Ballycastle area, Co Mayo, Friday June 26 09

[hugo]

People: Myself

Duration: One hour or so

Tide: Low, right on the turn

Weather: Dull, sultry, humid, slight easterly breeze rippling an otherwise flat sea

Bait: Frozen sandeel

Rigs: various soft/hard lures and plugs, Jif lemon floats

Results: Nothing landed, but the satisfaction of confirming a theory.





Report: Went back to a small rock filled cove where I caught a 6lb 12oz bass last July. The locals had told me it was just a lucky fluke in North Mayo, but the place had the feel of a typical West Waterford bass haunt, so I was keen to find out if they could be found there with any predictability in the right conditions.

At low tide the place looks a nightmare, boulders and weed everywhere, just waiting to gobble up any lures mad enough to venture among them. At the bottom of the tide, a flat spit of rock is exposed that lets you walk out among the weed beds and cast beyond to clear water. I put on a small softie and flicked it out, and when it hit the water, a startled black-backed bass about 6ft inshore of it did a noisy about-turn and shot off to the left. I recast in the direction it was headed but it was gone under the thickest of the weed. But at least they were there...

After lashing the water in vain for a bit and getting regularly hung up on the brown-spaghetti weed, I switched over to the Jif lemon - clipped on the end of the line, not sliding, and with a short 2ft trace and 1/0 hook. Bait was a small frozen sandeel with my patent addition, a cod liver oil capsule impaled on the hook to leak an extra scent trail. I was still clipping things up when I heard a swirl. In the pool behind me to the right, in a barely couple of feet of water and only yards from the shore, two medium sized bass were casually nosing through the weedy boulders. Of course as soon as I stood up, they turned and headed back out. I chucked the float in the same direction and waited, and I think something nosed round the float itself, but there were no takers for the sandeel.

The tide was turned by this stage, and the rock spit was shrinking under me, so after a few more goes with different lures, I had to hop back to land. Disappointing not to get even a bite when you're standing right in the middle of the fish, but I'm happy to have proved that bass are now around on a regular basis in NW Mayo. Thank you global warming...

Incidentally, the one I caught last year had roe in it, and a stomach full of hardback crab. Maybe peelers on the float will do the trick.

[youngrod]

hard luck hugo

[gfkelly1969]

hard luck but still nice to know the bass are there

[davyp]

nice one hugo

I reckon that there is a fair distribution of bass on the west/ north west coast - I hear regularly of the odd bass being picked up , or spotted from south donegal right down to the south side of Clew bay. Like anywhere else I am sure there are localised pockets, but there is comparativly little angling pressure, and very few people that I know of that actually target them, I think if more anglers made the effort we would have a clearer idea of ditribution.

fair play for putting the theory to the test, and good luck for the next time

[hugo]

You're spot on there, Davy. They're just not known about round here. I heard a story about a local drift netter who started sinking his nets for pollock after the salmon ban, and one day hauled in 20 or so of what he thought were mullet. He kept two and chucked the rest. Yes....school bass!

I've taken to checking my spot every day at low water, and there was a bass cruising there yesterday in scorching sun and flat calm water. I've also seen one or two in the shallows directly in front of the Stella Maris hotel Ballycastle Bay. I'm just relieved I wont have to chuck all my bass gear from the years in West Waterford....

By the way, report date should have been June 26, not May. Blame Uncle Arthur.