Duration:17.30-10.15
Tide: LW at 20.30ish
Weather:Calm and mild
Bait:mack and lug
Rigs: flappers, clip downs, 8/0 wire traces (rotten-bottom running ledgers)
Results: Whiting, doggies, flounder, dab, mackeral, coalfish.
Report: Hadn't managed a session on the beach in a few weeks as I'd been too busy, mainly blanking, fly-fishing for trout so decided it was high time to try the salt again! I knew Jacko would be having withdrawal symptoms from the river too and was in need of a fishy fix so a few texts and a plan was hatched. Got down to the beach about 17.15 and the beach was weed free and the sea flat calm. I'd come planning to put out a tope trace so this looked good for a try anyway. Got set up by 17.30 with a flapper in close while I tied up a few traces. Had a decent mackeral (36 cm) almost straight away from no more than 20 ft off the beach. It put up a very good account of itself and I was thinking schoolie bass but wasn't disappointed to see a nice plump mack. Things were looking up! Fresh bait and hopes boosted that something a bit toothier might be around. Things were quiet for a while until a small flounder came in around dusk. Jacko got off the mark with a doggie so we settled in for a few hours. Fish were coming regularly enough throughout the session with a few species showing up, a nice dab for Jacko and a coley for me. The whiting showed up then with a few over 25 cm which hopefully means that the size might be up a bit this winter. At this stage the tope rod started nodding so picked it up to have a look. Turned out to be a trace I'd broken of earlier complete with a doggie attached, neatly lip-hooked and none the worse for being attached to a 5-oz lead for a few hours. Sadly that was the only action on the tope rod all night, which wasn't unexpected having done a bit of research on the topic but we shall be back!
All-in-all though a few decent hours on a lovely Wicklow evening and nice to have a busy session
was out last night myself further down the coast, and was kept extremely busy (mainly whitting around 19cm, but the odd one breaking over 25-6 cm largest of the night was around 31cm, flounder, dabs , and plaice made a show as well, but rounded the night off with the dreaded 5 bread rockling (winter is a coming). But interestly during the night a mate and myself on seprate occassions had decent size whitting bitten cleanly in half 
no notable tug on the line either (apart from the happless whitting)