Waterford/ Youghal 9-10/11/12
People: Tightlines and myself
Duration: 1 day too long...
Tide:High to low to high to low
Weather:
Bait:Fresh and frozen Crab, Lug, Sandeel, Mussel and squid
Rigs:Pennel pullys
Results:PB Bass and Flounder
Report:
Well where to start with this... Myself and Alan headed off on friday night for a 2 day session in Youghal in search of Codling, during the trip down i had mentioned that i needed to get codling, bass and a painted ray off my list so if i managed that i would be happy, we arrived down and swiftly got set up, fishing was slow to start with and there was a strong pull on the tide and there was loads of weed so that wasnt helping matters, i eventually landed my first fish, a small codling, 1st of the target species down i thought, 2 to go, things went quiet again for about 30mins then a big Ship went by, after it passed i noticed a couple of hard knocks on my rod, watched the tip intently in the hope there may be more, instead the tip was giving the very subdued pull that would normally be expected from weed wrapped around the line and trace, decided to pull in and crear the weed, reeling in was hard, there was like a dead weight coming in so i was far from impressed about having to clear weed again. I was watching out for the lump of weed coming in but as i reeled in i couldnt see any, was starting to wonder what was going on until i seen a big flash of silver just below me, in my excitement/ panic i grabbed the line and pretty much dropped the rod, handlined the fish up the side and over the wall, a quick yell to the lads along the lines of 'you can keep your poxy codling, i have this!!!!!!!!
' A quick weigh showed it to be a very nice 6lb Bass for me, my first 'proper' Bass so i was super pleased with myself... Nothing much happened after that,
Saturday saw a quiet morning, we tried a new mark which was a waste of time so it was back to Ferry point to fish the last couple of hours of the drop there, it seemed that Alan could do nothing wrong in terms of catching fish whereas for myself it was a chore to catch anything, a couple of hours in and eventually i noticed a small rattle on my rod tip so guessed i had a coalie on, as i reeled in i couldnt feel a strong fight, was more like a lazy fight, as i got the fish to the waters edge i could see it was a good flounder, wasnt until i went to pick it up that i seen it was a very good flounder, this thing was huge, unhooked it and got it onto the measure, 45cm long and 2.5lb in weight
So once again i had landed myself a PB fish...
We packed up and were in the car for home by 21:15, in my infinate wisdom i had reversed the car onto the pebbles in 4wd to be that teeny weeny bit closer to where we were fishing to make packing up that little bit easier, not thinking anything of it, drove off the pebbles and tried to stick the car back into 2wd, didnt happen, so drove on a bit and tried again, still wouldnt work, so thought to hell with it, ill just have to drive home in 4wd, proceded to drive off, noticed there was a bit of resistance but drove on anyway, about 20km outside Youghal there was a definate smell of burning oil coming from the car
, pulled up on the side of the road and suddenly seen all the smoke pouring out from under the car, great stuff i thought, quick call to my ins company and a recovery truck was sorted, spent the next 3hours or so trying to work out how we would get home to eventually have the ins company come through and sort us a hotel for the night, a quick call to Sparkey+1 tyhe following morning and we were saved...
Looking back at the weekend tho, i came away with both a PB Bass and a PB Flounder so the weekend wasnt a complete disaster