Duration: 1pm to 9.30pm
Tide: in then out
Weather: 20mph easterly, dry and not too cold
Bait: mack, squid, maddies, white rag, lug, razor and sand eel
Rigs: everything in the wallet!
Results: pouting, poor cod, whiting, coalies, codling, porky big 3 beardy's and a 18lb conger
Report: after jordan's success out this way at the weekend i decided to give one of our summer marks a go. so i phoned round a few of the lads to see who was up for a session. by pure chance both ronald and dan (not the millisle dan, another guy) were off work that day and able to make it. so with jordan dropped off to school i returned home and loaded the car up and lifted the other 2 lads. we went out and dug enough worms to do us for a days fishing and hit the road
. our intended mark was the flat rock at ballintoy harbour. but after 3 biteless hours and howling wind blowing our tripods over i could tell that the lads were starting to think that a strategic withdrawll to another mark might be on the cards. i agreed and we started to ponder where to move to. i agreed to take them to the mark where jordan got his specimen 3 bearded rockling so long as they kept it to themselves 
. we headed off to the rockling mark and it was a whole lot more pleasent than ballintoy had been. hardly a breath of wind and you could fish close to where you park the car 
. i think we ended up putting out about 8 rods between the 3 of us targeting every fish with every method we could think of. out went pulley's, pennel's, flappers and conger gear. the bites came almost instantly with a good stream of coalies, whiting, pouting, poor cod and codling falling to everyone . nothing of any size to get the heart going, but plenty to keep the rod tips bouncing merrily away all evening 
then our target species made an appearence and i landed the first nice rockling of the evening. a lovely 3 beardy who weighed in at just over 3ozs shy of the specimen weight of 0.794kg
. but not to get too upset about it as he was a new PB for me and i was chuffed with that . we all got a bit more serious about our fishing then, as we knew there was the chance of a specimen being landed 
. next for a nice 3 beardy was dan . he felt a bite that he knew for sure was'nt a wee coalie and hooked and landed a nice 38cm 3 beardy a another new PB. THIS WAS GOING RATHER WELL!!!! so more pics were taken and the wee guy was released to join his mate from earlier to grow a bit bigger and grace our hooks again some time in the future . now it was ronald's turn to get in on the 3 beardy action and soon enough he got one too!!! yet another nice 3 beardy, but this one was a bit special 
the first ever 3 and a half bearded rockling i've ever seen 
yes,, you read right. 3 and a half beards 
i'll say no more than the picture is worth more than a thousand words ronald will put it up with the other pics he took for me and dan with his SLR 
. by now i was feeling rather pleased with myself . both me and dan got PB's and ronald got in on the action too. i felt as if a bit of weight had been lifted off my shoulders as my mark had not let the lads down. the only mishap of the session was the top rest section of dan's tripod fell off and into the sea never to be seen again 
. it was made in a way that you could'nt even foul hook it to get it back again 
. but he seemed to take it all in his stride and with good humor too. by now it was after 9pm and the bites had died off. we were talking about ony giving it another 20mins or so when a gust of wing blew my tripod over 
ronald and dan ran down to help me grab the gear. i had just set the 2 rods back onto the tripod when my boat rod with the conger gave a scream . dan quickly took the 2 rods off me and i struck into a nice eel on my boat rod the rod tip began lurching over and i realized this could be a new PB in the making for me as my current best eel form the shore was 13 and a half pounds. the 20lb class rod provided enough power to controll the eel enough to allow ronald to jump down onto a wee boat to get the eel outta the water and up onto dry land (one of the drawbacks of fishing for congers in harbours with no slips ). i'm just glad there was no one around to see the state of the 3 of us trying to land the eel. must have looked like a fishing session with the 3 stooges 
. i was made up and he tipped the scales at 18lb!!!!! another new PB for me . i'm just glad that ronald and dan were there with me as he had got tangled in one of my other rods which dan kindly lifted and followed me about the harbour with, and then ronald for landing the fish. i honestly think if i had have been there on my own that i would have lost the conger and my other rod, so thanks again lads i only got a few pics on this trip but ronald has about 5 good ones of dan with his rockling, ronald's 3 and a half bearded rockling and me covered in slime with my conger in my arms . i'm sure he'll post them up as soon as he gets the chance .so a great end to a day that started off a bit on the slow side. we all got a nice 3 beardy each and 3 pb's to boot was just the icing on the cake
. and no one got a 3 beardy bigger than jordan's one from the other day,,, so he's still speaking to me 
i think a serious strop would have been thrown if one of us had have got a 3 beardy bigger than his one from the other day . no specimens this time, but i have high hopes for that mark in the coming weeks . and if i have left anything out, i'm sure dan and ronald will add it to the report 
