Me and James have been busy doing features the last 9 days and wow what fun we'v had! its been tough weather wise and fishing but as per usuall we nailed it! southwest ireland is such a gorgeous place to fish, what more can ya ask for that pure blue sea's fish literally everywhere and stunning coastlines its anglers heaven! we headed out with the Legend Nick Dent on the first day in search of monster pollack and cod on the light gear, we took our shore lure rods 7ft rods and 4000 size reels loaded with braid abusing jigs and grubs fished over the Fast Net reefs and rock ledges. the water was between 80 and a 140ft and had to be crawling! it was literally instantly into fish on the first drop! braid screamin off the reels
heres James lifting into one of the first braid melting runs off the Fast Net anyone who says you cant use light gear off boats is wrong! there is deffo conditions where its hard but as long as you have some water sense the fish are there to be abused good and proper and boy dont Pollack and Cod scrap on light lure rods! we had tons of Pollack to just under doubles all on our light jigs and grubs. it was the Delalande GT shads in the smaller sizes and Buster shads that truly came through with the results! coupled with Decoy jigs around 3/4 of a ounce to a ounce. it was cracking sport and i would be lying if i didnt say im addicted!
Not being one to turn my nose up at this sport i soon put down the camera and put the stomp down on these beautys..... between us we had 30-40 decent pollack to 9lb all on the soft plastics and it wasnt long before we lost the tide so out came the big gun rods the 20/30's for the conger and ling fishing! and after some funny rigging techniques shown by Mikey.H which worked a treat! we were soon into the fish! nearly 13lb Huss conger to 20lb ling to low singles your have to stay tuned to TSF mag for the full report and pictures.
the next day after a trek and a half we headed out on Nealy's boat out of Valencia as you can see above the weather did its usuall irish trick of pissing it down with rain but not being one to mess around i soon rigged up my lure rods and put on the Danny show for the cameras with action from the get go! we drifted casting distance to the rocks in 60ft of water loonking for structure it wasnt lomg before the fish came out to play! with this 6lb Ballan being the first decent fish to nail the jig's after a brutal fight it was released after a few piccys and again the rain pounded and pounded! we nailed a good 20 or so nice Pollack off this mark we moved on to what can only be said as the mother of all inshore Pollack marks...... after feeling a take on one of the first drifts on the drop and striking lifting into what can only of been a monster Pollack it comes off GUTTIN! but the next drift see's this corker showing
anyone who's done light shore pollacking knows how well a 6-7lber goes and when you nail doubles like this it really is a hold on for dear life style angling! they really do try and F%&k you up and after 4-5 steaming runs i still hadnt seen this fish i knew it was a brute due tonthe sheer power it had i pulled it pulled back! the water here is gin clear i got the Pollack under the rod tip, in about 15ft of water i finally saw it and panic sets in! one more run and it was over strate in the net! 11lb cant be all that bad! after a few more fish it was time to head in! again wait for the mag features for more details and fish! after this we headed off to the beautiful Beara
we stopped off at Kenmare in the hills of the Beara for a spot of Salmon bashin while the water was still running high fro recent rain! i think it was my second cast in the first pool this little bugger nails my flying-c spinner and wow what a heart stopping second...... if only it was 10lb heavier lol. but still my first Irish salmon dead chuffed! mean while Jimbo has the beast of all braid wind knots, iv seriously never seen anything like it ha ha ha . it was long before james was in and nails his first irish salmon too :-)
by this point the bass were calling us and who were we to say no to that! first stop was a spot tucked away fro the irish secret squirrel club on the Beara which no one knows about! thanks Mikey.H it was long before they were soon charging up behind the the soft plastic surface lures :-) but after a good few near misses and countless swearing from me and Mike nothing was banked to head off to Clon for the serious Bassing with local guide Allan i fished from the small boat with Pete and James stayed with Allan where they nailed 2 nice bass to 4lb on live eel where as i blasted out pollack after pollack on the hard baits Megabass X120's and IMA Komomo's i had fish to 6lb which again was a ball on lighter gear! me and Pete headed back up the beach to meet James and allan where i cast out my IMA lures for bass in the estuary, second cast and Bang!
a golden grey mullet....... from a distance i thought id nailed a small schooly but once i got it to my feet i could see it was a mullet! and it nailed my IMA komomo good and proper! while james rung Mikey.H we were told this was a seriously close contender for the Irish rod and line record!....... chuffed to bits but we later found out i was a couple ounces off, but still its the second biggest nailed and on a lure...... brilliant result! it was now time to trek off to Cobh in search of the monster Bass from cork harbour the second biggest natural harbour in the world! literally Bass central! on the first night it wasnt long before my Bass brain started churning and we got out with Kev and Howard (father son compo) and owners of the biggest fishing hotel base this side of the sea's. ill post up about these guys in the week . we headed out in the stunning Warrior 175's in search of Bass
This fine nearly 6lber was the first to show its face to a Cultiva shad and Decoy football jig combo banged out to the treeline you can see behing me in this picture. by this point we were both shattered as we had covered serious miles getting here it was time for Rum and coke! we steamed of back to the hotel for a well earned bit of grub and smash back some drinkys! i nailed three decent bass in the next sessions all over 5lb and the biggest being 7lb sooooo much fun and on the last days session we nailed yet another 8 more bass to over 8lb again watch out for the reports in features for TSF and Boat Fishing mags soon. ill post up more stuff as and when we deal with it. a cracking week with amazing people behind us big thanks to Micheal Hennessy, Paul Harris, Kevin Murphy and Jim Clohessy for the support and friendly welcome while me and James had a tough yet awesome week!
tight lines Danny
No comments:
Post a Comment