The Mistress
Crew:Myself and Davy Mac
Duration:
7hrs
Tide:
down and up
Weather:
snowing/sunshine/cloudy and easterly wind
Bait:
Squid and Mackeral
Rigs:
running ledger
Results:After the weather we have had this week it wasn't looking to promising for the weekend, but I recieved a call from Davy on friday evening to see if I fancied a run out," What about the wind and snow forecast" I enquired Davy's reply was "I'm game if you are" so that was it days fishing organised. Saturday morning and the snow was falling as quick as the temperature on the approach from Bangor to belfast the thermometer in the jeep fell from a chilly 0 degree to minus 6.
On arrival at the harbour we were worrying about the slipway being frozen up but everything went smoothly bar the strange fizzling sound from the starboard battery and a wee puff of smoke when Davy turned the engine over prior to Launching
The plan for the day was to head straight out to the deep water and try for Blackmouthed dogs and spurdog at anchor. when we got to the mark the anchor was dropped and we waited to make sure it had caught ,first drop and everything was going well then the boat started to move, thankfully the anchor bit again saving having the hassle of reanchoring and possibly loss of the chum bag. It wasn't long before the doggies moved in on the baits, I managed to hook something half decent only to lose the wholelot when the braid parted on retrevial the end of the line looked frayed
retied a new rubbing leader and trace and back into the depths, I managed a small conger and then the next thing Davy hooked into something decent, on eventual arrival at the surface a cracking huss of 12lb appeared with a couple of doggies on the lower hook, unfortunately my line was tangled up in the middle of everything, the huss had done a cracking job of wrapping itself up in my braid cutting it in the process, 300+ feet of braid and another trace lost, I was not having a good day!The number of doggies increased as the tide slackened and then Davy brought in a nice wee blackmouth, it was we started to think about getting the doggie Grand slam of lesser spotted, bull huss, spurdog and balckmouthed dog all in the one session, all we needed was a spurdog. just before the tide turned I hooked into something other than a lsd going by the fight. a wee spurdog of 4lb broke surface, followed by a bigger 10lb about an hour later.
After that there was nothing of note bar the steady stream of doggies, that was until Davy hooked something with a bit of weight, 20 mins of pulling and hauling a gaining a bit of line back onto the reel it was decided he actually been pulling the boat across the tide against the anchor
after eventually breaking the braid we decided to haul anchor and head for home before the roads started to freeze up again.
