Duration: 2, 7hr sessions
Tide: fished over HW
Weather: 17th great
dry and settled. 18th torrential rain and 15mph NEBait: rag, mack, sand eel and squid
Rigs: 2 up 1 down and flappers
Results: coalies, pollock, mackeral, flounder, dab, whiting, ballan wrasse, corkwing wrasse and a john dory!
Report:
FRIDAY 17TH SEP WATERFOOT PIER NOON TO 8PM
with work, weddings and a dose of the flu and a chest infection my fishing has taken a bit of a hammering over the last 3 weeks
. so a session at a tried and tested venue was on the cards to get back into the swing of things again . i also had a new toy to try out as i treated myself to a salt long surf 3 piece 14ft rod recently 
. so no better way to christen it in with a few fish than a trip to waterfoot . we arrived at the mark to find only 2 other anglers at it, so there was loads of room for us to set up a rod each at distance and a rod each just flicked out over the edge. from the first cast it was apparent that the shoal of wee coalies were still swarming the end of the pier. so i decided to have a bit of craic with them on the spinning rod letting the drag right off so these 6 inch wonders could strip some line off and put up a wee fight 
. this was great right up to the point when i got hit by a mackeral who tore off out to sea with my rig. it was great fun playing it on the light gear and good to get some fresh bait too 
. the wee pollock and coalies were hammering any bait within 40 yards of the pier and we must have had 60 between us in the session. there were a few times when something else got a chance to hit the bait and a few flatties were landed, nothing big. but still nice to get something different. i was really impressed with salt rod and could add a good 20 yards on top of my usual casting ability. i was fishing it with a reel loaded with braided line and even at the extra distance i was impressed with the bite indication. now i don't know wether to put it down to the extra range or pure luck. but i noticed a few good knocks on the rod and connected into a fish that turned out to be a john dory!! i could'nt believe it when it came to the surface and my mate safely netted it and got it up on the pier. really amazing looking fish, and spikey too 
. when i went to unhook it i noticed that it had taken a 3 inch whiting who had managed to impale it's self on the bottom hook 
. so i was live baiting without even knowing it . so another new species for the list . needless to say i went home very pleased with myself SATURDAY 18TH SEP DONAGHADEE HARBOUR 1PM TO 7.30PM
we decided to stay local this time to use up our left over bait from the day before. with torrential rain forecast i reckoned the harbour would be a safe bet as surely no one else would be mad enough to be out in it. sure enough we arrived to find an empty harbour and got set up with 2 spinning rods each. there were loads of bites but nothing was hooking up so i dropped down from 1/0 hooks to size 2 to see if i could nab one of culprits and sure enough a steady stream of wee coalies, pollock and wrasse all came in falling to the rag. nothing of any size, but good craic any way. i think the biggest fish was a 1lb ballan wrasse and a few of the coalies were nudging a pound. about half way through the session wee dan from millisle and his mate turned up and had a good run of wrasse and coalies. i think he's fishing a comp at benone today, so good luck kid
. not a bad weekends fishing at all. but the john dory was the icing on the cake for me (on the new rod
) as i'm sure it will be a few years before i see one again.
