Shannon Estuary 26 August

[bigkev]

Shannon estuary -Sat 26th August
Weather w/nw 4,5,6
High water 8am

Ran up to money point just after high water to spin for bass.
Nowt, nada, not a sniff

Back up the estuary and it had got so rough we wouldn’t have made beal bar. Having chatted to one of the other skippers, he advised they had got some tope from behind Scattery island, so tucked out of the wind, we fished for tope and mackerel with a solitary 35lb fish coming to the boat

At 2 pm, with low water we again ran down to money point. What followed was an ugly, awkward and downright clumsy attempt to anchor with no tide but 35mph of wind to fight. Repeat attempts to anchor eventually saw us get a hold, slightly downstream of “the mark”
Whereupon we caught nowt, again. Rob and phil were right about this spot, if your off the mark you may as well not be there!

The mackerel were everywhere though, busting surface among the legs of the pier, amazing!!

Next week Ed and I are coming back with fly rods. If I cant get the big boys on the heavy gear, it’ll be the little guys on 6wt trout rods

Kev

[screeming reels]

Hi,
Yes moneypoint can be a nightmare in the wrong conditions!!! i would safely say there must be a good half dozen anchours in that spot!
The fish under the legs when they bust like that, are most likely Scad, fished for them before, floating a small piece of freelined mackeral to them works a treat.
Trouble was, one member of the boat was holding us in position on the engine, and when he went in reverse the engine overeved like hell and we satrted to drift under the pier! the engine was still working but no power, lifting it up reveled that the prop had disappeared!!, fending ourselves off the legs until we popped out the other end was exciting, got the aux started and limped home!
This was 10 years ago, but lesson learnt, check the split pin and securing nut regularly on the prop!
hope you have more success with the bass, they most likely have been netted . We pulled up pieces of fresh monofiliment nets on a number occassions when recovering the anchour.