On the 2nd I headed up to Kerry again - I'd enjoyed my session in August and fancied some more of the same. I was sheltered from the northerly wind by the hill behind, and spent all day in the sun in tee-shirt conditions.   The dogfish were fairly active again, and today they were all I could muster on the smaller mackerel baits I was fishing at range.    Meanwhile I was also dropping mackerel heads closer in, hoping to pick up huss or conger. Early afternoon I had a good take, and after a short scrap had a good huss on the surface. I slid it out onto the rocks by the trace ..read more

We were back from our trip to England late on 28th July. A day to recover from the journey, then out on the rocks on the Bantry Bay side of the peninsula on the 30th.   Main aim was to find out if the mackerel had turned up in force in our absence. They hadn't really - I worked a set of Sabikis till my arms were dropping off and only had four. Most interesting thing by far was the appearence of a couple of sardines.   Suspecting the mackerel would be scarce, I'd brought along a set of heavy gear to drop a big bait close in. I've had some nice huss and particularly conger on this m ..read more

It's been a difficult few weeks: exam work still on, very up-and-down weather, and several sessions when the fishing just hasn't clicked for one reason or another.   It started on 2nd June, with a mulleting trip to Rosscarbery. It was a still, hot day and plenty of mullet were in evidence mooching over the mud bottom. It seemed impossible one of them wouldn't take a shine to my legered crust baits ... but I sat out a long session near the bridge with not a sniff of a bite till the tide came up and the mullet disappeared out onto the mudbank on the far side of the pool. There was a crow ..read more

A relatively quiet fishing month for me with my seasonal exam work kicking off mid-month.   On the 4th I headed out for a short session on the rocks just local. There was a little swell but not much and it was low down the tide so I risked a west-pointing sloping ledge which isn't often fishable.   Moments into the first cast into the mouth of the bay to the right of the point and I was in, and in a serious way. A very nice pollack had engulfed the orange/red Redgill and it was everything I could do to keep it up out of the kelp with the angles all wrong at range. A minute or ..read more

On Tuesday 2nd April I collected Steve Smith from Cork Airport for a short visit. He only had four days to fish and the last of these looked seriously at risk from Storm Kathleen, so it was straight into action down on the Mizen on Wednesday.   Heavy rain over previous days had left a peat stain in the water, but I'd fished through such conditions quite a lot this year and done reasonably well so I was fairly confident.   Sure enough, Steve was soon getting bites. Sport was steady on the dropping tide and he bagged six mullet. I didn't fish myself but was happy enough on ghillie d ..read more

Mullet-wise I spent most of my time down on the Mizen, failing to replicate the wonderful fishing of February 2023 but nevertheless clocking up a few fish.   The weather continued poor throughout the month, the venue carrying extra rainwater and a horrible peaty colour. Few mullet were evident on the surface but they were obviously present in modest numbers as bites would come fairly regularly fishing deeper down.   These two guys were an unwelcome addition to the local fauna, the more so in that they seemed already tuned in to bread and some days wouldn't leave me alone for more ..read more

I kicked the New Year off with a couple of unsuccessful mullet sessions at Rosscarbery.   On the 4th I arrived at lunchtime and started down the west side, the trees giving some shelter from the blustery west wind, the aftermath of Storm Henk. After a couple of hours I'd not had a bite nor seen much mullet activity, so I went for a walk and soon found a big shoal in the shallow corner by the hotel. I relocated and spent another couple of hours with mullet swimming all round my baits but not taking them. I had a few knocks on the tips but nothing I'd swear wasn't a line bite.   I wa ..read more

Well this won't take long!   I only found time for one session ahead of our UK trip, on the 7th. The previous night was very cold - I had to scrape a thick frost off the car and the air temperature was -3degC for most of the drive down to Rosscarbery. The tides were very neap so the water in the estuary pool was shallow, probably with little salt content, and the bottom half of the pool was actually frozen over when I arrived! There was no obvious sign of mullety activity in the rest of the pool.   I set up to fish the slightly deeper water in front of the bridge arch hoping it mig ..read more

We arrived into Fishguard late on 30th September, stayed the night in St Clears and travelled on down to my sister's in Christchurch next morning. Ahead of us, a week in Dorset and Cornwall ahead of our son's wedding in Somerset on 8th October.   The original plan had been to fish a couple of days at Christchurch, one with an old friend Steve Tierney, but as the date neared and with poor reports from the venue, carting all the gear over seemed less and less appealing. I blew out the Christchurch fishing and instead had a pleasant afternoon with Steve in the Thomas Tripp in town on the 2 ..read more

The month started off on a disappointing note on the 1st with a visit to my low water mullet mark in Bantry Bay. It was a bite a chuck for the first hour but all mackerel and although they cleared off an hour before low tide, the damage was done. The mullet just won't hang around to compete with mackerel when they are there in that sort of force and I fished on for a couple of hours with no interest at all. Right at the death, just as I was getting washed off the mark, a couple of mullet swirled tantalisingly out of range. I stayed as long as I could but they didn't come any closer.   O ..read more