House on the Sheep's Head
The last time I'd fished this mark for mullet I'd lost two powerful fish that went to ground in the kelpy reef a few yards out and to the left of where I fish. Even though they took bread I was sure they were big ballan wrasse, so today I arrived with some more appropriate gear ... carp rod, 10lb line and sliding float to fish a limpet bait.
I was soon getting bites fishing about 10 feet down close in, and landed several wrasse to about 3lb 8oz ... point proved, sort of, but even allowing for the lighter mullet gear I think the fish I lost before were substantially bigger ... must try again. After the wrasse came a couple of pollack over a pound, also on limpet.
While fishing for the wrasse I'd been baiting with bread. I hadn't seen any mullet but as low tide neared I decided to change over to my mullet gear.
After a while I had a sequence of gentle bites that came to an end when I bumped a fish on the strike dead on low water. I think it was a mullet but I couldn't be sure.
As the tide began to flood I got some more confident bites ... which turned out to be mackerel. I landed two and dropped another one off swinging it out.
Then some more mullet-like bites and this time I connected on the second or third. The fish ran off shallow and tried to get into the rocks to my right. Once that crisis had been averted it came out into open water and I landed it about five minutes later ... 3lbs on the nail.
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