Duration:5pm to 10.30pm
Tide:low tide around 8.45pm
Weather:beautiful
Bait:frozen and fresh mack
Rigs:one hook flapper
Results:Gurnard, Thornies, Dogs, Pollock, Mackerel
Report:With it being a good evening, I headed for the pier for a few hours. So with a full flask of coffee and boot packed, away I went on the short drive to Rathmullan.
When I got there, there was about 6 or 7 people spinning with feathers and a couple of fellas had a black bag half full of mackerel!
I setup two rods and since I was after ray, I used a one hook rig on each rod...I baited up and threw them out. I had taken my LRF rod and mini lures to have a go at the pollock that be around the pier, and that turned out to be great craic on the light rod!..there was also a few guys and a kid who didn't really seem to know how to control their leads!..I have no problem sharing the pier with people but I wish they'd have common sense not to cast uptide past me so they get tangled with me!..one time the kid, who was standing about 15 yards down from me, cast his lead by swinging his rod in a circular motion, waist height and as I glanced over, the lead whizzed past about a foot in front of my face and landed on the pier beside me before falling in on top of my two lines, cue the profanities!!!..
Anyway, I just kept an eye out after that! After 15 mins or so I was going to retrieve the baits to see if I had been feeding crabs or not when I got a knock as I was reaching for the rod. I lifted into it and fish on! It didn't feel big and I knew it wasnt a ray or a dog, and I was pleasantly surprised to see a wee gurnard appear, I think it's a red one because, well, it was red!!..
It went quiet for a while and then I got a mackerel on the light rod, great fight out of it!..then I got another tap on the tripod, up came a dogfish. Now this is when I had about 10 people around me looking at it, with kids screaming "it's a shark it's a shark", I wish they'd just clear out! So back it went with a somersault!..at this point this guy came over and started telling me that that was the first time he'd seen a dogfish taken there!...he mustn't be down too often then!
I had a few bare hooks return after that, and then just on low tide I got a big pull, ray on!!..it fought too, but I won, got it to the surface and had to hand line it up the side onto the pier. Now, I don't have scales but I reckon this ray is a PB for me, it was a brute, so I was we'll chuffed.
In between casts I was playing around with the LRF gear, catching small pollock which was great fun!..soon though I got another pull, smaller this time and when I lifted into it, it was heavy, but it was coming in. I called it, saying to a guy, that it was a tail caught ray, he asked how I knew that, and I just said that I know the feel of it and sure enough, a tail wrapped thornie surfaced. It was no where near as big as the first one! As the light faded on what was a beautiful evening, the feather fishers left and it was just me and two others, the dogs came on after that and I just a bit bored of catching them so I packed and headed for the car.
On the way to the car I stopped and fished with the LRF gear around the slipway, got quite a few hits, I reckon there has to be flatties around there but I'll leave that till another time!
All I all, great evening out, 5 species...not tooshabby!!..
