Fish in Culdaff surf

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scrob
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Fish in Culdaff surf

#1 Post by scrob »

Myself and some friends visited Culdaff beach in Co. Donegal last night where the river meets the sea in the hope of catching some sea trout. We waded in to about the 1st or 2nd breaker and whilst spinning I noticed silver flanks in the side of the 4th or 5th breakers! The more we watched, the more fish we saw, riding the actual breakers sometimes 2 or 3 in one wave. We all cast our lures, krill and sandeel spinners all over the area for at least an hour but not one take. Eventually the visual sightings disappeared and we gave up..

I've never seen this before - what kind of fish could they be? Each of us had our own ideas - bass, salmon, sea trout, mullet?

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Re: Fish in Culdaff surf

#2 Post by red »

mod edit off Topic. Lets start moving away from quoting the rules for any post pertaining to Bass or Game fish....

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Re: Fish in Culdaff surf

#3 Post by Tanglerat »

Culdaff. Hmmm. That's an interesting one, come to think about it. Do the Bass in that area come under the Lough's Agency remit, and so the closed season wouldn't apply?

And if fishing at sea for Sea Trout/Salmon, I think you'd need the Lough's Agency Game Angling Licence, not the RFB/CFB's one.
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Re: Fish in Culdaff surf

#4 Post by davyp »

my guess would be sea trout, seen them in sligo almost beaching themselves they were coming in so close. can be feckers to catch somtimes, they seem to be on the move, jumping all over the place, but taking nothing. only advise i was given - was to change size of baits - very small mepps - up to large flying C and vice versa, , suppose it depends on if they are feeding, and what they are on - given that they will take a tiny trout fly - or a full fillet of mack there are a wide range of options.

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Re: Fish in Culdaff surf

#5 Post by scrob »

Tanglerat wrote:Culdaff. Hmmm. That's an interesting one, come to think about it. Do the Bass in that area come under the Lough's Agency remit, and so the closed season wouldn't apply?

And if fishing at sea for Sea Trout/Salmon, I think you'd need the Lough's Agency Game Angling Licence, not the RFB/CFB's one.


You are correct re: sea trout, just need the Lough's Agency rod licence which we have. We came down with the intention of fishing the mouth of the river but seeing as we didn't check the tides it was in about 8 inches of water and hence we tried spinning in the surf.

Maybe it's a common sight but I just found it unusual to see them surfing the breakers and darting about yet taking nothing. They were the size of a good sea trout/salmon but no idea what they actually were.
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