Duration: 10:30 - 18:30 ish
Tide:Ebbing and some of the flood
Weather: Nice and Overcast with a little wind
Bait: Mackerel
Rigs:Running Ledger to 120lb bite trace
Results:Raymonds
Report:
Myself and Al met up with a PaulB Damien and PUG of BAI fame. The plan was to get a few macks and then head out to the one of the Dublin Bay Banks to try for some Ray. Myself and Al were a bit late in the Water as we had to wait for a boat to be offloaded by the harbourmaster into the water. It was a fairly large fishing boat....about 26 ish feet, so they took up the whole slip.
The macks were hard to come by for us. The lads got a few but it was very scratchy. I was seriously starting to regret the 3 that I dropped off. After about 50 mins of so we had about 10 and decided to not waste any more time on them and head off to the banks and get the anchor down.
We were spread out all over Dublin Bay. Myself and Damien were only getting a couple of Dogs. We had a chat to the Radio and Paul had already got 3 tope and a Ray..... We pulled the anchor at double speed and we were off at 20 knots to meet Paul. We droped Anchor about 80 Meters or so away and setted it. First drop confirmed that a change of venue was worth while with a nice ray to about 4lb coming to me.
After a few dogs I got another Ray of about the same size. Paul got a couple more as well. I think PUG and Damien were just getting the Dogs that, thankfully were not too think on the ground.
It went very quite for a while and a change of wind sawn my boat swing in front of Paul. I wasn't happy with the position as I was impeeding Paul's fishing. Not the decent thing to do when the guy has put you on the mark.
So I decided that a change might be a good idea. A quick look at the plotter and I found what I (Greenhorn) though looking like a good place to be in the flooding tide. We pulled Anchor again, (got to start practicing the Alderney Method) let the lads know where we were heading and off we went. We were only about a mile further up the bank. We dropped Anchor again, and settled in. Things were very quite for about an hour.
The other lads had picked up a couple of fish so it was looking like a bad idea to pull anchor..... Once the Tide picked up a little we got a few more Dogs and I managed a 5lb Ray, With Al getting a nice fish of 9lbs. Both bites came within seconds of each other.
Just as we were thinking about heading off (It looked like one of the ships was heading my direction) I got what I thought was a doggie bite, I lifted in and straight away knew it was a better fish. I really struggled to lift the fish off the bottom. The rod was well doubled over.
A few minutes into the fight Al noticed a bite as well. He struck into another decent fish that had his Rod bent Double.
Al was also struggling to lift the fish in the tide, so while he was mucking around like a Girl, I managed to land, weigh and Take a few Photos of my fish.
The Fish Weighed in at 12lb 8oz after a little weight for the boat to stop rolling and the scales to settle.
Just as I got the fish back in the Water, we got some Colour on Al's fish. It was a cracking view to see Al's fish coming up and mine swiming off just underneath it.
We got Al's fish into the boat, and it was looking like the Jammy Dodger was going to do it again. We waited on the scales to settle and when it did, the Ray was 13lb on the nail. Cracking fish for Dublin bay, and he won the .5 for the biggest fish of the day.
We fished on, for another 20 minutes with only a doggie to show and and nice close up (800 Meters or so) of the Celtic Star as she steamed right accross the the Bank. So we decided to up Anchor and Call it a day. I think I'm starting to like this boat fishing lark....
Kev
