Clew Bay 18th-21st October

[deno]

Spent the best part of a week in Newport Co. Mayo. As there wasn.t a lot to do in the evenings (working during the day) I decided I would try a couple of spots around the Clewbay coast line to see (more in term of curiosity) what might be lurking in the depths. I didn.t catch a huge amount of fish and for the majority of the time only got to the fishing spots till after dark.


Venue: Mulranny, Mallaranny, Malranny (lots of different signs posts and all spelt differently).

People: Myself and a friend from Newport (never been shore fishing before).

Date / Duration: Thursday 18th 8.30 . 1.30 am

Tide: Two hours before full and there after

Weather: Overcast, Strong Southwest wind, cold and a good swell

Bait: Mackerel and Lug

Rigs: 3 hook flapper and a 2 hook clipped (for distance)

Results: For my friend who had never fished before; 1 decent colefish and 7 flounder, four of which were dinner plate sized. Myself; 1 postagestamp sized flounder.

Catch and Release:: Yes/No (Had to dispatch one of the large flounder as it was very deeply hooked) Tasted great though!

Report: Arrived two hours before high tide at the main swimming beach in Mulranny. Wasted no time is setting up camp just over the concrete pathway that leads down to the beach (near lifeguard hut). As far as I could remember the beech completely floods so we used the path as a fishing platform as the tide rose. It was a fabulous evening to be out and clew bay never looked nicer. I set about showing my friend how to cast and after we fired out the baits fish began to bite after 20-30 minutes. First fish was a coalfish of about a pound and a half, was a great looking fish as it was a completely silver. The flounder appeared thereafter and Steven continued to catch them. I had a consolation micro flounder but hats off to the newbie he destroyed me in the fishing stakes. Out of interest none of the fish went for the lugworm and everything was caught on mackerel. I was also very surprised to see that no dogfish made an appearance. Headed home when the rain started arriving in sideways and it became very unpleasant.

[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2261/1728084898_180b238362.jpg[/img]




Venue: Mulranny

People: Myself and Steven

Date / Duration: Friday 19th 9.30 . 1.30 am

Tide: Just short of two hours before full and there after

Weather: Clearskys (some showers), Very Strong Southerly wind, cold and a good swell

Bait: Mackerel (forgot the bucket of lug)

Rigs: 3 hook flapper and 2 hooked down, clipped

Results: One dog and two decent sized flounder each

Catch and Release:: Yes

Report: Had planned to fish the mouth of the burrishoole river (opposite the abbey) as I had been told that large colefish frequent this area during the months of September/October. However, when we got there it was pitch black and it would have been difficult to try and find the channel with a cast, plus I can only imagine the army of crabs that would be lurking in wait. We headed to the first beach at Mulranny (through the golf course), but the tide was still very far out and because it is such a shallow sloping beach we would have had to do a lot of moving of gear continually as the tide rose. So after all of that we arrived back to the main beach at Mulranny. Fishing was a lot slower than the previous night but at least the doggies made an appearance. After three fish each and not much moving we headed home.

Steve with a big smile with his first doggy from the shore
[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2257/1727254067_6229bbfa3c.jpg[/img]

[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2419/1728105794_cdada5b943.jpg[/img]


Venue Bertraw, Roonagh Pier and Oldhead rock mark

People: Myself

Duration: 1hour at each location excluding Roonagh

Tide: Full

Weather: Blueskys but very windy

Bait: Deceivers and Shrimp Imitations and lugworm

Rigs: SWFF setup and float rig for wrasse

Results: Zip

Catch and Release:: n/a

Report: Decided I would fish a few marks on the south side of the bay on the Sunday. Walked the length of Bertraw and started fishing the channel at the very end in the hope of picking up some mackerel but nothing showed. The old man had joined me on the walk and he mentioned that Mr Hewetson (original owner of the tackle shop in Westport) caught roughly 30 bass from this beach in a single session. If only I was fishing 30 years ago! After Bertraw we moved onto Roonagh for a spot of wrasse fishing from the rocks to the right of the old pier, but it was far too exposed for any sort of fishing. Oldhead is nearly always sheltered so we headed to the rock marks around the corner from the beech. Tried float fishing lug but nothing showed any interest. Talk to two northerners who where just leaving on our arrival and they had picked up, coalies, Pollack and doggies.

View of Croagh Patrick from the rocks at oldhead.

[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2285/1727154357_aa20fa4c18.jpg[/img]

Oldhead pier

[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2265/1728062590_d28581e645.jpg[/img]



All in all it was a nice few days but not a great deal of fish.

[kieran]

Hi

Nice report and pictures. Couple of comments...

7 flounder is an exceptionally good return, well done the newbie

And coalfish / colefish are not silver, if it was all silver, it was almost certainly a sea trout! Now, if you had a licence, that would have tasted way better than the flounder! :wink:

HTH

[deno]

Hi Kieran.

Sorry I didn't make it clear in the above post, when the fish was caught it was completely silver but during the process of unhooking it you could see that it was slightly changing colour along the back. I'd say that the silver colouration was due to the sand on which it was feeding over. It was without a doubt a colefish (straight lateral line and all). The reason why I mentioned it was because I had never see a colefish look so sliver/washed out before and thought it was a point of interest. I'm aware that you can pick up the odd/rare sea trout fishing from the pier across the channel that fills the inner mulranny "estuary". I've spun their in the past but never with any luck.

[corbyeire]

thats a good return for mulranny - good report :!:

[kieran]

Hi Kieran.

Sorry I didn't make it clear in the above post, when the fish was caught it was completely silver but during the process of unhooking it you could see that it was slightly changing colour along the back. I'd say that the silver colouration was due to the sand on which it was feeding over. It was without a doubt a colefish (straight lateral line and all). The reason why I mentioned it was because I had never see a colefish look so sliver/washed out before and thought it was a point of interest. I'm aware that you can pick up the odd/rare sea trout fishing from the pier across the channel that fills the inner mulranny "estuary". I've spun their in the past but never with any luck.

Very strange indeed. Never seen a coalfish behave like that...

The best option for sea trout is further down on the main beach off the golf course but not at the rocks, over pure sand, often at distance.

If you fish over the rocks, you must be looking for the sole member of the bass family known to inhabit Clew Bay - ahem! :wink:

Good report