a small boat bouncing about in wind and waves is surprisingly tiring so I gladly called it a day.

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happy days JW, that's a lot of fish
stunning wee thorny

And there was I waiting to see a blue fin tuna been dragged aboard

did you weigh the spotted ?

Nice fishing John fair play

Fantastic fishing there jw. The markings on that thornie are stunning. Great to see plenty of rays about. They are taking a hammering from the tangle netters with some small craft taking over 20 boxes a day

And there was I waiting to see a blue fin tuna been dragged aboard

did you weigh the spotted ?

Hi Donal,
I didn't weigh the spotty but would have guessed it to be about 3.5 lbs at most, I think I was holding it out a bit towards the camera so it looks a bit bigger than it really was. No bluefin tuna for me but I did hear that an angler got one earlier in the week around 300lbs and which is now residing in his freezer.

[quoted="rushnaldo"]Fantastic fishing there jw. The markings on that thornie are stunning. Great to see plenty of rays about. They are taking a hammering from the tangle netters with some small craft taking over 20 boxes a day [/quote]

Thanks rushnaldo, I wonder is the absence of painted rays down to the netters? Are they being netted in the bay or outside?

Most likely yeah

Nice one John. Lovely looking thornie. I was across the bay at the worlds would rather have been fishing