Lough Swilly - Sunday, 25th July.

OLd Boat Reports are moved here for Public Viewing

Lough Swilly - Sunday, 25th July.

Postby arthurg » Mon Jul 26, 2004 1:12 pm

Wet, cloudy, not too warm .................... just another summers day in Donegal!!!!

Fished a Lough Swilly league trip out of Rathmullan on the Enterprise. Had a couple of drifts on the reef at Swilly Rock, then four or five drifts near Fanad Light, then spent a couple of hours on the sand.

Plenty of Ballan Wrasse and a few coalies and surprisingly (disappointingly) few Pollock.

On the sand we got the usual suspects - Red Gurnard, loads of dogs, loads of Whiting but unfortunately most undersize, a nice Haddock, a couple of small Cod and a single Dab and Grey Gurnard.

The fishing should have been better for this time of year. Also, there were a helluva lot of juvenile fish. Not a great days fishing.
arthurg
 

Postby Irish_Shamrock » Mon Jul 26, 2004 1:19 pm

What baits were you using and how did you fish them?
Irish_Shamrock
 

Postby arthurg » Mon Jul 26, 2004 5:34 pm

Irish_Shamrock wrote:What baits were you using and how did you fish them?


I basically used the same rig all day apart from the flowing trace for Pollock, though I changed the baits depending upon what I was trying to catch. You'll never see my rigs in any magazine, but they work for me. Basically it is a one-up, two down rig - one hook above the weight on a boom and two hooks below the weight on a four foot boom. I also have a Ballan Wrasse lookalike spoon a few inches from the final hook. When fishing for Wrasse I pile on the Ragworm and try and move it slowly hard against the rocks - a cert for Wrasse and equally a cert for losing gear regularly. To minimise losses I use a paper-clip between the weight and the boom, sacrificing weights in the hope of keeping rigs intact.

Over the reefs I used Ragworm to get the Ballan Wrasse as they score high points in our league. When I had caught my five wrasse, I switched to a flowing trace with a Mackeral strip to try and lift Pollock but never managed even one!

On the sand I used the same rig but with a dirty big chunk of Mackeral on the end hook to get my five dogs (couldn't stop getting them in the end!). On the other two hooks I used just a wee triangle of Mackeral hooked only once for Whiting. It was very effective but most were too small.

Once I had my dogs, I changed the bottom bait to Rag and hoped to avoid dogs and pick up Gurnard or even a Cod. The dogs simply left the rag as planned but started taking the wee Whiting baits on the higher hooks! Managed one Red Gurnard though.
arthurg
 

Postby Irish_Shamrock » Mon Jul 26, 2004 9:49 pm

Brilliant Arthur, thanks very much.
Irish_Shamrock
 

Postby Drew » Sat Jul 31, 2004 12:45 am

Didnt think bad days on Swilly happened!!! :shock:


[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/K2ExT/K2.jpg[/img]
2015 Lure: Pollack, Herring, Whiting, Sand Goby, Poor Cod, Pouting

42 Species to beat 2011 & 2014
User avatar
Drew
SAI Megalodon!
 
Posts: 4583
Joined: Mon Mar 29, 2004 7:35 pm
Location: North Down
Has thanked: 27 times
Have thanks: 101 times


Return to Archived Boat Angling Reports

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 4 guests