Duration:7pm - 1am
Tide:Rising
Weather:Calm with a fresh South Westerly
Bait:Fresh and Frozen Crab
Rigs:Pennel pulley with 3/0- 4/0 hooks
Results: A lot of Hounds.
Report:
Right lets get the Hounds in, and out of our system for another year. Here we go :
Fresh and frozen peeler crab acquired, pennel pulley rigs tied, reels and line inspected it was time to convert a once non believer into a Hound Junkie....`
The phone rings out, sleeping beauty, sorry Crevan
must still be asleep, on we drive.Myself and Barry arrive on location and get set up on the start of the rise. High water was into darkness and along with the calm sea conditions, the fishing looked promising. We both sent a juicy crab bait out after we dusted off the old bait fishing cob webs and slotted back into the old routine.
As I was running down the various bits of gear with I had with me, I noticed that the battery on my camera was fully charged but I had left the memory card at home....If you ever need an omen for a great nights fishing, well that is it. The internal memory is non existent on this camera BTW ( Fuji Film XP 30 )
On with the fishing, I managed to tempt 2 illegal bait robbers who were quickly released back into the depths ( see ye next week
) Crevan arrived soon after and was visibly refreshed from his siesta.History Lesson 101
Crevan is a Lure man by trade, bait fishing is not really his thing if the truth be known...as he informed us a few weeks ago when we mentioned a smoothie session.
Now I gave him a jolly good pep talk on the merits of bait fishing in relation to Smooth Hounds and their fighting ability in relation to our other local sea species etc. Anyway...... I dont think he was too too convinced, one will learn
Anyway no sooner did the sand man have his bait in the water, the cheeky fecker hooked and battled a Starry Smooth to the shore behind my back , which swung the scales over the 6lb mark. Fantastic fish, and the non believer now had a buzz even Red Bull couldn't match.
Unfortunately I did not have the memory card to grab a picture of the action, theres always tomorrow though.
A Man Converted
As I type, himself and the Interceptor ( Young Pat Gahan ) are back out again chasing the Hounds and I am led to believe he is wanting to accompany myself tomorrow night when I go chasing them. I wonder who has the bug now........
The Interceptor Arrives
Young Pat Gahan takes one for the team and donates a memory card to me just as the pack of Hounds come on the feed. As I set the camera up, rods begin to be lifted out of tripods left right and center......get some !!! ...this is what its all about.
The Main Event
As Hounds hunt in packs and generally don't hold back when attacking a food source you can understand the next 2 hours is a bit of a blur.The madness begun seeing Barry kick off proceedings with a fine fish ( don't know if it was weighed, too busy running up and down the beach taking pictures! ) I went back to check on my rod and noticed the line was way off its original location and the spool of the reel was looking a lot lighter. I tightened the drag and engaged the fish who fought well for its size and after a couple of minutes it broke the surface around 50 yards out in a semi jump tail walk effort. Great Buzz as Crevan and I watched it fight to the shore.
Pat was next to do battle with a fine Hound, the fish gave him a serious fight and brought him on a little walk up the beach!
The fish was eventually landed and hit the scales at 8lb as Pats eyes lit up
Time for a double hook up as Crevan and Pat strike into another brace of fish a couple of hours off high water.Time for a triple hook up, the baits were being attack as soon as they hit the sea bed at this stage, 3 rods arch over as the craic reaches fever pitch.
I put the camera down after this Hound was landed as it became a bit ridiculous running around with not a drop of Red Bull on board! We stayed until the top of the tide when the bites stopped as the pack had moved through. We used both fresh and frozen crab, which had similar results. Majority of fish were hooked at distance and takes varied from small plucks, slack lines to tripods being pulled over when drags were not set correctly. I have no idea how many we caught in total, as I lost count of the ones I caught after a couple of hours.
There is a few more pictures on the Blog if interested.
Danny.
