Shannon estuary-mon 22nd august

[bigkev]

Retrieved the boat from kilrush marina to clean 10 weeks of barnacles from the hull. Should be easy we thought
Two back breaking hours later, after much crawling under and around the boat,the jet wash had finally cleared the buggers back to the shiny hull
Wrecked today !

Got the boat back in and launched to meet the fllooding tide at littor strand. Mackerel appeared very scarce on the usual drifts, but after spending an hour catching 9, we set up at the tope mark. With baits out, I dropped a set of feathers only to find the tope mark heaving with mackerel, typical!!

The tope appear to have spread out across the estuary now and are thinner on the ground. Knocks on the rod, just like a doggy kept leaving just the head of the mackerel.Switching to a tiny joey bait landed the culprit.A nice tope of 34lbs .

With the fishing being slow, we upped anchor and skipped up to moneypoint
The weather was great with a very light northerly and sunshine
Again I failed to meet any of the bass moneypoint is famous for. But the conger fishing was quick and dramatic
A small conger of 10lbs was followed by a tussle with a much bigger fish, which broke my 30lbs braid. Again!!
After which I switched to my penn "winch" with 50lbs braid. And proceeded to land strap after strap with the largest going 15lbs
I never learn! Next time I'm starting with the heavier gear!!!
Good day out, with the boats top speed back up to 29knots with all the barnacles and crap off the hull
Kev

[pete]

29knots is bleedin fast! What kind of do you have Kev, cant quite make it out from the picture.

[bigkev]

Predator 160 with mercury 60 2stroke on the back
http://www.douglas-marine.co.uk/PredSite2/predator.htm

Small, basic and with excellent sea keeping qualities

But now I want a bigger one!

Kev

[pete]

She looks a fine boat. The more time I spend on these bloody forums the more I want a new boat :cry: