The fine weather is too good to waste so it only made sense that the kayak should be launched. Finishing work a little later than planned, Rory and I decided to have a go at the inner reaches of the bay once more. I wanted to head south and fish the Clare coastline in the hopes that there may be better pollock there but time was very much against us.
The bigger fish have not made it right into the bay yet and talking to a couple of charter skippers over the weekend confirmed this. Still, we could have a bit of craic with some of the smaller fish and Rory, a fly fisherman at heart, decided he wanted to try fly fishing for the smaller pollock. I was going to jig in an effort to locate the fish and then put him over them with the fly.
The first mark that we fished was looked at with the hope of it producing a few wrasse but again, the fish have not made it in this far yet. We headed out further and found a rocky, weedy reef that harbours fish. Almost first drop down say me connect straight away and the pattern continued with a fish or two on almost every drop. Unfortunately they were all tiddlers but I was happy enough that I was locating the fish for Rory. Unfortunately Rory didn't connect with a fish but he did become rather comfortable casting flies from the kayak.
It's hard to feel short changed when you get out on the water in conditions like that and this evening was no different. We decided that the summer weather had tricked us into thinking that fish should be there when in reality it'll be a couple of more weeks before they land here. Local knowledge says the same thing and it always pays to listen to local knowledge. I'm retreating from the salt for the next couple of weeks in favour of freshwater. There is a roach run imminent and I am keen to try and intercept it.
