i dug down a good 3 feet into the mud before i found the first worm and thought, bugger this. i ai'nt digging in mental heat for worms and a crab collecting session was hatched. i already had a pound of rag so we went to check our traps and were rewarded with 6 peelers, 22 hardbacks and 3 softies 
. not a bad result for 15 mins and one of the softies was as big as my hand and would provide enough bait for 6 hooks 
.so we put the dog into the motor and picked up our mate mark and headed out for a doggie session. by 2.30pm we had a rod each out in the water and saw merv from shore angling ireland heading towards us with his mate steve. introductions were exchanged and we all got to fishing. it was a scorcher of a day and my old crocodile dundee hat came out of the loft to protect my already burnt head from another toasting. not exactly the greatest fashion statement, but pratical none the less
there must be some truth to this old "lucky hat" theory as i was first to land a fish with a wee doggie taking my mackeral bait with gusto so a quick pic and he was back in the water. steve was next in on the action with a doggie himself and mark soon followed suit making it a doggie treble 
. our own poor dog cody was feeling the heat and found a rock pool to lie down in to escape the sun 
. so it was merv up next and he landed a doggie too before myself and mark got another each. by now the only person not to have caught was jordan, but he just was'nt quick enough to strike his bites before the fish had him into the kelp 
. by now we were nearing 7pm and merv and steve were gonna wrap up and hit the road. steve reeled in to discover he had a wee red reef cod on and that was the last fish of the day as we never had anything in the last half hour after they left. great to meet the lads and catch a few fish togeather. the end results as far as my memory serves were,MERV - 2 dogs
STEVE - 2 dogs and a codling
MARK - 2 dogs
ME - 2 dogs
JORDAN - cheque book and pen
DAY 2,
me, jordan, mark and belfast dan headed out for a dawn raid to another deep water wrasse mark. the alarm went off at 5am and i had all the lads in the car and on the road leaving belfast for 7am. by 8am we were at the mark and fishing
. the sun was blazing high in the sky and the sea was like a pond with hardly a breath of wind. the bites were coming fast and very aggressive, but you had to be on your toes and hit them quick before they got the head down and into the kelp . we were getting the same ratio of landed fish as to lost fish from the other day. working out at about 3 to 1. but at least they were feeding. i spent a good bit of the day sorting the fish out in preperation for their return to the sea in a wee rock pool as quite a few of them had swim bladder issues as a result of being brought up from depth 
but they got sorted handy enough and returned ok bar 2 who the gulls ended up fighting over. but thats just one of those things i suppose we had a great day out right up until about 4pm when a sea fog rolled in and a mighty swell kicked up from nowhere accompanied with a strong northernly wind all the wee fishing and sailing boats we had been watching all day raced for shore at some speed as things seemed to be getting worse on the weather front. and not only that, the fishing died a death and not a single fish was caught from 4pm to 6pm when we admitted defeat and packed up and hit the road. everyone except jordan caught and i got broke off by something really big that severed clean through my 20lb snood length after a spirited 40 second fight 
the end results stood at,
ME - 6 ballan wrasse with the biggest at 2lb 7oz
MARK - 4 ballan wrasse and a male corkwing wrasse
DAN - 2 ballan wrasse and 2 coalies
JORDAN - another blank
i reckon there might be something to this lucky fishing hat theory where as jordan reckons it's put a serious jinx on his mojo
