Just had an hour or two so decided to try a new mark (for me) which is a small beach surrounded by a boulder field, normally very shallow, has a small stream feeding it so was expecting to find flatties.
Ended up fishing it up to HW and just past it... Weather was changeable, nasty chill breeze and sheltered by headland,
Simple rigs - two hook paternosters baited with frozen sandeel, whipped onto long shanked 1/0s with a few floats beads on the top hook to try to keep it away from the crabs. Small pear leads. Was using a 12 foot light beachcaster that has only come back into service thanks to a new top ring - old one had a barely visible hairline crack that was opening during the cast and slowly eating the braid! Had resulted in two crack offs which made me finally look at it properly. Another hint about getting the eyes tested!
Nothing for the first half an hour - then some minors taps and in came a.... whiting! 23 cms. Lots of tiny black spots as per usual in Clew Bay. Minor surprise, had assumed they would be gone by now. That said, water is very cold due to heavy rains all spring. Was expecting a procession of them and that didn't happen.
Next, after countless rebaits from crabs, got a big smack and in came a sea trout - 28 cms. Released, beautiful fish in prime condition. Not a louse on it. Sorry no pics, battery on phone was down to 10%, won't work at low levels.
Nothing for a while and as I was thinking of tackling down, big smack and then nothing, thought I had lost it, only when it got into the shallow did it really go mad, and result was another sea trout - 33 cms. Released again, very surprised. Behaved very oddly, normally you expect them to go mad on the hook but this one seemed to do nothing until it felt sand or the rocks under its belly.
No flatties although using 1/0s might have prevented hook ups.
Tide has stopped at this point so decided it was not worthwhile fishing the ebb, so headed home. Very happily surprised, reckon it might be a nice spot for some lure fishing. Seems to be a lot of sea trout in reports, are we seeing a recovery?
Cheers
