Sunday, July 29, 2012

A little bit of Ballan....

I headed out on Wednesday to try for some wrasse on the hrf gear hoping for
some nice fish. I hit the mark at around 9 in the morning the sun was high and the water was
crystal clear and flat calm. I rigged up a senko stlyle stick bait texas and began to fish in the various 
gullies and weedbeds around the place trying various retrieves from deadsticking leaving the bait on the 
bottom with an occasinal twitch to a slow retieve along the bottom to see if I could trigger a bite with some small taps i could tell that i was gone too big so a reduction in lure size and hook size was in order.
Size 1 hook and 3inch senko rigged up still small taps but no takes so i rigged up some gulp lugworm in black with blue fleck results were instant with a number of wrasse fallling to this lure 













 By now it was midday so after around 15 fish or so I noticed that the stamp of fish wasnt what I had hoped for wth the biggest being about 2.5lb so it was back to the car for some lunch and rigging up the lrf gear.
I headed back to the water at around 2 or thereabouts with the tide now all but out.
after the luck i had with the gulp earlier in the day it was hard to pull myself away from it and try something else so I decided to start of with some 2" fish fry for ecogear fans they are basically a strawtail imitation or vice versa straight in with a nice little ballan


next couple of casts a nice little corkwing



and another Ballan



All went quite then for an hour or so with the tide bottoming out with just the lrf staple and favourite of mine
the pollock rearing their heads





these fish fight well above their weight and he are great sport on the lrf gear the biggest being around the 1.5lb mark no big fish but great fun

It wasnt long until the ballans began to come back with plenty of shy touches and pick ups where the fish
takes the lure but only the tail and a strike only ends up with the lure snapping back through the water column

I fished on with the gulp fish fry and i was into another ballan as soon as the tide began to push in



the supply of these lures was now low so I switched over to 4'' sandworms with no difference in
takes the fish just kept coming thick and fast 





this one waved and smiled for the camera..




The mark was really exceeding my expectations at this point with over 40 fish landed 
especially with conditions being as they were clear bright and crystal clear water conditions
which i had previously struggled to find a wrasse just goes to show that with angling in general you
never know what can come your way.

By now it was around 6 'o' clock in the evening and it was getting progressively harder to pick up fish
I found a nice gully around 15ft deep and was deadsticking the lure on the bottom when i felt the smallest of taps then all of a sudden the rod doubled and the drag sang I was into a serious fish after a couple of runs it got into the weed and no amount of coaxing was getting it out. I waited for it to move on but it was bedded in and my leader snapped the first bit of tackle loss of the day ....I was gutted not to land it but I now know where the fish lives so I'll be back.

Bites were few now with the tide all but in I continued to try with a few fish including my first ever green wrasse 



the green on its head and eyes was alot more vivid than the photo shows probably my favourite fish of the day.

This however wasnt the end with another few ballans and a couple of corkwings showing face to round off what truly was my best ever day out on the wrasse with my LRF gear












A truly awesome days wrassing the likes of which I have never had with 50 wrasse landed and more bites missed. 
I really hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as I have enjoyed writing it and for any LRF doubters
out there I say pick up a rod and give it ago.

Tight lines 

Jay

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Irish Bass Festival 2012

Let me start by saying a massive thanks to Cian and James
of Absolute Fishing in Tramore for the idea and implementation
of such a fantastic event.

Never have I met so many like minded people or had such craic
while out and about fishing. The general buzz around was fantastic with
so many anglers 120 in total taking part in the event.
It began in the early hours of Friday morning when Cian opened the shop
at 4am and there were plenty of other anglers around at this time the fun
started from there with plenty of banter going on and alot of coffee.
I headed back to a mark in Wexford and fished on and was very happy to
pick up one fish a few casts albeit very small just touching 25cm. I thought it was
a good start but it wasnt to be for me anyway conditions were bright with crystal
clear flat calm water making fishing very very tough by day although i did see
some fish cruising they had no interest in feeding. Although conditions were
tough it didnt stop me or other anglers fishing and fishing hard for almost the entire
time with a few hours sleep and copious amounts of coffee and red bull being
comsumed.

What I did gleam from the weekend though was just how massive lure angling
for bass is with anglers from all over the U.K. and further afield coming to sample
some of what Irelands Southern coastline has to offer in the way of sport fishing

There was however some absolutely cracking fish caught with a few fish over the 70cm
and even one 80cm fish caught.

The overall longest fish went to Anthony Phealan with an absolute cracking fish of
80cm caught on the Saturday night


In second place with another cracking fish of 77cm was Patrick Morris


It was a fantastic weekend ended by the prize giving in the Grand Hotel in Tramore followed by a serious session with all the anglers involved and there was some craic , jeerings and banter flowing there.

I also used this weekend to catch up with my good friend Steven Neeley http://rookiebassangler.blogspot.ie/ of   it was really great to catch up with both him and his father over the weekend.


Some new friends were made in the form of Jelmer Scheffer and the rest of the Dutch guys from the Labrax
squad it was great to finally meet the guys after been following their blog for a long time you can see what they thought of the festival here.... The Labrax Squad

I cant emphasise enough how much I enjoyed this weekend and once again a massive thanks and well done
to the lads at Absolute Fishing.
I cant wait for next I for one will be taking part I can guarantee that well that was my take on the weekend
I hope to see you all here next year.

Tight Lines

Jay


Monday, July 16, 2012

Draft Irish Bass policy.....

The following document is a draft proposal for new
regulations regarding bass angling in Ireland
It makes some very good points but misses out on
some others .
I'd be very interested to hear from anglers to gauge
their opinions on this;

Draft National Bass Policy


Tight lines

Jay

Sunday, July 15, 2012

A quick Saturday session...

I went out early on Saturday morning to try for a few Bass
conditions werent ideal with a northerly wind and the bottom of the
neap tides and predictably they didnt play ball.
So I decided to head for some wrasse at a new mark that I hadnt
tried before this particular mark has a nice depth of water probably
about 15-20 feet deep.
Almost immediately I started to pick up pollock  O.T.D. in fact I
couldnt get past them for a while with almost a fish a cast quite fun
actually not what I had initially planned but the stamp of fish was
much better than other days with fish up to 3lb putting a nice
bend in the rod in the usual polllock style of crash diving and
power runs







I carried on fishing occasionally getting past the pollock to the bottom with the odd
tap here and there.

I did mange to pick up a single wrasse which absolutely smashed the lure while I was
retrieving up a ledge but it was a very nice fish weighing in at 4lb 14oz and it went like an
absolute train making several runs and certainly put a serious bend in the Tiro which
soaked it up no problems at all



A nice stocky wrasse that must have had a run in with something else at some stage
since it had a big chunk missing from its tail fin but it certainly didnt seem to make
much difference as this fish still had bags of power

An enjoyable session overall not the intended session but fun all the same.

Tight lines

Jay