March Report

On the 2nd I headed down onto the Mizen to fish with Mike Buckley. Mike had done a few trips since our last visit together. The fishing I'd say had been steady for him, without reaching the spectacular highs the venue can deliver. He'd had reasonable numbers and some good individual fish, including this immaculate specimen of 5:15, the second biggest I know of from the venue.

Today was going to be a challenge with peaty water following recent heavy rain and only an occasional swirl on the surface of which some seemed to be seatrout rather than mullet.

Bites were slow to materialise in my swim but I did eventually get a few fishing deeper than normally necessary ... first a 3:07 then a 4:04. Mike meanwhile was doing better for bites from a shoal of smaller fish in front of him. I think he finished with six mostly around the 2lbs mark.

I was delighted with my fish as they marked the 60th consecutive month in which I'd caught mullet ... a five year run! This was a target set by my good friend Pete Bluett in Cornwall about a decade ago. My first attempt to match him came to grief at 32 months with the 5km covid travel restrictions in the winter of 2020/21 but I got there in the end. It's an achievement but in context, NMC member John Shapland is currently on 61 months fishing mostly in Devon and Pete's current run is 71 months!

On the 4th, my first visit of the year to the airstrip strand at Bantry. It's a venue that blows hot and cold in my experience, and it certainly wasn't blowing hot today. I fished the two hours down to low with not a bite and baits coming back untouched.

Dead on low water a half-hearted bite produced a small dogfish and over the next three hours a couple of similar bites came to nothing. Just as I was starting to pack away my kit, at last a decent bite, and a fair scrap from a huss that went 9.5lbs. It was an unusually pale one for these parts with several healed scars and tatty fins, maybe it had gone a couple of rounds with a seal at some stage?

On the 6th I was up in Kerry to fish with Alan again. It was another slow session to start, then busier but all just dogfish till we each had a decent huss late on...

Mike and Jim fished the venue again a couple of times over the next few days, but the numbers of mullet present were well down.

I rather suspect the unusual level of angling activity they'd been exposed to over the last few weeks was to blame ... certainly they'd been becoming spookier, mostly holding further out from the bank and giving more delicate bites than usual. Maybe they'd just had enough attention, or maybe the winter season was drawing to its natural close, or maybe a bit of both. 

The lads did catch both days but only the odd fish or two each. Jim had the best, another 4:14, unusually for this venue on leger. Whenever I've tried legering in the pool there I've been plagued by crabs but Jim wasn't bothered by them so maybe it's a technique worth persisting with on days when it's quiet on the float.

On the 12th, Jim drove Sylvi and me down to Skibbereen for a nice evening meal with Mike in the Church Restaurant before Mike headed back to England with his motorhome.

Jim and I however had a last session on the 13th and we chose to give Rosscarbery a try, not least because the morning forecast wasn't great and we'd be able to fish from the back of the car.

Jim was already doing just that when I arrived but the water in front of the wall where he was was raked by the wind and looked devoid of fish. I went for a walk lower down to check the score in the shelter of the trees but there was no real depth on this neap tide and also no fish showing. 

I tried over by the bridge ... and to my surprise found a lot of mullet holding in the flow there, occasional fish breaking the surface. They looked mostly 2 - 3lbs with the odd bigger fish underneath.

I'd be exposed to the elements fishing there, but nothing ventured and all ... I went back to the car to give Jim the news and fetch my tackle and soon had two leger baits fishing in the flow.

I think the channel there must have been chocker with mullet, I was getting constant bumps on the tips but it was impossible to pick out what may have been an actual bite from the many liners. I decided to just sit on my hands till one of the rods pulled over, but an hour (and a heavy hail shower) later I was still waiting.

I'd chosen this day of all days to forget my float rod, but my Drennan Barbel Specialist quiver rod has done useful service before as a makeshift float rod. I hastily tackled up and first trot through the float bobbed then buried and I was in. Jim arrived while I was playing the mullet, 3lbs size. Over the next couple of hours we shared another six mullet evenly between us, all much of a muchness size-wise.

As bites gradually diminished on the float, I changed back to leger, fishing on the flats to the right leaving the channel for Jim who was still float fishing.

I soon had a good take. The mullet ran left

through the channel, a bit beyond float-fishing range, spooking a shoal of what must have been hundreds of mullet that scattered in all directions.

Jim left soon after to get some fish and chips before heading up to Limerick for the weekend. I decided to have a last hour fishing but in the event not five minutes had passed before my right hand rod heeled over. The fish ran out a little line, then kited left into the channel and the faster water, then put up a protracted resistance with its head down into the flow. I landed it eventually, a lovely 5:12, my biggest of the year so far.

I was keen to get back to Ross but had a lot of work on at the moment. The weather made the wait easier but there was a break in it at the weekend and on Saturday 21st I was back ... and enjoying my best session there for many a long day.

I fished by the bridge again where there were mullet showing but further out and apparently not in the same numbers as when I'd been there with Jim. I put out two leger baits, one straight out and one half left in the deeper, faster water pouring out of the lagoon.

It started off slowly enough, but I noticed I was getting tiny knocks on the baits when they first went out that then petered out. In my experience this is mullet taking a half-interest in the baits but not properly feeding. I hoped with a bit of patience they might turn on as the day warmed up into the afternoon ... and so it proved. Suddenly I was getting proper bites and most were hanging on.

I'd soon put three mullet on the bank, the best a nice 4:11. Then I hooked a powerful fish that headed into the deeper water in front of the bridge and found a snag, possibly a line snag as it seemed to have a little give in it. The fish was stuck in there for four or five minutes, I wasn't sure it was still on but then suddenly it was on the move again and all was well ... a lovely 5:02 well worth waiting for.

My fishing month went out with a whimper on the 28th, another day up in Kerry. It was a very short tide which was a risk to be fair, but even so.

I fished the couple of hours up to high water without a touch, then a couple of bites right at the top of the tide produced a doggie and a huss ... which was scarcely any bigger than the doggie. Then I fished the best part of the ebb tide for just two or three timid knocks that came to nothing. 

About 3.30pm I'd dropped a mackerel head close in, usually not a bad huss tactic. Today it remained untouched till just after 5pm when I'd started packing away my first rod. The ratchet clicked, clicked again, then a strong run developed. I knew straightaway what this was and to be honest my heart sank ... at the end of a long day I wasn't really up for another marathon scrap with a skate, into the dark, on my own.

I lifted into it and, yes, a skate. Two pumps brought it off the bottom before it knew what was happening, and then it went down. And the hook came out! Disappointing I suppose but I was sort of relieved, I just wished I'd wound that rod in first so I wouldn't have been chalking up another skate-fail barely a month after the last one.