House on the Sheep's Head
A couple more mullet trips to Rosscarbery to report on.
The 28th was a fresh day punctuated by squally showers so I settled on the shelter of the west bank. The tide was well down when I arrived and no fish were showing close in, so I set about legering at maximum range.
I was surprised to get a good take on only my second cast. The left-hand rod pulled right down but my strike met with no resistance ... I wound in to find a small scale on the hook point from around the mullet's mouth parts.
Things went very quiet after that and when the water flattened off occasionally between the squalls I could see just how few fish were present, just a couple of small groups as far as I could make out and mostly staying well beyond my casting range.
It was well into dusk and with the water now well up some four hours later before a mullet finally found one of my pop-up crust baits. I struck at a persistent knock on my left hand rod, and after a determined if unspectacular scrap landed this thicklip of 3lb 1oz.
By contrast, this morning was mild and calm and foggy. I arrived soon after the early morning high water, but despite the extra depth after a biggish tide there were still no fish moving close in ... so I was back on the leger.
There was more fish activity visible on the surface today, but still it was an hour before there was any movement on the tips. I struck a repeated twitchy bite on the right-hand rod but missed it. I had the line half way in to rebait when the left-hand rod pulled over and a mullet swirled out where my bait was ... but it was off before I could pick the rod up.
A few minutes later, the left-hand rod pulled over again, and this time it was fish on. Unfortunately though, not a very big fish and I soon had a pretty little thicklip in to the wall and netted it out. It weighed in at 2lbs exactly.
That was the end of the action for the morning session and soon I stopped seeing much by way of fish moving. I drove over to the Clonakilty estuary and floatfished over the low water period. Despite the float trotting through nicely and seeing a few mullet, I didn't get any bites. As the flood tide started to push up strongly, I decided to head back for another look at Rosscarbery on the way home. I wasn't sure if I'd fish or not, but in the event I found decent numbers of mullet in very shallow water in the north east corner of the estuary pool and I couldn't resist having a go for them. It turned into quite a frustrating session with fish swimming all round my baits but not a single take or even (remarkably) a line bite. The joys of winter mullet fishing - I think the water may have been a degree or two too cold for them to feed properly - bites from odd fish and/or in short feeding spells seems to be the order of the day.
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