Duration: 3 four hour gruellers
Tide: as you can imagine we had all sorts
Weather: once again, four seasons barring spring
Bait: a variety
Rigs: a multetude
Results: some many fish, most importantly a 2006 1.6ltr golf in black plus chauffeur
Report:
well boy, she eventually happened, after ringing around for a week and eventually ending up not bothered as to wether i got there or not, i got a call from boycie89's brother richie who was heading down to cork. an exchange of words took place and eventually i was on the road to cork. as all of this happened thursday morning, my preperation was non existent. i managed to get out digging on thursday night and luckily enough secured, 20 rag, 200 maddies and 100 lug, a fine haul
dave tilley provided me with 60 glorious peelers and in the cool box, somewhere lay 2 packs of sandeel and a couple of mackerel gone past its sell by. we made for youghal around half three on firday afternoon and after short- i mean lost long cut through kiltealy we arrived at le walter raliegh hotel around 9 ish. i just about made the draw only to draw three miserable pegs, i was in the middle of zone b in every session and as one of my venues was nicknamed the hungry acre i was most unimpressed. the craic continued long into the night, but i decided to hit the sack around 1, as i was well on the way to not so good.session 1- youghal strand
after an oul full irish i was ready for the first of our fishings. inveriably getting lost for the second time on the way to the venue was not the best of omens. arriving at the beach, which was talked so down about, things looked promising. coloured water, a rising tide and a nice gentle swell seemed to summon a few smilling faces. at 9 sharp i decided to target the local flattys. i lobbed a three hook flapper in close and got to work. a few fish in the first hour showed but generally things where slow. alby managed to snatch a flounder and dogfish making a strong start, as did boycie with a nicely formed 26cm flounder. i still couldnt manage a bite and really found the going tough. zone c was fishing uite well with j.p taking a few dogs early doors. switching to distance didnt prove to help and by now i had resigned myself to failure, possibly the worst thing to do. the clocked ticked down and with where the chances of a fish off spot. at 1pm it was all over and to be honest i felt a bit down, not because i blanked but more so to do with my attitude and to the fact that i didnt fish hard enough. martin howlin took the zone with an impressive catch of 1 ray, 2 gurnard and 1 codling. with alby coming a credible 3rd. 51 anglers blanked, 40 caught fish
session 2 caravan gap, ballinwillig
got lost again on the way down, this was not our day
to my own first imppressions this venue looked even worse. it was rather flat, and em, the beach was littred with weed only waiting to be re floated by the incoming tide. however i was determained to catch. the word here was distance distance distance. first cast like everyone else, bar 1 wacked baits out way into the atlantic. that 1 lad who stayed in was next to me, and showed everyone else up by bringin a two counting flats on his first cast. i decided to do both distances and cover all bases on the next cast with two hook loop and flier on the next cast. with no fish coming in i kept myself reved up with the power of me i-pod. as dusk encroached a couple of ray showed up including a 10lb 2oz specimen for mick mather. after good doogie like bite, i struck into it and after a few turns of the reel it was gone, disaster. the tide came in and a few more fish trickled in, but in no real pattern, blanks where still rife.it was now half 9, mick mather had another specimen painted ray, i was still fishless. i was fishing as hard as i could go so i wasnt feeling too bad about it. i decided to try a little sly cast in close to see if a few coalies where knocking about as everyone else seemed to be smashing baits out. so three little crab baits where lobbled around 60 yards out. after not really noticing any sort of bite i pulled the lead's grips out, to notice a bit of weight, fukcin weed, i muttered to myself. but this weed was pulling back
i wound it in, in slow slow pace, it made a few small runs in the surf and i was now aware it was a good fish. sure enough a lovley 75cm painted ray emereged from the surf. i was thrilled. the clock struck 10 and i was content with a zone 6th out of 33.session 3 slob bank
the last session, im not too much of a fan of this venue. its has only fished ok once out of my last three visits, and today was to be no exception. i made a bold move and started scratching in close, as the last visit here yielded a good few fish from around 60 yards. this proved to be fruitless, chris nelms to the right of me got a few nice flounder t distance, so i follwed him out, but to no avail. a slightly shorter cast lifted my spirits with a small but counting 20cm coalie. fish where coming in all around in small numbers and mostly at distance. however coalies where sporadicly popping up in close. so i chose this for my game plan. i added another two counters at no more than 20 yards out and then to my dismay had a treble. all 19 cm, those three fish would have got me at least a 5th in the zone but instead i had to settle for a mid table result.
the masters was over, and the fishing was ok, but not great, i was fairly dissapointed with my showing, but these things happen. cloyne ran a great comp and the walter raleigh kindly supplied team golf with a freezer and cold room for our bait.
well done to j.p molloy who with a zone second and two zone wins took the master angler title and will now captain ireland in the 2010 world championships.
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