White Strand, Mayo 14.2.2016

Had agreed to bring the boys fishing and knew that Sean, Michael and Danny were headed out this direction.

Rocked up to the car park at about 4 pm just as the turn at low water was happening to be met with a biblical hailstorm. Turned the sky dark on what was an otherwise sunny day with light winds albeit it was bitterly cold. The hail never melted and was still there on the tramp back.

Headed for the rocks to find Danny and Michael fishing on the bottom and float into a calm sea that had a prodigious swell. Sean had apparently trekked on up towards Tourakeady / Tullabawn in search of the Pollack hole. I did warn him it was a long walk! Made contact with him and found that he was gone all the way around to the small cove and fishing into it. It does look fishy, seen sea otters in it once, but never caught anything except a mackerel there.

We decided to fish three rods, one short, one a fair distance and one big bait banged out as far as I could... which as you all know is not very far but such is old age!

Not a lot happening, rebaited once or twice, Cathal brought in two shore crabs, and then finally on the distance rod, I get a real heavy smack. Lift it up and there's some serious weight on it. 5 metre rod is struggling and I reckon it was a conger. Big heavy weight, pulling slowly out. Since it wasn't a wire trace the inevitable happened...

That excitement over, Danny and Michael - having tried to find the Pollack hole - decamped to the beach to fish the stream outlet on the far side in the hope of locating some flatties. Sean dropped in then having trekked all the way back and set about fishing into the dusk. Not long after, he gets some small taps and reels in a nice whiting. The put us to lobbing out three hook flappers, all with bits of mackerel (thanks Danny), and sure enough we have a procession of whiting, without ever getting a full house. Best fish fell to Eoin and ran to 31 cms. Majority were in the high twenties, which at least made them proper whiting. No little black spots on them either.

This was the pattern for the next hour or two, and towards the end I got another big smack and missed it too. Reeled in a crab and about 50 metres of someone else's trace. Clearly there's a nasty reef here, about 50 metres out, and its small but long running parallel to the shore and full of nasty sharp rocks... otherwise its sand.

When the boys were sufficiently chilled (it was bitter), and after a fish being swung it bounced off Cathal's head, we tackled down and headed back to the car park. Beautiful evening, stunning scenery, weather was kind and we have five decent whiting. Sean had about the same. Chatting to the boys, they had picked up a nice coalie and some whiting as well, but curiously never got a tap off a single flatties. That's white strand for you...

PS: the mackerel Danny had was bought in LIdl and was in superb condition. beat the pants off the frozen stuff and was tough and firm.

We all agreed it would be a nice idea to head back on a summer's evening, and see what else would run in that channel...

Tight lines, will post the apocalyptic photo of the hailstorm if I can...

Nice report Kieran, is that beach just before silver strand? if so I fished it before on the rocks got some huge Mackerel followed by a few pints in the Ocean lodge beautiful place can't wait to go back some day.

Thanks for PM Kieran.

Good report Kieran, if I had missed a good fish and had a couple of big hits I don't think I'd be waiting until summer to try again. Lidl mackerel, I've used it once or twice and found it to be as you described, must be how they pack it.

Nice report hard luck on the lost fish.

Was a great evening really enjoyed it. The walk was worth it. Lots of potential marks all around that headland noted for the summer months