Duration: 5pm to 3am
Tide: LW 6.20PM HW 12.35AM
Weather: glorious!! 3mph westerlys, dry and 10 degrees!
Bait: rag and mack
Rigs: 3 hook flappers. 2 up 1 down. all size 1 hooks
Results: 2 whiting, 1 dogfish, 6 codling, 2 coalfish, 4 plaice, 4 flounder and the porkiest shore rockling i've ever caught.
Report: well the weekend was here again and as usual all the plans were up in the air for as where to fish. my first intended spot in county down was abandoned as i would have had to have left the motor in a carpark overnight where boy racers tend to congrigate at the weekends
. i don't think i could have fished all night without worrying about the car, so decided on a handy fall back mark that always produces something up the antrim coast. no jordan this time as he got injured playing football in the morning again and was at home with his foot up on ice. honestly, he picked up less injurys at ju jit su. so i was off and as i drove up the coast the conditions seemed perfect with no wind to talk of and blue skies from horizon to horizon 
.i did worry thow that my intended mark might already be occupied by anglers given the conditions, but was chuffed to bits to arrive and see it free
. so the car was unloaded and me and the dog made it down in double quick time 
. as i got on the mark the inevetable signs of nicer weather returning was all to clear 
. feather packets, bait packets, pop cans, baby wipes, sweetie wrappers and a fully baited string of feathers all left at some lazy scumbag's arse was there to greet us. so after a 5 min clean up i filled a tesco bag with rubbish and made the place look more like a rock mark and less like a dump. honestly, some people need their attitude towards littering fine tuned with the back end of a claw hammer . i had no sooner got the place tidy and got bait in the water as 2 lads appeared to fish the mark. but thankfully i got in before them and they moved off to my left and got down to a bit of float fishing. i'm not sure how they ended up doing, but they left at 630pm when the light went. i was really surprised to get a few flats while it was still light, but a flounder and place did nicely before the headlight went on
. the only problem i was finding was that the crab population was out in force attacking anything that moved. and they were all brown crabs which was odd. i've never had so many of them in the one session from anywhere before 
. you had barely got the rod back on the tripod from casting before that old tell tale rythmic nod, nod, nod was visible indicating an eight legged bait robber was on your gear , but i suppose crabs have to eat too 
. they should all just count themselves lucky that i'm not fond of brown crab or i could have went home with a fair few pounds of them in the bucket. there was no small ones as they were all around the 1lb weight or bigger. the biggest one measured 27cm across his shell from side to side and honestly had me convinced i was reeling a huss in 
. sadly the crabs were the only things feeding for the first hour or so of the pushing tide, but then as if a switch had been flipped the bites and fish came on all at once . i was on bigger hooks tonight hopeing to avoid the smaller stuff by loading the hooks up with bigger baits but to no avail. it was all sort of run of the mill stuff and i know i missed more fish as they were just nibbling at the baits. as the tide picked up a bit the trace at distance was moving about a bit. even with the 6oz lead the rig was moving from right to left, but i just let it be as i was covering more ground and it seemed to help keep the crabs at bay while still picking up fish . while i was busy with the fishing my poor oul mutt cody was getting demented with the rats. every so often i could hear her growlling and tear off in pursuit of the furry fellas i would'nt fancy only having her to back me up if i was ever in trouble as she displayed all the heroics of an italian cruiseliner captain when she finally cornered one of them. she just stood there barking at it and it seemed to have more game than her. it reared up on it's hind legs, let out a squeak and lept at her cody duely turned tail and bolted and got behind me . the rat gave a wave of his paws (which i could have swore was it flipping the bird!) and casually hopped off across the rocks, no doubt off to tell his mates of his heroics . i tried a cast or 2 just below my feet to see if anything was feeding close in and was rewarded with the porkiest shore rockling that i've ever caught. this big momma looked like she was ready to pop and measured in at just over 30cm but the girth of this thing was massive
i tried to get a good pic of her to show how thick she was, but the pics really don't do her justice. but i did'nt want to mess her about too much and got her back into the water asap. after 2am things had died off with only a doggie and codling for an hours fishing so i started to do a tidy up of my gear and begin the process of packing away. while my back was turned i heard the bell on the top of the k2 give a jingle. i struck into a wee fish and began the process of reeling in. but i had noticed that the roller on the bail arm of this reel had stopped turning long ago and was stuck solid. i usually have this reel spooled with micro fine 35lb braid but tonight i was on 15lb mono. the repeated use of braid over years had cut into the metal of the roller and was shreading the mono. so i was only slowly reeling it in as i was over clean ground inspecting the damage as i went. then all of a sudden "thump" the rod arched over and something was tugging on the other end with a substancial bit of weight
. i only got bout another 20 turns on the reel when it went light and i knew i had lost something really decent . i half expected to reel in the rig missing a hook or complete snood, but was more baffled when the hook and snood returned in tact including the head of a wee codling 
something had well and truely munched this poor wee fella only leaving a bit of his head on the end of my hook. i was gutted as whatever it was had only missed my hook by millimeters . so that was my mind made up. it was time to pack away and go and have a good huff i'll never know what it was, but i'm guessing conger. something i would have loved to have got for my 2012 species list. but sure there's still all summer to go yet 
all in all not a bad session and it was just good not to be blanking again
. there was nothing big caught to talk. of but still fish none the less 
. but before too long spring will be here and the wrasse will return 