Finally I’ve managed to give my new little toy, the awesome Majorcraft Skyroad a good little work out. After meeting Henry on my trip to Kerry in August to John Quinlans Thatch Cottage,he said  that as we lived so close to each other we must meet up for a fish when we were back in England. I made it quite clear that I would keep him to his word, and as promised he arranged to take me out.
In an ideal world we would have liked to have gone out to catch some nice bass, but this is England and the weather never likes to play ball. These persistent east winds blowing made it quite clear that there was going to be no bass, or at least there were much better options! This being the mighty Wrasse!! a fish that I have caught a lot of in my short time of fishing and a fish that I very much enjoy targeting. Plus the fact that I had got a load of wicked Z Man soft plastics still in their packages waiting to be abused by some hungry hard hitting wrasse made it a good choice!!

I made the scenic drive down to meet Henry, I drop my car off and jump in with him where we then drive to his chosen mark! The nice weather plus the fact we were wrassing meant no need for waders so shorts, t shirts and wading boots, I liked this as there is nothing worse than wearing waders on a sunny day and sweating like mad. How wrong was I? we walked a short footpath which lead to a field and from this field you could see the sea. The only problem was it was about a mile away (this is a guess I stand to be corrected). This is fine, I’m no novice when it comes to walking distance to fishing marks but this was a mile down a few very steep fields which going down is fine but I was not looking forward to the hike back up!! Anyway once down there it’s definitely worth it, secluded little bit of coast lots of structure and nice deep holes and gullies.  I couldn’t wait to drop my line, first things first, crank my drag right up. First lure in was the Z-Man Punch Crawz a new favourite for me. First I cast very slowly, bumping the bottom trying to get an idea of depth and any structure, I bring it in right under my feet and give it a few twitches as I’ve had so many this way and smash, a very un-subtle hit. I lift into a nice fish and this Skyroad is loving it, putting a nice bend in it for sure, I crank him up and I’m rewarded by a decent fish of round the 3lb mark, cracking start. Also I believe Henry hit into a fish first cast, so things were looking good. We continued to catch wrasse with most casts resulting in bites, with the Punch Crawz being so successful there was really no need for me to change lure. Henry had a few different things he wanted to try out so he was changing between lures and noted that they seemed to be very colour fussy today. It seemed they were liking the darker natural looking colours.
Maybe about half hour into the session again I brought my lure right in under my feet, a few twitches and another fish on, I could tell this one was bigger so I really cranked hard to pull him out and away from of any snags. Once up off the bottom, he decided it wasn’t for him and dived for sanctuary, all I could do was just try and hold him up and to my god the rod bent over. After a few dives I manage to get him to the surface and it was a nice fish, luckily Henry was on hand to lift him out for me as I guided him into the rocks. A few pictures whilst keeping him near a big rock pool to keep breathing him, and he was sent back to the depths, a decent wrasse around the 4lb mark maybe a touch more?!

After a few more smaller fish between us the bites seemed to dry up leaving us with real tiny finicky bites not enough to make contact with. After such a promising start it seemed strange that it would stop so suddenly! Neither of us really had  an explanation, but if everything behaved as we expected it too then that would take all the fun out of fishing. The decisions made to pack up and head home. Oh!! the bit I’ve been looking forward to, the horribly steep long hill back to the car. These are the times you just need to man up and crack on, after all I’d  walk up and down any hill if there were fish at the bottom of it.
Photos on this post were taken and given to me to use by Henry Gilbey.                                              www.henry-gilbey.com

So the last few weeks have been a bit dry in the way of fishing, I’ve had a couple sessions with not much success but I suppose that’s what happens when your work determines when you can fish!!I visited  a estuary mark about a week ago and fished over low tide the place was alive fish everywhere, not necessarily all bass but definitely good signs, there were baitfish bubbling and jumping on the surface obviously being pushed to the surface by hungry bass, I fished hard trying everything I could, bumping the bottom with soft plastics, weedless wieghtless through the weed beds, shallow diving hard lures and surface lures, none of which being successful. I will admit its abit disheartening walking away with nothing from a mark when there are so many good signs but I suppose this is why we fish is it not?? The challenge of the chase!! Any way I returned to the mark a couple mornings ago and fished from about 3am for about 5 hours this time over high. Once again I fished most of my lures with no success, last option was the salt skimmer it was still dark but being there was clear sky’s and a bright moon it lit the sky abit, I launched it out straight into the deeper faster flowing channel, 4 winds of my reel and I hear a big splash right from where I thought my lure would be and then the line tightens, fish on, the fish was on for about a minute then came the mass of weed beds in front of me, poor angling or just unlucky I’m not sure but the fish managed to shake the hook!! Now as frustrating as it was I look at this as a successful session as in the past I have not had much success fishing in estuaries and is only ever a last resort, now this spurs me on to go and fish the estuaries specifically!

Things also seem to be getting better as of Sunday as I will have plenty of time to fish hopefully about 2 weeks if things go correctly and if things don’t go correctly well I will have all the time I want to fish, now in my books that’s what we call a win win! This I believe will be sufficient time to find where all these bass have been hiding so far this year! Also I’m very excited as Steven Neely has seen fit to part with his Majorcraft Skyroad 9ft 10-30g rod which was delivered today, after using the 8ft 6 over in Ireland a couple months ago I knew I had to get one for myself and after returning and starting with my own rod again, which is abit of a cheaper rod I was desperate to get a Skyroad back in my hands. I can assure you it will be getting a proper going over.