Todays fishing...............

I woke up this morning to quite an unusual thing ..........

clear blue skies , blazing sunshine and little or no wind!!!!

My first thoughts would have been bass but seeing as the ban is in force
from 15th may through to 15th june

So my thoughts turned to wrasse but unfortunatly even with stunning clear water with little
or no swell all i could manage was a few small tentative taps in the morning so I decided to head
for some LRF.....

Expecting coalies and pollock , I went down to my local quay but the just werent playing ball
very strange conditions looked perfect but the fish just didnt seem to be there or if they were
they were not feeding.

So I moved on to different species another little favourite of mine the rock goby.....

had a fair amount of these obliging little critters most were nicely coloured in breeding colours i suppose
with the bright yellow stripe on the front dorsal and a nice white stripe on the second dorsal

I moved on after a while to try for some other species

So I tried for some blennies a species I havent had this year so far .......

No shortage of these around with plenty taking my lure including one massive fat blennie
that was almost 12inches long no matter how I tried I couldnt get a decent shot of the
length it kept curling up as blennies tend to do

this was properly big blenny certainly the biggest I've caught with a huge head and very fat stomach prob
full of spawn

I also got a nice spider crab which is a first for me......lol

A really unusual looking creature very ungainly on land but still quick enough to give me a nip as I
put it back.

I picked up a few little scorpion fish too...

And finally I managed one lone Ballan wrasse

Not exactly what I was expecting from the day but it ended up being a good session after all

I hope you enjoyed the read

Tight lines

Jay

Shadtastic!!

A plan was hatched a few months back to meet up with some mates
Marty, Austin and Cliff and go and try for some Twaite Shad.

The Twaite is a sea living fish which returns each year to spawn and are incredibly
good fighting and acrobatic fish and have been likened to an Irish version of the
almighty Tarpon

This is a species of fish that I had tried but failed to get before a good few years back
but I put it down to simply not knowing enough about how to best target them and a lack
of expierience on my part this year however was different.

The date was set and last Thursday, I finished work and headed down to meet the three guys
who had the camp already set and had very kindly given me space in the tent.
Plenty of banter and fair amount of beer was consumed that night and with an early start my
anticipation was rising with the possibility of getting to wet a line and maybe pick up a few of
these Shad.

Friday morning we arose to a decent enough morning albeit a bit windy so we headed down to the river
and Marty was first into the fish with a cracking specimen sized fish of  2lb 14oz

we fished on and I was next with my first ever shad not a big one by any means and a while
later I was into my first proper shad of 2lb 9oz......my first ever specimen sized fish

We had a few other fish that day but I didnt spend too much time taking photos
as these are an incredibly fragile and delicate fish that really should be handled with
great care and returned almost immediately.

The next day we fished again and we all had more fish.......

I did manage to get a nice sequence of shots of Austin bent into and landing a nice specimen sized
fish

That was Saturday and after a very tough days fishing it was time for a few pints and banter

Sunday morning it was early to rise and conditions were looking lovely with little or no breeze
to make a change and with some other mates coming down David ,Tomek, Kuba, and Dave
it had the makings of a cracking day.

We all met up and fished on

A truly fantastic day with everybody getting in amongst the fish and some really nice fish too with
our average size over the weekend being 2lb in weight

I also am led to believe that the majority of our fish were hybrids of the Allis and Twaite shad
with the only true Twaite I saw being caught without the need for a scale sample was from
David.....

A stunning looking fish with the characteristic black dots and rainbow colouration clearly visible


I did also manage some of the gorgeous albeit very ambitious wild Brown Trout that also live
in the river...

I feel I have to say that although the fishing looked like it was fantastic , we really put in some hard work
in some very tough and challenging conditions with very high winds and some very heavy rain and hail
making the fishing far from easy.

A truly cracking weekend and a massive thanks has to go out to the Marty , Austin and Cliff for showing
me the ropes, giving me some tips and tricks and also putting me up in the tent ......Thanks Guys

I enjoyed every minute of the weekend and I already cant wait for next year

Anyway thanks for reading I really could go on and on about this particular fishing trip but
as they say a picture says a thousand words.........

I really hope you enjoyed reading this blog as much as I've enjoyed writing it

Roll on next year..........

Tight lines

Jay

About f***king time.............

It's been along time since I've had a decent lrf session on the salt what with the ridiculously

unseasonal weather and other commitments stopping me.

But I did however get an evening off work and decided to head down to the local quay

and try some lures and see what was around but to be honest I wasnt expecting much 

maybe a few coalies or pollock.....

I arrived at the mark and for the first time in a long time conditions looked absolutely

perfect ...crystal clear water....rising tide.......flat calm as I said perfect

I began rigged up a jighead with an isome a lure which i would expect to be able to winkle out

the most stubborn of species but not a touch not even a  sign of a fish.

So I changed over to a few different lures no touches .....so I moved onto gulp sandworm

on a dropshot rig and was literally straight into a nice coalie.....

it continued like this for another few casts with 10 or 15 fish of around the same stamp landed

all of these fish were in stunning condition and put up a great little scrap on the mighty solpara

I moved away from the area with those and began to try in around some rocks to see if there was 

anything else around and I felt a very familiar tap...tap...tap.......a wrasse maybe???

but nothing it was gone so I fished on and felt this same tap....tap......tap.......

and bang a beautiful little corkwing wrasse landed and my first for 2013

It was a very welcome surprise although it was long overdue and about time they started to show

back he went and I continued fishing with a rather large smile..........

A lovely little long spined sea scorpion was next in between an incessant and never stopping run of

coalies/pollock....which I am not complaining about at all they were all welcome fish.

I continued fishing and felt another one of the typical wrasse bites.........and fish on

I saw the fish and was almost certain it was a little goldsinney but when it came to the surface

I thought it was a female corkwing........but no wrong again a lovely albeit tiny little Ballan wrasse...

Another first for 2013 for me and a very welcome one it was about time I was beginning to think 

they would never show up.

I continiued fishing up unitl dark but no more wrasse decided to play ball which I couldnt help thinking 

if I had of arrived a bit earlier that maybe I would have had some more.

I did however pick up one other species

A lovely Rock Goby which I'm guessing was male as it looked to be displaying breeding colours

it was a lovely black colour with the yellow stripe very prominent on top.

All in all a very good session , I was very pleased to have picked up my first wrasse of the year

and to pick up two seperate species of wrasse was a bonus.

With a total of 5 species and 2 new species from this particular mark the Ballan and 

Longspined Scorpion.

It really looks like things are at last starting to pick up with warmer water temperatures all

along the coast and maybe some settled weather in the long range forecast maybe at last 

we wil all be able to get out and enjoy some proper fishing at long last.

hope you enjoyed the read,

tight lines

Jay