rockmarks around clonakilty, 16-6-07

Message

#1 Post by **lumpy** » Sat Jun 16, 2007 9:09 am

People:me

Duration:0445-0800

Tide:hw @ 0700

Weather:overcast with a gentle w/nw breeze(perfect)

Bait:fly

Rigs:

Results:1 1lb bass

Catch and Release:: Yes

Report:

with the tide looking perfect for an early morning trip i decided to try and open my bass season in style.with the inclement weather we've had the last week i had an ocean of new flies tied up which i was itching to try...left the house at half 4 to try a spot Ive fished a few times with irregular success.its the kind of spot the if you hit it right can be awesome but at the wrong time you may as well be fishing in a puddle.on arrival there was a relatively large oceanic swell breaking which was gonna make life pretty difficult.this was realized when a wave broke on the rocks in front of me, shot 8 feet into the air and drowned me, just what you want at 5 o clock in the morn. i fished on here for another hour without as much as a sign of a fish. it wasn't too difficult to guess where the fish were tho because half a mile away there was about 50 gannets bombarding a shoal of bait-fish and i can pretty much guess what was under that shoal, Mr bass methinks.
with the fishing poor at this mark i decided a move was necessary, as the tide was pushing and i was anxious to get a fish i decided to move back to a mark near town. this is where i took my first bass on the fly and has always been good to me. on about my dozen cast i had a very solid take, which i missed, i let the fly sit, gave it 2 tweaks and BANG everything went solid.the fight lasted about 2 Min's as the Little bass was a wee bit out gunned on the 10wt outfit but still for a juvenile gave a good account of himself.i fished on but only had 1 more missed take and the tide had gone past its optimum time so i called it a day, or morning.....oh and the bass took a blue DNA bait-fish pattern.i can put up a pick later if someone wishes.

also forgot to say that there seems to be a vast amount of bait-fish in the water as further out to sea there was a huge flock of gannets bombarding another ball of bait-fish.

#2 Post by **lumpy** » Sat Jun 16, 2007 4:36 pm

went back out at 11 to fish the low water period of the tide over some exposed reefs.began with a baitfish imitation but had no joy so put on a size 6 white gurgler pattern.second cast i covered some mullet that were sitting on the surface, one strip and a nice bass took the gurgler. it shot off on a 10 yard run, taking me into the backing. this continued for about 5 minutes with it sulking, me gaining line and it running again.finally i was able to lip it, estimating it to be around the 3 1/2 lb mark (52cm).missed one more before retiring home to watch the rugby. all in all a nice start to the bass season, hopefully it may continue

Deleted User 689 · #3 Post by **Deleted User 689** » Sat Jun 16, 2007 5:43 pm

Fair play neil nice fish

#4 Post by **pete** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 10:20 am

Great to be bass fishing again Neil! The two lads and myself had five on Saturday morning and another two late yesterday evening. Biggest would have been 4 1/2lb. Seemed to be lots mixed in amongst the mullet on any of the marks we visited, although the lack of larger fish was dissapointing.

#5 Post by **lumpy** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 10:36 am

ya was good to have a bend in the flyrod again.pity about the larger fish alrite. was dissapointed about the first mark i fished though, was certain they'd be fish moving down their.interesting about the mullet though, the second bass i got was from a mark where you have loads of exposed gulleys and kelp beds at low water, these were stuffed with mullet (mostly about 3 inchs long). seems that the bass were sitting beneath these, possible waiting to ambush them.theres a huge amount of small mullet up the estury which would be the perfect size for a bass to take