Bray harbour 15th March 2009

[Stephen8wood]

Who: Myself
Where: Bray harbour
Weather: Mild
Tide: Out and then rising
Bait: Mac, Sandeel and squid.
Rigs, 1 (3/0) hook flapper, 2 (1/0) hook flapper
Results: 7 whiting, 1 pregnant looking 3 bearded rockling, one big dogfish.

Just a last minute decision to head out to close off a nice weekend. The weather was mild and a pleasant change from recent outings where I have been either drenched or frozen stiff.

I had not expected to be going out so only had the usual frozen bait but it seemed to do the job nicely enough. There was nothing biting for the first hour but the funfare in the background along the promenade was lending a certain unusual athmosphere to the occasion. At about 9.30 the fish started to come on the feed. The whiting making an appearance first as usual. They seem to have got cleverer over the winter and are able to steel quite a bit of bait without getting hooked. I mannaged to take in 7 or more in the next hour and one long fat 3 bearded rockling. I'm guessing it was preggers but it was very fat and top heavy if you can imagine that. I didn't bother taking a photo as I wanted to get it back safe and sound.

Everything went quiet after that and i was having the usual 3 last casts on each rod when the lighter rod had a bit of a quiver. I presumed it was another whiting as the knock on the rod was nothing special, in fact I've seen more dramatic bites from small fish. I lifted the rod and started to reel in what all of a sudden felt like an old tire at the bottom of the sea, but it was moving. For a moment I thought, well here we go, my first big cod. Then it started to fight and moving side to side and I eventually pulled a good lsd out and over the railings. It took a while to lift it as it was a whopper, by my standards anyway. I took two photos on my phone but the light was bad and my headlamp was fading so the quality was very poor. I'd say it was over 70cm but I didn't measure it.

All the whiting and the rockling went back happy enough but the doggie had got the hook caught up through it's right eye and sadly I'm no eye surgeon. I did my best but even at that he is going to need a patch.

Anyway it was a good night and I'm looking forward to more productive fishing over the next few months.

tight lines

[gfkelly1969]

good session nice size dog fish,great to see catch and release

[eyesreilly]

well done, found that with the whiting myself,more adapt at stealing the bait. Nice doggie

[Senor Feeshy]

Good session mon. One of the drawbacks of catch and release is that the fish learn from their mistakes and tell all their mates

[zeke]

nice report mate...well done for catch and release

[roger de dodger]

that rockling was probably full of bait from your hooks :lol:have pulled huge baits back outa their gut they often come in with the bait jammed in their gobs with out even getting hooked