Duration: 19th 3pm to midnight. 20th 11am to 3pm
Tide: all states
Weather: calm, dry and sunny during the day
Bait: razor, rag, mackerel and sand eel
Rigs: modified wishbone pulley and 2 up 1 down
Results: ME - 3 doggies 2 coalfish and a turbot JORDAN - 1 doggie 1 ballan wrasse and a 1lb 15oz bass!!
Report:
MARK 1 DONEGAL BEACH 3PM TO MIDNIGHT
well the weekend was here again and it was time for jordan to scratch his fishing itch so a bass hunt was on the cards. we were gonna try the beach i had the 4 off the other week, but after blanking on it over 11 hours on monday a change of venue was in order. we scoped out another beach which looked suitably fishy and got set up as the tide was on the drop. we were sort of fishing blind as we've never seen this beach over low water so i was trying to read the surf to find where the gullys were. we picked our spot and got to it and for a change it was me who landed the first fish
. a doggie kindly obliged and snaffled the rag on my 2 up 1 down rig oddly ignoring the sand eel on the top hook and the belly strip of mack on the bottom hook 
. but it did give us hope that the beach had some fish on it as the first 2 hours were fishless. another 2 hours passed before another fish came in for me with a little turbo this time. the wee fella had eyes bigger than his belly as he managed to get a whole sand eel the same size as himself all the way down his gob 
. but poor jordan was looking at a blank 
. another few fishless hours passed before i had my last catch of the evening getting a coalie in the mid 30cm bracket. so i was happy enough, but poor jordan was beginning to lose faith in his angling abilities 
. i baited up and cast out again and went over to see jordan poised at his greys bze bass rod like a coiled snake ready to pounce . he reckoned he had a fish nibbling away at his bait and was determined not to let it get away as he'd been stripped to bare hooks on the previous cast. he stood there in the surf waiting for a solid knock and struck into the fish like he was trying to hook up into moby dick!! i was half expecting to see him reel in a rig with a pair of fish lips and nothing else attached . but to my surprise a porky looking bass came through the surf . i shouted to jordan that it was a bass and he stopped reeling and pointed his rod tip almost into the sand and began walking back up the beach panicing that it might get off. but his luck was in as it was perfectly hooked through the bottom lip 
. needless to say, jordan was jumping for joy as he finally got his bass for his 2011 species list and i was astounded that we'd found another donegal beach that held bass .we quickly popped the bass onto the scales and he came out at 1lb 15oz. even after a hopefull re-weigh we could'nt manage to get that extra ounce outta him to break the 2lb mark, but it was still a great achievement
he was quite a porky wee bass and a solid fish compared to the 4 i had the other week who despite being long looked pretty slender. so mabey the bass in this area had better food resources to feed on or something. jordan walked out knee deep into the surf and released him and we both rebaited and fished on hoping that there might be a school of them in front of us. but sadly this wee guy was swimming about out there on his own because after this no more bass, or fish for that matter showed. but we went up to the car for some kip happy enough in the knowledge that we had found another mark where we could target bass from
. MARK 2 DONEGAL ROCK MARK 11AM TO 3PM
after a good kip we awoke to blue skies and sunshine and that was all the encouragement we needed to squeeze another session in
. after a pint of coffee each and a packet of choc chip cookies we hit the road and made the way to our next mark. we have'nt fished this spot since the start of the summer so thought it would be worth a chuck just to see what could still be caught this late in the year. to be honest it was pretty quiet but we both caught fish and did'nt blank so we were happy enough . the highlight of this session was jordan getting a late season ballan wrasse. not too many of these wee guys still hanging about the coast at this time of year so jordan was chuffed. other than that we both had a doggie each and i had a coalie in the mid 30cm bracket again so no blanks this time. the doggie i caught looked like the happiest doggie i've ever seen. (you'll know what i mean when you see the pic ) and i think you were all right when you said i needed old lucky bags jordan along to increase the chances of catching a fish after my disasterous mid week trip away all in all not too many fish caught for the time put in, but no blanks and jordan finally got his bass. added to that the weather was great for this time of year
ROLL ON NEXT WEEKEND
