Donegal Bay, 17th and 18th, flats and wrasse.

[johnwest]

People:Just me.

Duration:3hrs and 4hrs.

Tide:17th, low tide;18th, low tide up.

Weather:Sunshine between some hail showers, very windy.

Bait: Mackerel strip, lug and hardback crab.

Rigs:1 up-1 down, float and pater noster.

Results:Flounder, turbot and wrasse.




Report:
Monday was beach day, the last time I fished this mark, almost all the fish came from very close in and I had considered trying very light tackle. So this time I came armed with a small multiplier, 12ft "Specimen rod" and 2oz weights. There was a very strong crosswind which made life difficult; big bows in the line even when short casting made it difficult to keep in touch with the terminal tackle. However, occasionally the wind would ease temporarily and allow the light tackle to work. The first bite came after 20 mins and resulted in a small flounder (18cm). The light rod certainly showed the bites very clearly and there was a temptation to strike immediately but flounder need a little time. A few bigger fish in the mid 20's turned up and you could feel them struggling on the way in. The best fish was 34cm, a plump 1lb 1oz, which came to the heavier 2-4oz rated rod; I would love to have got him on the light rod as even on the heavier one he was darting about in the surf while towing 4oz of lead behind. I will definitely persevere with the light tackle, especially on calmer days; it's much better than chucking out 5oz leads and reeling in every 20mins to see if you've got anything. After 8 flounder came a small turbot for a bit of variety and then as the sky turned threatening I headed for home.

Tuesday, having dug some lug and foraged for a few hardback crabs I decided to give the wrasse a go. I arrived at the mark at low tide and with the water being quite shallow, didn't really expect to catch anything at first. However if you're not in you can't win and I started fishing straight away. I tried legering with a simple pater noster rig and I could just about see the 3-way swivel in the shallow water. A couple of tiny pollack worried the lug before a succession of corkwing wrasse appeared. They are game little fish but they are little! After about 90mins as the water deepened the first ballan wrasse showed up, at about 1lb he was to be the biggest of the day. Last time I fished here the bigger wrasse showed up around half tide when there is a good depth of water, so I saved the crabs for then. Meanwhile the lug provided plenty of bites and more corkwings along with the smallest ballan wrasse I've ever caught. Around half tide I switched to crabs, a couple of soft crabs were torn to pieces by small wrasse but I hooked and sadly lost a really good fish on a hardback. This time the hook pulled free rather than the fish diving into cover. In total I got 10 corkwings and 7 small ballans and then the action just seemed to stop dead. An hour without a bite and having run out of crab I called it a day. After missing that good fish I will be back.

[chuckaroo]

nice flounder there JW, happy days
and a fine looking wee wrasse. another PB..

[magpie01]

Some nice fish there well done!

[joebhoy]

Great report and nice photos...! Well done

[liamemac]

really interesting fishing strategies nicely done

[leadhead]

good report & great fish'n.......
love that sunset photo

[sparkey+1]

Fair play Jw back on the fish and I would say with the light gear it was good sport and nice small wrasse.... Great pics as usual

[FisherKing]

Another good session John & nice pics, I caught a nice Flounder a while ago on a light spinning rod was very impressed with the scrap she put up.