A Tough Cold Day

Well with a break in the weather on Sunday the question was were to go fishing!!!!!!!

I have been fishing fresh water on my last few outings so as the weather eased up I fancied a salt water session. I was determined to get out to a few good Cod marks that also offer decent Ling and Wrasse most of the year, Every time i attempt to paddle to these marks there has been an offshore wind, as there was again on Sunday. So my plan was to hang around the shore and find shelter.
Once set up and on the water I paddled out of Ardglass bay and around Phennick Point, the weather was great not much wind at all just a bone chilling breeze. Anchor down, bait on and the waiting game commenced..............................................................A long time later, NOTHING not a bite.
So up the anchor came and I headed out to sea, only to find the further i headed out the stronger the wind became as i was leaving the shelter of the land. That plan was swiftly scraped and back i came to the shelter. There was a strong change in tactics needed as bottom fishing was simply not working out. On went a Berkely fire tail lure for a go spinning close to the rocks, This proved successful on my first cast as I caught a small Pollock.

Things went quite again after this for a good while, but the main thing was i did not blank as I initially thought was going to happen. I paddled further up the coast a little, put my favorite rig on (Shamrock Tackles Bleeding Glow Worm Rig) which has yet to let me down, baited it up and started drifting over rough ground. It was not long before I had a hook up, and gladly things were picking up as the fish kept coming.

Small Cod

   Very small Mackerel

Another small Cod

After putting up with very poor fishing and the freezing cold for a few hours I packed up and started paddling back in the direction of the harbor.

When i was passing the first mark i stopped at i dropped the bait rod down to give it a quick drift before heading back to dry land for the day. Straight away i felt a thump on the rod and a dead weight, I new what i hooked as iv had a good few this year. Octopus, never caught any before and this year i think i am into double figures now with them. There seams to be a right few about for some reason.

As i released the Octopus it darted off, leaving a small cloud of ink.

Next drop of the bait i was straight into something a little bigger and to my surprise when reeled it up it was two Cod, and they were a little bigger to what was being caught.

   

It was a very long few hours on the water but turned out not to bad in the end with four species caught, There was a few boats on the water as well and between them they had 2 Mackerel all day, so that also cheered me up a bit as i was starting to think it was me that was the problem. 

It was nice to get out on the sea again as this time of the year you do not get many opportunities to do so with the weather, maybe I will eventually get to the good Cod grounds this winter if the weather allows me to.

    

     Until my next adventure

Tight lines...

October Pike

Well its that time of the year again, the winter is well on the way and the weather is deteriorating as the days go on. This makes it very difficult to get onto the salt as much as i enjoy it, its just not playing ball.
So resorting to fresh water is the only option, but as i haven't fished fresh in over a year iv no idea were to start or what to target.

It all started with a phone call from a friend David Smith who lives quite a bit further south than myself, he was looking for a part for his car to be delivered to him (A MINI ) he says its the partners car but ill say nothing more. Anyways he was going into the midlands to target pike and as it wasn't that far of a drive for me i decided to throw a rod into the car to have a quick go at them while i was delivering the part, i was pushed for time as i finished work at 1 pm and had to be home early so as soon as i arrived the bait was on and into the water.
The weather was not in our favor, it was blowing a hurricane and raining on and off, we had a couple of rods out with bait on them and David was also giving a few lures ago but the wind was making lure fishing extremely difficult.
Then all of a sudden the line starts whizzing of my reel, i lifted the rod and struck...........fish on.......
Brilliant Davids part just got cheaper lol he did not drag me all the way down here for a blank.
After a great fight i landed the fish measured it and released it.......... It was a personal best for me too at 100cms.

Well that was me Hooked on pike.......

It wasn't very long after we arranged another trip to the same location, two weeks later it happened as usual i slept in and on arriving at the location to find two parked cars i realized that the lads prob had landed fish and all.................so as quick as i could i got the yak into the water and paddled to the other side to find David Smith and Anthony Byrne. As i thought David had a couple landed and released and all. Things were slow at first and nothing seamed to be taking dead bait so change of tactics and on went the lures again things were slow and as usual as i was starting to loose hope Anto landed a fine fish. Not long after that i had my first hook up..................then it hooked of again......... not good for me, At this point i thought i might actually have a blank there was nothing else to do but to push on, i paddled back and forth, up and down the length of the lake for awhile trawling lures and even trying bait on the float without any luck.

Then BOOM pike hits the lure hard and i landed it for a quick photo before releasing it.

I all kicked off after that David had one shortly after followed by myself  with another.

     At this point the weather started to pick up wind was starting to cause problems and there was the odd down poor. It was nearly time to call it a day as i started making my way back down the lake i gave one final cast with the lure ( a green jelly shad) and hooked a small jack as i got him along side the yak i reached round for my long nose pliers to unhook him, just as i reached into the water to lift him out there was an explosion!!!!!!!!!!! Splashing and slapping i couldn't at first see what was going on then it all settled down to realize a substantially larger pike had nailed the little jack.

I had no idea what to do so i grabbed the camera and started taking pics of the commotion, o and in the process shouting and David to come over to see what was happening.

As quick as it all happened the big lady made of with the jack and that was that, i never seen anything like it before just seen pics and videos from it happening to others, so it was pretty cool to see it in person.

It was a great days crack and an unreal days fishing, it was also nice to see the lads again as we don't bump into each other that often.

Until next time tight lines.........  

       
        

Looks like im going to have to keep up with modern times, started of with Bebo then moved to Facebook and now the way forward seams to be blogging, problem is i havnt a clue what im doing so as for now i think i will do a bit more research into it and practice with a few posts.
So keep an eye on this space