A bash in the shelter.

Hi all,
With this brutal weather of late sure where else could you go but hide in the shelter somewhere for a few hours, and with a bit of luck snag a few decent fish.

Forecast 15mph gusting to 25mph.
Ye that was the forecast and not weather to be heading out. But the wind was coming off the land I would be very close in, also no more than 1/3 of a mile from Culdaff pier.
So no swell running up the slip it was a stations go.

Great to be out.
I headed out and it was great to be out, I seem to have done very little this year with the poor weather.
I have only been out 3 times out deep this year, normally I would be on at least my 15th trip.
Well on out I went and I noticed a mark of fish near the bottom.
So I dropped a set of silver euro champs on and thankfully I got 2 cracking sandeels.
Which was handy as I had my new live bait contraption with me, another project from the shed.

Unlike most other areas around the coast drifting doesn't really work here, for a couple of reasons.
1. the patch of ground is very small so your off the ground in no time.
2. It catches the wind and the tide sweep you over the ground even with a drogue.

So anchors away.
It was a day for experimenting, The livey tube was sitting along side keeping the eels alive and I had some new 12g lead heads with 1/0 hooks baited to try out on the sand as using them on the light bass rod there great craic.
This is how I bait them. Stick the hook in and out the length of the hook down the bait.

 Then simply elastic thread it to the base of the lead head. Making a great bait with lots of fast action.

So the baited lead head was lobbed out across the tide and allowed to do its stuff in the tide as the chop jigs it as it pulls around in the tide.
The 2 main rods where put down, one with a standard 3 down rig bait with razor, mackerel and big juicy rag [can't fail lol]
The other a 2 down rig with 2 lumps of mackerel under the camera  hoping for ray.
Now with 3 top notch flattie baits down you'd expect it to be devoured first. But oh no in true dab form a whopper dab nailed my ray bait and on camera. I was amazed he took a big lump of mackerel before fresh rag and razorfish.

A whopper of  a dab, I was delighted.
It was a day of odd happenings as a short while after the light rod with the jig head got a rattle and again a cracking dab.

So those good dabs where great to see but there was no sign of any plaice or ray. But thankfully 1 of them turned up. Also on camera, I think the rays are one of the best fish to watch taking a bait. they just pounce on it when they find it, shuffle around until there mouth finds it and then scoff it.
This is one of 2 I had.

So by now I was having a ball and apart from the ravenous doggies making life hard to find more flats, even with all worm and razorfish baits they where still on them in a flash. The light rod with the jig head got a good rattle and a nice scrap resulted in a tub gurnard.

There was more to come a double shot came to the surface with a doggie on top and a nice brown diamond shape directly behind him,
Oh yes a turbot another I had hoped to see but they are scarce around here. Unless your beach casting.

By now the tide was getting up and the doggies kept coming and a mass of brown crab had descended on my gear. I was catching so many I kept a bunch on the kayak to see if they where the same one. But no there where heaps of them. They where so bad at a tme one even came up holding on to my lead.

So between doggies and brown crab it was time for home.
Home I went quiet happy with my inshore sheltered session.
Lets hope the weather settles soon and we all get out to where we want to fish.

So tight lines and thanks for reading.