Donegal Bay, Bad Friday, better Saturday, 18/19 April, 2014

[johnwest]

People:Just me

Duration:5 hrs Friday, 6 hrs Saturday

Tide:Flooding on Friday, 3 hrs ebb and flood on Saturday

Weather:Glorious, sunny, slight breeze

Bait:Fresh lug, frozen mackerel

Rigs:1,2,3 hook flappers

Results:Nothing on Friday, flounder and seatrout on Saturday




Report:
I haven’t been sea fishing for a while as I have been chasing trout instead but these two days looked more suitable for the sea. My usual lugbeds haven’t fully recovered from the 2012 Red Tide; the worms are back but still quite small, so I tried a different spot nearby which was unaffected for some reason. Unfortunately this bed is very flat and even at low spring tides, water lies on it making digging very difficult so with the worms being deep it was a big effort to extract 30 very soft worms. I needn’t have bothered, not a bite on lug over the 2 days. First mark didn’t produce a bite to lug or mackerel so after 2 hrs I headed to a different spot for the same result but as consolation I did get a dramatic sunset.
Saturday morning saw me head for the beach and first cast produced a 34cm flounder, decent length but a very skinny fish presumably after spawning. He seemed to be keen to get back to fighting weight as he had taken both baits. A short while later and a second bite resulted in a 27cm flounder, shorter but plumper. I thought I might be in for a good busy session but not a bite materialised for almost 3.5 hrs when a 22cm flounder turned up followed quickly by a 19cm flattie. This was followed by a surprise seatrout which I think took the bait as I was reeling in. At 37cm he wasn't a bad length but he was quite lean. A walker was passing by and his eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw me release the fish, I explained that I don’t have the necessary licence so I must put any seatrout back; “But if you catch them in the sea you don’t need a licence” Whatever. A short while later and a fifth palm sized flounder came ashore; by now I had identified a trend, the fish were getting steadily smaller, so I packed up before I caught an egg. Well, it is that time of year. All the fish came to mackerel bait, no interest in the lug but surely it won’t be long until a few wrasse show up.

[breamers boy]

Well done on getting a few fish anyway!


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[seabass88]

Nice one

[Deleted User 3488]

Nice clean Flounder lads, well done.