Duration: 6.30pm to 4.30am
Tide: HW 0100
Weather: mainly dry, calm and mild
Bait: rag lug peeler mackeral and squid
Rigs: 3/0 pulley and 1/0 2 hook flappers
Results: doggies, codling, pollack, long spined sea scorpions, dab, coalies, ballan wrasse, corkwing wrasse and CUCKOO RAYS!!
Report: with the weekend upon us again we'd been waiting all week for this trip up the antrim coast. after seeing that the cuckoo rays had come in early jordan was chomping at the bit to get out and have a go at them as you only usually get a 4 to 6 week window to target them in the particular area. and sadly last year both myself and mark got a few but they eluded jordan's hooks. so he was really up for this session. as we headed up the coast i got a call from dawsey who was already at the mark telling us both he and hugh had got a few wrasse so things were looking up. word had got out about the rays and all our usual spots had people on them. so we tried a spot a bit more out of the way to target them from where we could fish in relative peace with no tourists or other anglers about. it was a lovely spot apart from the mother of all midgey swarms descending on us. those wee things really melt my head
. we were stood in clouds of the bloody things until the sun went down and they dissappeared. i was almost scared to breathe at one point as you kept getting a mouth full of them 
. i really gotta get my finger out and buy a bottle of that jungle formula stuff as i've heard it's the buisness. the stuff we got out of the pound shop was more like an attractant to them with it not bothering them in the slightest 
. back to the fishing
jordan was the first to get a fish with a wee cod close in and i soon followed suit with one a bit bigger . soon more codling followed with a good few of them being around the pound mark. no where near big enough to take home for the table, but still a good sign that they are slowly making a return to our shores in better sizes and numbers. provided some greedy trawllers do'nt scoop the area any time soon i have a restored faith that they might actually get a chance to regain a foothold in the coming years . as darkness fell around 10.30pm the doggies came on the feed happily munching our mackeral baits set out intended for the rays. i was'nt too annoyed as we love to see these little guys make an appearence in a session and sadly with the state of our seas it's always nice to get something that at least puts a bend in the rods. some of them had really nice light markings and some of them put up a really good scrap on the way in. espically a few of the double shots that i got on the flapper rig. the heaviest doggie was almost 3lb and was part of a brace i had. so it put a good bend in the 15ft salt rod some of the pollack were'nt too bad either at around a pound in weight. admittly no monsters but better than the fish fingers we usually get
. around midnight jordan got a slack line bite and felt something a bit different come in and sure enough a cuckoo ray broke the surface just yards from his feet. there was a bit of a squeaky bum moment when it almost spat out the bait. but it was landed and we could all breathe a sigh of relief as it hit the scales at 3lb 4oz!!. just making the target weight for a shimano big fish award badge for jordan. not a bad way to get your first cuckoo ray 
. after many pics were taken the wee fella swam off none the worse for his visit to dry land unaware at how much joy he'd just given to a very chuffed 11 year old 
we were all getting fish now with flatties, doggies and codling coming in with the exception of poor dawsey who just could'nt seem to conect with his bites. after an hour or so he bit the bullet and changed all his hooks and was soon hooking fish again
. just goes to show the difference a new set of hooks can make 
. i was making my way through the doggies when i looked up to see the line on my salt drifting off across the surface of the water 
. i reeled in about 20 yards of slack to feel a nice pull on the other end. after reeling in what felt like forever due to the distance of the cast my first cuckoo ray of 2011 broke the surface. RESULT!! we got her on the scales and it turned out to be a new PB for me at 3lb 12oz. i was made up and she was quickly returned to the briney depths to carry on her buisness in peace. now it was just dawsey and hugh who had to get in on the action. but as we reached high water the fishing died a death and both myself and dawsey made the 15 walk back up to the motor to get the pan on for a monster feed of hot dogs for the lads. jordan and hugh fished on and left us to the cooking. as the half a pigs worth of sausages were sizziling away in the pan dawsey spotted this strange flashing multi coloured light coming from the direction of where we were fishing way off in the distance. i twigged staright away it must be the flashing nemo fishface gave to jordan in wicklow last week and realized he must have got another ray!. so 15 mins later we arrived to see jordan beaming from ear to ear announcing he'd got another cuckoo ray at 3lb on the nose. and this one shared a piccy or 2 with nemo . we all had a good feed and by 4.30am no more ray showed and hugh had fell asleep. so we decided that enough was enough and began setting the gear down for the drive home.
all in all we had a great night with both myself and jordan getting our target species. sadly dawsey and hugh missed out on this trip, but sure there's another 4 or 5 weeks to get them a ray or 2 yet
the end results were
ME - 11 codling 9 doggies 3 pollack and 1 cuckoo ray
JORDAN - 8 codling 4 doggies 3 dab and 2 cuckoo ray
DAWSEY and HUGH ballan wrasse, corkwing wrasse doggies pollack coalies long spined sea scorpions and dab
i'm sure when dawsey recovers and reads the report he can ammend what he and hugh got and add a few piccys
