Duration: 10:00
Tide: Can't remember
Weather: Strong Easterly,Overcast, Dry
Bait: Lug, Mac.
Rigs: Muppets,Hoakais and Jelly Worms
Results: About 40 fish each
Report: Looked forward to this for while, but couldn't sail out of Red bay because of the winds,so we had to launch from Ballycastle, which was a pleasant change. Although we were stuck inshore, I new this coastline would produce results. 5 mins out and the first rigs were out. Most of the guys started with baited feathers and traces, but I decided to put out the flowing ledger with the Jelly worm, and a nice long strip of mac. It paid dividends for I had the first fish to the boat. A nice Coalie of about 3lb. Soon some reasonable fish started to come to the rest of the guys. As the wind strengthened around the headland, the boat turned on the tide, and as I was winding in my jellyworm nice and slowly, the first big Pollack,took hold and dived for the kelp, stripping line as it went. Fantastic sport on a 12lb boat rod!
I had another couple in that spot, and the boys were regulary now picking up fish. We then moved a bit closer back towards Ballycastle as the wind was whipping up those big waves around the headland, anchoring up, the sport continued, and everyone continued to have a reasonable stamp of fish, 4lbers being the average take, between Pollack and Coalies.
Getting hungry I changed to a set of large muppets and was happy to let them bounce off the bottom while I had my sandwich, but the action didn't stop, I had changed over to my 20lb class rod which continued to buckle over as the big Pollack took the lug and mac attached and dived for the kelp.
We finished the day off,closer to port,where the Coalies and the odd Pollack came fast and furious, for the last quarter, although a good deal smaller in average size there was still the odd good sized fish towards the end.
A great day out ,the 5 of us thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, even though the Cod didn't show, but tremendous sport was had all the same!
