House on the Sheep's Head
The weather forecast for the next few days or so isn't great, a strong and cold east wind about to set in for a week at least. I was keen to get out fishing before that arrived, and there being little sign of mullet around Sheep's Head yet this spring, I headed down to Rosscarbery. There was already a touch of east in the wind, but mostly it was southerly and running up the estuary, variable in strength but never more than a fresh breeze.
I set up on the west shore of the estuary, two leger rods with pop-up crust baits as usual when there's not many mullet to be seen moving within floatfishing range.
A couple of swans latched on to my catapulted groundbait and made a nuisance of themselves, but they soon moved on as the water deepened towards high tide. No sooner had they vacated the area than my right-hand rod pulled over, and I landed my first thickliup of the day at 3lb 3oz.
I cast the rod out again and wound in my left-hand rod to rebait. While I was doing that, the right-hand rod was off again, and this was a much bigger fish that took a lot of line in a series of powerful runs out towards the middle of the pool. Unfortunately, as soon as it stopped and turned, the hook came out! Disappointing ... but it was still early in the session so there was a good chance of getting another one.
Things went quiet for a while, but as the tide started to drop away after high water, the mullet came onto the feed again and I managed five more thicklips. Alas none came close to matching that lost fish, but it was good fun catching fish of 2:10, 2:07, another 3:03 and a 2:08 that took both baits at almost the same time, and another 2:08 to finish.
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Tony Hooper (Sunday, 07 May 2017 20:22)
Hello Dave
Tony Hooper here! It's only May but I am getting jittery about my annual Sept/Oct trip to Courtmac with several other BASS members. I have a nearby super open water mark that I took one of our gang - Chris - to in 2015. He is very keen on mullet (and everything else I think!) and I had netted a few from this spot in the past. He had one of well over 6lb and plenty of other beauties. He is coming over again this year so no doubt he will be left at the rocky gully mark all day again while we fish elsewhere. The gully is pretty deep so it's float fishing usually. I am planning to do more mulleting myself this year but my question is what rod I would need for float fishing off the rocks for mullet and occasional bottom fishing at Rosscarbery where I go for a change of scenery. I rented a cottage at Rosscarbery for a number of years before being tempted to move east a few miles to Courtmac to bass fish with my Avon dinghy and meet up with Irish friends in that area. My reels are Shimano Exage 3000 or Abu Cardinal 104's - yes all old but seem to do the job! Any advice would be appreciated. I hope that we can arrange a meet when I am over?
My email is tonyhooper@talktalk.net
KR's Tony
David Rigden (Sunday, 07 May 2017 21:42)
Hi Tony. I'll drop you an email in a day or two. In the meantime if you can say roughly how much you're looking to spend that would be helpful. All best, David.