With the supposed good spell in the forecast, Micheal and I decided to have a crack out deep for some early beasts. The tides were obviously big but it was worth a try to see what we could catch during the few hours when the tide wasn't so strong.
So out we went but not only was the breeze a lot more than the forecast we could see a huge swell running were we wanted to fish. So we anchored up and fished for bait and whatever else was about.
Very quiet.
It was quiet where we were trying so we decided to try a spot which I believed to be a steep rise on the edge of a reef. So I hauled anchor and dropped on the mark some 3/4 of a mile from where we were.
This mark was 105ft deep so I was hopeful of some spurdogs and all the usual hard ground species. Though like the other mark it was very quiet and with a bitter cold breeze holding us across the tide it was far from pleasant out there.
GOFISH camera.
As said above it was not to nice out there so I thought I would try the Gofish camera down to see what was knocking around down there. I put 6ft of line from my camera to an 8oz ball lead with a small coalie flapper about 2 ft off the bottom to see what I could attract into the view of the camera.
The idea of this was that I'd give it ten minutes take it up and since this camera has WIFI I could connect to my phone to see what was down there. Now, remember I thought I was on a reef and on the `Navionics charts the nearest symbol to it marked rock, I was sure I was fishing a reef.
The pink circle is where we fished and the yellow circle is marking the nearest bottom type. R means rock so we were surprised what would soon happen.
Well when the camera came up, and when I checked the camera we were on pure clean sand although I could clearly see a few decent flat fish attacking the collie.
Rig change.
With that, I changed my rigs more suitable for flatfish and I was instantly catching dabs, I had a decent few in a short time. I didn't notice at that time that one of the better dabs on the gofish camera had a distinctive piece out of his side fin I had actually caught.
Conditions not getting better.
With conditions not calming or warming up, we decided to cut our session short as we had an early session planned for the next day. So in we went, some new knowledge of a mark that could be very fruitful in the warmer months. There is bound to be some nice rays and possibly an odd turbot on it later in the year.
Day Two.
The plan for day two was to get out early and see what we could catch with the promise of calmer weather. Though that was before a kind offer of a BBQ with Mark and Tommy of seafishingNI.
Very nice it was too, thanks lads. With no alcohol consumed, we were fresh for the next day lol.
6AM,
Six am was not long coming and we were up and out catching bait by seven o'clock.
Thankfully the wind had eased but the tide was roaring past our proposed mark so I decided to anchor out of the worst of it again. Though the tide had come and gone the fierce tide had not settled enough for us to get near the marks we had planned to fish.
By now the tide had seemed even worse so it was time to move somewhere safer as we were not holding bottom with 8oz of lead.
Hauling a stuck anchor in a fierce tide.
It was time to haul the anchor but as usual, the anchor was stuck solid and after many tries, it was not coming. I normally haul it across the sole of my shoe but this time with the tide so strong and the swell the anchor line sawed threw through the sole of my crocs.
No big deal really but the anchor was not coming up so, unfortunately, this time one I had the reel in my hand the anchor chord had to be cut.
We had caught plenty of mackerel and most of the mackerel were really good ones except for the one I took a photo of, losing the anchor brought our day to an abrupt end. It is too risky offshore without an anchor off the northwest coast of Ireland.
With kayak angling, there is always something to make the paddle home seem shorter, its either gannets diving, guillemots bobbing about or strange sunfish slapping its unusual fin around as it suns itself on the surface.
This time we were lucky enough to paddle past three basking sharks.One beast and two smaller ones.
Unfortunately, they didn't stay on the surface long enough for us to get any photos, but it was great to see them.
Thanks for reading and until next time paddle safe.
