Another N. Antrim beach 27 Nov 10.

[cathalger]

Duration- 10pm to 12.30am.

Weather- Settled, sub zero.

Tide- Filling tide, low water was at 8.30pm.

Baits- Frozen sandeel and squid.

Results- 1 codling, 6 whiting, 1 five bearded rockling.

Colder than last night, but without the near gale blowing. Started off promising, plenty of bites, mostly from the small whiting, the rockling was the first fish I caught, followed by 6 whiting. Then got a good drop back from a nice wee 34cm codling, which took a sandeel on a pennel rig, it regurgitated a slightly bigger, fairly fresh sandeel when I was trying to get my pennell rig out of it, the one you can see in the photo attached. Used that one as bait but it didnt get me anything.

About an hour after I got the codling, which I kept along with the biggest whiting which couldnt be released after taking in the pennell rig, I noticed the 2 fish were partially frozen, fins and rear ends stiff as boards. Ice was forming in the top of the bottle of coke I had standing on the beach too. No jokin. The bait I thawed out in a pan of luke warm water before going out was virtually refroze by midnight.

The fishing slowed down and weed from yesterdays easterly combined with river debris (leaves) made it difficult so I gave up at half past midnight. Good to see a codling at least, there might be some better ones out there.

[seanie35]

fair play for braving the chill nice codling aswell

[Trojan]

Great reports as always,man you must love your fishing heading out in those conditions you must be searching for the big one

[tight lines]

well done on geting a few fish

[Al and Jordan]

congrads on getting your codling man . the tempreature was bonkers last night -9 on the way home through ballymena just after 1am.

[cathalger]

Cheers for responses, yeah it was shapin up for an interestin session til the weed and leaves scuppered things.

[cathalger]

Great reports as always,man you must love your fishing heading out in those conditions you must be searching for the big one

Yeah Trojan I'm just trying to put the hours in to see what might come off it. For a few years Ive been hearing reports of fish like bass, turbot, sea trout and good codling being caught on winter nights on these shores so I'm giving it a good bash this year. We'll see what happens/............

[cathalger]

congrads on getting your codling man . the tempreature was bonkers last night -9 on the way home through ballymena just after 1am.

Dunno Al and Jordan exactly what temp it was on the beach but I cant recall ever having my catch start to freeze up on me before OR my bottle of coke either for that matter,

One thought----would partially frozen sandeels be a less attractive bait? It wouldnt give off the same amount of smell so?????

[pol2768]

Some nice codling there mate well done man!

[liam78]

well done there was at redbay today checking on the wind it was bloody cold in your face with heavly weed on the beach so we move on .
we got 10 days of this cold spell rolling the temp rising soon

[cathalger]

Yeah, you were probably right to move on Liam, I just gave the beach a go and though I got a bite or 2, on each cast I had to pull in a big lump of weed, no fun. Went to the pier for an hour and a half -2 small coley, a whiting( tiny) and a wee rockling. Bitter cold out there.

Did you give it a try further up the coast?

[liam78]

went to ballygally it got worst when the tide came up higher with weed on the line i move my rod highter up to avoid the weed but my trpod kept falling over because of the weed so win with both one lost rig no bites and no fish..

Yeah, you were probably right to move on Liam, I just gave the beach a go and though I got a bite or 2, on each cast I had to pull in a big lump of weed, no fun. Went to the pier for an hour and a half -2 small coley, a whiting( tiny) and a wee rockling. Bitter cold out there.

Did you give it a try further up the coast?

[cathalger]

I think the weed problem is because of the strong easterlies lately, hopefully with a change of wind direction it will all be moved on by the tide and we can look forward to some clean fishable water.

Wonder what this cold snap is going to do to the fishing?

[liam78]

looking at forcast for the few weeks it looks like cold frost nights dont mind that its the snow i hate.
i think the cod comes in and the famous pin whiting will be making appears.
should went to the pier today