Duration: 23 hours in total
Tide: all states
Weather: winds to almost gale force but dry
Bait: rag, mackerel, cooked peeled prwans, squid, razor, peeler crab and sand eel
Rigs: modified wishbone pulley and 3 hook flappers
Results: one single solitary flounder
Report: after coming off the back of the high of winning a comp at the weekend i had a good feeling about my fishing prowess and decided an off the cuff trip out donegal direction was on the cards
. i decided to to try 2 completely different areas for 2 different target species. the first was a trip back up to the beach i had the 4 bass off the other week hoping to repeat my success . but boy was i brought back down to earth with a bump 
after 11 hours and 2 cycles of tide in daylight and darkness all i had to show for my efforts was bare hooks and a soggy dog . i reckon the bare hooks were down to crabs as even the masses of bait elastic holding the prawns, sand eel and mackerel on the hooks was gone 
. so at 4am i called it a day and crawlled into the car for a kip to recharge the batteries for tomorrow's session. this would have been more easily done had i not had the bright idea to bring our pooch along for the trip as she was doing her damndest to curl up on top of my sleeping bag on my legs!! every time i dozed off she slowly crept, inch by inch on top of my legs . i must have woken up with dead legs 3 or 4 times before she got the message and gave up . i think the poor thing has seperation anxiety issues 
. by 10am the sun was doing it's best to break through the cloud and i got up and got the coffee on the go. so fuelled up an a pint of coffee and half a packet of orio's (breakfast of champions), i was ready to hit the road south down the west coast to my next mark. i had been reliably informed by 2 different people that this beach was fishing well for big flounder. so after an hour on the road i arrived to see i had the beach to myself. i made the trek away up the far end of it with cody in toe sniffing everything she passed which would'nt have been too bad apart from the fact that every time she stopped her leed yanked my hand and pulled the bait bucket out of my hand . so i picked a suitably fishy spot and set up for the session. i had the big rod nailed out as far as i could cast it with the pulley wishbone baited up with sand eel and rag and the 3 hook flapper at various ranges to try and find the fish. on the first cast the wishbone rig got a hit as i was baiting the flapper and a hand sized flounder came in on the rag. i thought this was gonna be a bumper session, so did'nt bother to take a piccy of it as i was after 40cm+ sized flounder. how stupid was i as it was the only fish in the 12 hours i spent on the beach . i really don't know what i was doing wrong. i tried all distances with various cocktails of baits but everything was coming back in untouched 
. i even resorted to cliping another 3 hook flapper on the bottom of the 3 hook flapper i already had on as i had over a kilo of thawed out bait to use up. even that did'nt work. so with plenty of bait i resorted to rebaiting every hook in 20 min intervals to be sure they were at their freshest putting out plenty of scent. but alas, to no avail. the fish gods had left me luckless this time and i called it a day and went back to the motor for some sleep. even poor cody looked depressed . but it was nice to get out and spend some time in the fresh air even if the fish were'nt playing ball on this occasion. but not to be too downhearted, we'll be back out this weekend somewhere again 
... 
. if anything had of been out there in front of me it would have taken one of my baits. i suppose it just makes us appreciate the good sessions all the more when you get a howller like that 
reading reports like that makes me realise how lucky i am to be living on the doorstep of such good fishing grounds