West Waterford - 4th April 2010

[RockHunter]

People: Me and Mitch

Duration: 7.45 - 11.45 pm

Tide: HW at 10 pm

Weather: Strong cold southwesterly wind, horizontal rain for much of the time

Bait: Lug, rag, razor

Rigs: 4/0 pennel pulleys

Results: Me: 1 bass, 2 coalfish; Mitch: 1 bass, lots of coalfish




Report: Mitch was down for a long weekend and I had arranged to meet him for a session. We tried a beach that fishes well on a rising tide when there is a good surf. The wind had been strengthening in the afternoon and by the time we got to the beach it had blown up a nice surf.

I set up two rods, one baited with lug/razor and the other with rag, although after dark I changed this to lug/razor also. This beach doesn't fish well in daylight and sure enough it was very quite until dusk, then just has the light was going I spotted a jerk on one of the rods, I struck and almost instantaneously the fish did a slackliner - I reeled in the slack as fast as I could and could only keep in contact with the fish for a second or two at a time but eventually caught up with it when it got close to the shore. Then it put up a bit of a struggle before I hauled it out of the surf. It was a 46 cm bass

We were hopeful of a few more showing up after dark but it remained quite apart from a bunch of small coalfish. Mitch was getting a lot more of them than me. He was using crab so they must have found that more appetizing than my lug/razor so at least they didn't pester me as much but I still got two or three of them.

I was feeling kind of bad after bringing Mitch to this beach and telling him that this should throw up a few bass. I had managed to get one but all he was getting was these annoying coalfish. From past experience the fishing usually dies off about an hour after high tide so by 11 pm I was about to pack up when Mitch finally got his bass - a bit bigger than mine, probably about 48-49 cm. I was delighted that he eventually got one.

Of course I then decided to stay a bit longer and fished on for about another 45 minutes but only managed a small coalfish. At about 11.45 pm, as the tide began to drop faster, I packed up. Mitch stayed on for a while and got a few more coalfish.

So while not a great session at least we both got ourselves a bass.
I was glad to see that Mitch had a good session with Seanie last night - I should have joined them myself as there must have been a great surf after the strong winds on Monday.

[Al and Jordan]

nice one lads. always good to get your target species

[seanie35]

well done lads a bass each is fine by anybodys standards would have liked just 1 last nite, had a half idea to go there last nite but thought it might be to rough tonight should be a bit calmer there would go except im not allowed out for being bold last night

[mitch]

hi frank
thats a cracking beach we fished monday night and i cant wait to get back down to fish
it again id say we'll be seeing plenty of bass reports from you and sean over the comming
weeks thanks for meeting up and getting my 1st bass of the season
cheers gerry

[gazaaa]

Well done Frank. Nice Bass. I bet digging those lug in that wind was well worth it .

[RockHunter]

Thanks guys,

well done lads a Bass each is fine by anybodys standards

I supposed we should be grateful for getting one each - but I had thought is was going to be a better session since the first one showed up a dusk with a few hours left before high tide. They are still scarce enough compared to this time last year.

thats a cracking beach we fished monday night and i cant wait to get back down to fish
it again id say we'll be seeing plenty of Bass reports from you and sean over the comming
weeks thanks for meeting up and getting my 1st Bass of the season

Yes that is a good beach - but not yet fishing as well as it was this time last year.