Duration: 16 h 00 - 20 h 00
Tide: high at 16 h 00
Weather: not looking good... then sunny afternoon
Bait: ragworms
Rigs: single hook (size 2) under sliding float, then not sliding when the first one was lost (not for everybody...)
Results: 5-6 pollacks, 2 ballan wrasses, 2-3 corkwing wrasses, 1 blenny, 1 goldshinny wrasse
Report: Full fishing experience, day 2 ! After a rather tiring trip to north wexford with mixed result, I decided to try a local mark easy to fish for the second day of Susie's fishing visit. Wasn't sure if Dun Laoghaire would produce something, but Alan mention it when I asked about a wrasse mark, so I blindly followed the advice of the master... and he was right, again ! We arrived when the tide was high. Few anglers were mac fishing at the end of the pier. Nobody else... well, weekday afternoon I guess... but still, not very promising. The small sailing boats circling inside the harbour made us move to the outer side of the pier, near the last bend of the wall. Beautiful view and no walkers to annoy us. I set up Susie's gear and try to set up mine, while helping Susie putting hers in the water. Just a ragworm under a sliding float. The start was slow, but then some nice sized pollacks came in. They gave a good fight on our light set up. I also caught my first wrasse, a ballan wrasse I think. The bites were very different, rather hesitant, but then the fight was impressive ! Two guys appeared at that moment and set up just beside us (2 meters beside us !) without saying hello or the usual angler chat... hum, I told them to go away, that the pier was long enough for everybody to have space. They weren't happy but moved a little. They used all the fishing techniques known to man ! They even used something looking like a lobster trap. We lost one of our sliding float. The tidal current brought it to them and instead of bringing it back to us, they used it to complete their fishing arsenal ! Without success... the copy cannot beat the original
. Somebody told us to move because a boat race was about to start and that they are going to fire a cannon. A small one, but they were wearing ear protections, so we took it seriously and moved. I had plenty of worms and tried to offer them to the guys hoping to get my float back. They declined my offer... Well, it wasn't enough to ruin such a nice fishing day, especially with that nice warming sunny summer afternoon. We tried a spot nearer the end of the wall, with no avail. Then we came back to the inner side. The end of the pier was crowded with mac bashers. We avoided them, sat on the edge of the pier and we dropped our lines just below our feet. We got plenty of small bites. Float fishing is very funny and perfect for Susie which was a complete beginner. Now she was doing everything on her own : she baits the hook, casts, catches and releases the fish without help. I got another plump ballan wrasse which really bend my small spinning rod on the way up the wall, I got another kind of wrasse (corkwing ?) too and I finished with a blenny, I think. Susie caught a smaller wrasse, maybe a goldshinny. Perfect for my list of new species. And also, Susie proudly brought back home one of her pollacks which was deeply hooked and didn't survived. Actually, it looked really big in our small ice box and she showed it to everybody willing to watch it.
