House on the Sheep's Head
The stiff west wind threatened to make mullet fishing on Sheep's Head very difficult, but I was keen for Steve to get his first mullet of his holiday under his belt. So the decision was made to drive the hour or so to Rosscarbery, known to be in some mullet form after Pete and Jen's trip, and offering some shelter from the wind.
We parked up alongside the lagoon. The water was a foot lower than last week after the neap tides and carried a brown colour. We fished for an hour but with no bites and it seemed pretty hopeless, so we moved over the N71 to fish the estuary outside the lagoon. The tide was low but we could see a (very) few mullet moving on the shallows well out of range.
I set up leger gear and welted out a pop-up crust bait as far as possible. Steve set up float gear to fish in the outflow from the lagoon, the only area with any meaningful depth.
On my third or fourth cast, Steve had just come over for a chat while we ate our sandwiches, and the tip pulled right over.
The fish came in easily at first but wouldn't come in the last twenty yards or so and made several short runs back out. Eventually it tired and I was able to bring it in to Steve waiting with the net. It weighed 4lb 4oz.
Good start but as it turned out that was also the last of the action on the leger.
Steve's turn now. Unfortunately his first fish came off after about ten seconds. A slightly forlorn head appeared over the grassy bank separating us to tell me.
However, he was soon in again. I heard some shouting, realised he was calling me, and headed over with the net ... 3lb 13oz after another good scrap.
Thirty minutes later, a repeat performance and the Chairman brought a chunky 4:06 to the net.
At this point Steve's bites dried up too. We fished on for an hour or so, then another hour or so in the lagoon to see if the smallish inflow of seawater had stirred the mullet in there into action ... but it hadn't.
Write a comment