Jim Clohessy of TopFisher.eu was out in some really incredible conditions last week…
Imagine the best weather day of the year was October 11th!
The frost was hopping off the boat in the morning but the day was dawning nicely… Paul and myself were watching the window and with such conditions we decided to head offshore – Back to the wreck that I had some fine ling recently.
The plan was to work this wreck and a couple of others with lures and bait. We’d hunt for ling and we’d also try search out the other species that have been scarce.
Mackerel were tricky enough. The water in the harbour is quite coloured. We eventually got “enough”. So we headed off cruising at a comfortable 22knts. It was not like the previous morning, there was not as much life around.
My standard wecking trace – 120lb line, Owner 8/0 – A bit of bling. Ling like bling!
We hit our first wreck and more or less straight away we were into fish. I was on bait Paul was working lures. Bait was productive, lure not. Each short drift was yielding ling into double figures with the odd runt thrown in. Paul even got into the bait!
Coming up to slack water I was in big-bait-big-fish mode. The drift was beautifully slow. I got a decent bite. I wound down and struck steadily into the fish. The rod, Abu Suveran 20lb, bent into the fish, for a moment I thought I was in the wreck as well. No, it was all fish so I knew it was a decent ling. I worked at getting it clear for the wreck, trading line at times and eventually boated my best ling in years – 23lb – delighted with a cracking fish.
Paul was suffering a bit from tackle loss; I was faring a bit better. We really didn’t have much choice to stop bait fishing. The cooler was getting full. We worked the wreck with lures. I think we can safely say this wreck is not a star on lures!
We worked our way back. Heading for some new ground to try but were “interrupted” by a few pods of tuna. The conditions were incredible. This was “blue planet” fishing. For a lot of the afternoon the layers were off and we were t-shirt fishing; superb!
Back to Paddy’s Point and a tidy retrieve. A bit of time filleting and basking in the evening sunshine, taking stock of an incredible day.
This was the sort of day that gets me through the winter.
