with jordan off school for the weekend it was time to get him his fishing fix so a trip to portrush for an overnighter was on the cards. sadly the weather had other ideas. we arrived at the mark to discover a notherly had picked up kicking up a nasty swell around our intended spot
. we got set up on a higher (safer) perch to fish from but the swell was dragging our gear into the kelp within seconds of casting resulting in loads of lost gear 
we stuck it out for 5 hours with me managing 5 smallish ballan wrasse on rag and crab and jordan getting 3 pollock on feathers. he'd stopped bait fishing as loosing every rig on every cast was starting to melt his wee head 
. while i was packing some stuff away he hit a bite on my rod and got himself a wee ballan wrasse before we hit the road in search of somewhere better to fish.SATURDAY 19TH JUNE WATERFOOT BEACH 11pm to 1am
we drove round the coast trying to decide a spot to fish into the night and decided on waterfoot beach as our other intended marks already had lads fishing them. we thought we'd be quids in here at this mark as we've never blanked at it even during the winter months there's always something kicking about. but the northerly scuppered us again. we fished 2 rods each with 3 hook flappers and every bait under the sun including rag, lug, mack, mussle, cockles, clam, squid and razor. and would you believe it not a single sodding bite between us
. it was decision time and we decided to pack up and head home so we could try it all over again in the morning on the county down coast to see if the marks and weather would be any better to us,SUNDAY 20TH JUNE CO DOWN HARBOUR 2pm to 5pm
after a few hours sleep we were out again joined this time by mark to give a more local mark a go to see what was about. there was a mountain of bait to use up so it was 3 hook flappers all the way. mark was getting loads of bites from the 3 inch whiting who were expertly stripping every hook in front of them without getting hooked up
. he did land a couple of them and jordan was messing about with the minis between the rocks getting a wee shanny. i spotted a lad to my left land a mack on feathers so we changed over and did a bit of tinsel tossing for a bit as it's killing me to have to buy the bloody things for bait when i know they are in the lough at the moment. 30 mins spinning got me 2 macks and jordan 1 before we decided another move was on the cards to try for something else.SUNDAY 20TH JUNE NORTH DOWN ROCK MARK 5.30pm to 7pm
we arrived to find this mark full of bashers so bait fishing on the bottom was gonna be out as crossed lines would be the order of the day. my favourite spot had 3 lads spinning on it so we moved 100 yards to the left to give ourselves some room to fish from. mark decided to stick to bottom fishing with baits and me and jordan opted for a bit more tinsel tossing to try and stock the freezer. mark was being demented with lots of small timid bites and i got a treble of wee pollock on the feathers to start things off. we spaced ourselves out with mark fishing to my right, me in the middle and jordan to my left leaving a good 80 yards of space to his left again from the hoards of bashers. but as soon as i got 3 mackeral on 2 of them decided to bounce over the rocks towards us and cast clean across jordan to try and cast into where i got them
. poor jordan got squeezed out and stopped fishing, but i told him just to cast straight out in front as we were here first and not to worry. so the inevitable happened and the guy to his left tangled into him and i told jordan to rip his gear free as 50lb braid was no match for 12lb mono 
the guy duely lost the lot and got the message and cleared off. the fact that i gave him the trademark "eyesreilley" stare might have helped too . i ended up with another 2 mackeral before we packed up and headed for home on what was one of our most unproductive sessions in ages. but i was out in the morning with dan again so hopefully things would change for the better.MONDAY 21ST JUNE STRANGFORD LOUGH ROCK MARK 12pm to 6pm
with jordan dropped off to school i picked dan up and headed out to a mark i have'nt fished in ages. it usually fishes well during the summer months with wrasse and pollock available to good sizes
and some pretty decent conger too. to be honest things were pretty quiet with me getting 6 pollock, 2 ballan wrasse, 1 mackeral and 1 dab. dan ended up with a few nice pollock, a couple of ballan wrasse, 1 corkwing wrasse, a doggie and his first dragonet of 2010 
. i had higher hopes for this mark, but what we lacked in quantity we made up for in quality with a few nice pollock to just over 2 and a half pounds. it amazes me no end to see just how grossly anglers over estimate some of their catches. althow i gotta admitt i've fell foul of it myself recently only to have the scales prove my estimations well off 
what we thought were 3lb+ pollock struggled to make 2 and a half pounds i think as anglers it's just in our blood to hope everything is bigger than what it really is lol . the highlight of the day was when dan was clearing away and went to retrieve my conger rod for packing away only to discover there was a solid mass on the end of it. at first he thought it was snagged up. then the tip lurched over to resemble the letter " p " and a lot of head shaking ensued. the look on his face was priceless as it's a 20lb class boat rod and the eel on the end was far in excess of that. but sadly we'll never know as my knot gave out and MR conger returned to the briney depths with his prize of a mackeral head and a bronze 10/0 o' shaunessy in his kisser. but poor dan was left shaking pondering over what could have been if only i had tied a proper knot to the 250lb trace sorry man.TUESDAY 22ND JUNE NORTH DOWN ROCK MARK (again) 10am to noon
i did'nt start work until later in the evening so decided to try for some mackeral to stock the freezer. i returned to the mark from sunday hoping that an early morning session might elimenate some of the blue bag bashers and i was full of hope to see there was only me and 3 other lads on the rocks as opposed to the dozens of guys from the weekend. i never feel right when i'm out fishing unless i have a 3 hook flapper baited and out on the bottom. even when i'm spinning i get a niggleing thought in the back of my mind thinking about all the fish i'd be missing with no gear on the bottom and it payed off as i got diddly squat on the feathers. but 2 shore rockling and a wee red reef codling on the rag
. mark phoned me and asked me if i fancied a chuck at bangor harbour. so i packed up and headed on down to meet up.TUESDAY 22ND BANGOR HARBOUR 12.30pm to 3pm
we arrived to see there was no one on the back of the harbour and the tide had dropped down enough for us to get down onto the rails. mark only had the one rod with him and fished rag on a 2 hook flapper on the edge of the kelp beds. he was getting tormented with loads of wee bites from wee whiting who were doing a sterling job of robbing his bait while managing to avoid his hooks
. i followed suit and put out a 2 hook flapper and spun for mackeral. i had my trademark bell on the bait rod to alert me to any bites whil i did a bit of fluff chucking. i got 1 wee pollock and a single wee ballan on the bottom and a big zero on the feathers. i honestly thought i would have got a few mack, but belfast lough is a pretty big stretch of water and unfortunately the mack shoals just were'nt in front of us on that day.but we'll be back out again soon enough to chase them down
ye are a dedicated team you and jordan,some nice fish there,especially the pollock,as for macks,we had nearly a hundred on saterday night,so if your coming down anytime soon,dont bother buying mackerel 
every angler needs a da like you 
