Duration: 2-3pm, Saturday 9th Mar
Tide: Flooding - full around 4, reasonable sruf, coloured water
Weather: SE breeze
Bait: Frozen crab
Rigs: 3/0 pulley pennel
Results: 1 specimen bass
Report:
My 5 year old and I arrived to the slipway in Ballinwilling for an houur or two's ray fishing towards the top of the tide last Saturday, armed with some re-frozen crab, my old TDPK rod, 525 mag and my son had a small spinning rod with a rolling lead on, thoughts of a flattie or so close in. We fished off the slipway out of the back of the car (handy to keep little people warm and/or entertained...). I was lamenting forgetting bait elastic and was playing with my son only to turn around (3rd cast in) to see my rod after falling out, down on the rocks under the fence, being pulled out to sea by something.... Thankfully i couldnt find my wellies that morning and brought the chesties - down I went but the rod was too far out to reach and the waves were high and I was getting soaked... pegged it back up to the fence, stole my sons rod, tied a 5ounce gripper to the line (10lb strain!) and aimed for the beachcaster, now separated into its two sections and about 30yds out. 3rd cast i hit it (amazingly) and started to pull in - the line 10lb line and spinning rod worked hard, fighting 2 large leads, a Daiwa beachcaster and a penn 525 - plus some unknown fish on the other end!
About 15 mins later i managed to get the 2 parts of the beachcaster in and miraculously the fish was still hooked and fighting hard - I managed to get him into the boulders, thinking it was a decent ray or something as we'd ahd no other bits on the earlier casts... I was well and truly soaked, head to toe now, inside the cesties an' all...
up came the fish - my PB bass, and first specimen, weighing it at 11lb and measuring 70cm nose to tail. Was badly hooked unfortunately after all the drama so it came home with me - id much preferred to have released such an old fish. Cracking day - havent fished that slipway for 15 years and had planned on fishing the stream above it, but felt lazy. Good thing too!
John
congrats on the PB!
