People:me
Duration:6-9pm
Tide:falling
Weather:calm, clear, mild enough
Bait:mack, squid,couple of leftover rag
Rigs:flappers
Results:1x doggie, 2x codling, 6 x whiting, 1 x
Thornback ray
Report:The wife felt like a trip out to Bray, so I duly obliged and packed the rods in the boot.Only one angler on the Harbour when I arrived so I set up near the end, he had a few whiting, nothing special he said.I got a doggie on rag on the first cast , followed by a double of whiting to 30cms. It was turning into a nice relaxing few hours fishing with the weather mild and clear skies. A couple of small codling were next and i thought that the best I could hope for was a half decent codling

. Then the rod doubled over and i struck into it ,to be honest thinking it might be a dog

. But there was something a bit different about this bite, I could hardly shift it, and had a job getting line back. Maybe it was 2 dogs, i thought, not a bass cos i couldnt really feel it moving around much.

Then it broke the surface and I could see it was a ray,,,,,,,,,,,my thoughts quickly turned to the rig, size 4 hooks

,,,would my knots hold. Where's Fishface when i need him

. I brought the ray round the corner of the pier and i walked down the steps to land him. Luckily the other angler was on hand to help and showed me how to handle him, etc, and kindly took a photo. He said it was the first one he'd seen caught here and he's a Bray native

.I was delighted to reach the 30 species for the year, and what a way to reach it,i can relax now for the next 2 months. I put him back and after swimming into the wall a few times he eventually made it back out to sea.

What a night,,,,,,,,and for once i didnt lose any gear
Dave
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Species '20 (14) 5 Beard Rockling, Shore Rockling, Codling, Whiting, Pollock, Coalfish, Pouting, Corkwing Wrasse ,Ballan Wrasse, Poor Cod, Dab ,Smoothhound,Flounder, Thornback Ray
For the rich, there is therapy. For the rest of us, there is FISHING! --