House on the Sheep's Head
Not the greatest month for a variety of reasons but April did at least get off to a decent start with a mullet session at Rosscarbery on the 1st.
Francis McNeilly was fishing off the wall when I arrived. He'd had a couple of good mullet the day before but it was quiet so far this morning and there didn't seem to be any fish moving in front there. I decided to head over to the bridge where I'd had a couple of good sessions in March.
It proved a good move. There were plenty of mullet topping in the flow from the lagoon though they looked mostly small. I dropped two leger baits on the edge of the flow in the hope there would be some bigger fish underneath, and so it proved. I had plenty of bites throughout the day, landed five mullet in the 3lbs class and late in the day a chunky 5:10...
The edge was slightly taken off the day mid-afternoon when a minor angling personality and his youngster appeared wading out to float fish the flow from the other side of the bridge. They were no problem at first being well off to my left but they kept edging closer as they saw me playing fish. They ended up stood in the water maybe twenty yards left and about forty yards out from where I was sitting, just a few feet away from my left hand bait. I thought it was a bit off but I didn't want to get into a shouting match in front of the guy's kid so I fished a bit further to the right and hoped for the best. I landed another mullet then the inevitable happened and I hooked a bigger fish that kited left and tangled with a fish they'd hooked about the same time. Result: both fish lost. Even this wasn't enough to persuade them they'd encroached too near, but they did pack up soon after. We had words as they walked past but I don't think the guy cared at all apart from the fish he'd lost that was somehow my fault!
The next few days were rough and I didn't fish again till the 6th, an early morning session to catch the high water on a local beach mark. There was a lot of kelp on the beach and close in but I was able to fish fairly effectively with rods up high ... for a short while anyway.
My back had been niggling for a few days. Today it was getting more and more painful as I fished, to the point that casting became impossible and I hobbled off injured after about ninety minutes. I'd only had one bite, typically a massive slack-liner that dropped my line down into the weed in the edge. The fish was gone by the time I'd sorted it all out.
My back was really bad for a week or so and I didn't venture out again till the 16th, back to Ross on a blustery day with rain forecast to arrive late morning. It all looked pretty wind-swept and bleak below the causeway and I couldn't see any mullet moving. I settled for a swim on the east side of the lagoon where I could get the brolly up and fish down the wind. The weather turned out worse than expected ...
...and unfortunately I sat most of the day watching the waving quivertips with not a bite so far as I could tell.
Then late in the day, a little pluck on one tip ... nothing else so after a minute I decided to wind in and found myself playing a mullet. It was only a baby about 1.5lbs and looked like it had recently escaped the clutches of a cormorant with split fins and patches of scales missing on both flanks.
By the 18th my back was feeling strong enough to get the big rods out again. I headed up to Kerry on the offchance of a late spurdog. No spurs (again) but I was kept busy with dogfish bites most casts.
As the tide filled out the dogs slowed down a bit and I landed a middling thornback on a chunk of herring. Soon after on the other rod I had a good run on a mackerel head and lifted into a heavy fish. It was a struggle to keep it out of the rocks close in but eventually a massive huss surfaced. I've lost some beasts before that have spat out the bait at the edge, but I could see this one was hooked nicely in the scissors so I eased it over the rock ledge and lifted it out. It was a new PB exactly on the Irish specimen weight of 16lbs.
Soon after this trip, the wind turned east and stayed there for the rest of the month in various strengths up to near gale force. It's never good for the fishing.
On the 24th I headed back to the beach where I'd fished earlier in the month. The session was a success in the sense that I didn't have to carry myself off injured this time, but the fishing not so much. The east wind was offshore flattening any hint of a swell, and judging by the baits coming back completely untouched, the shallows had been emptied of crabs and shrimps. A single dogifish chanced by to save the blank.
On the 26th I spent the morning on a rock mark close to the village here. The wind was just a breeze now but possibly still enough to put the wrasse off the feed, if they were there at all. Anyway, I couldn't get a touch from wrasse on soft plastics, but I did latch into a 6lbs pollack on a purple Zman Minnowz, which was quite a tussle on my light carp rod and 20lb braid.
Once I'd decided the wrasse weren't going to oblige, I switched over to a Redgill on my bass rod, and had a string more pollack. They were mostly fish about 2lbs but I had another one over 5lbs. That fish had ingested the Redgill
way down so I kept it to eat. It had two herrings about six inches long each in its gut.
On the 27th I fished a rock mark on Sheep's Head with Alan down from Cork. It is a spot I fished a few times when we first moved here but I didn't do very well and had passed it by since. Alan and his friends had some nice huss there last year though so worth another look ...
... just not today. The gentle easterly when we arrived was overtaken by a south-west sea breeze, but the damage was done with crystal clear water and bright sunshine. No huss, just two dogfish for Alan and one for me.
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