On Tuesday evening the weather was so nice I decided to pop out for a few hours, everything was still in the van from the weekend attending the Irish Kayak Angling comp in Wexford.
All I had to do was go did some bait, I have mackerel in the freezer but obviously prepare fresh Rag worm as it out fishes all outer baits, so down I went to the shore and in one whole around five foot square I had enough for a few hours fishing.
Straight down to the local marina to launch at the (very slippy) slip where the kayak sort of launched its self down 15 foot into the water.
Kayak quickly rigged out I went to drift over a reef around a quarter of a mile from the harbor that always produces a nice variety of species. The sea was flat calm, it was the first chance I had to test the speed of the Kraken properly. At the minute I have no way of telling the exact speed but I was keeping up with a 17 foot boat with a 9.9hp four stroke, Pretty impressive until I nearly keeled over after a few hundred yards being exhausted, but hey I was on my mark.
Again I fished two rods, one set up with http://www.shamrocktackle.com/ (Bleeding glow worms) a personal favorite of mine as they will literally catch anything and never let me down, and off course baited with Rag, and the other rod set up with a running ledger rig and on the business end was a size 1/0 Uptide Extra hook from Cox and Rawle.
I could not even get the Glow worms to the bottom for the first twenty minutes as I was pulling Mackerel up 3 and 4 at a time, but that soon passed and I got the bait to the bottom..............It hardly touched before I had a fish on and up came a Codling followed by another and another.
Then some double hook ups of Codling and poor Cod.
I was looking for a decent Ling as the light started fading so, I pulled the anchor up and decided to drift for an hour, as soon as I started moving of the reef Grey Gurnard made a very welcome appearance as iv never caught them before, nor have I ever herd of anyone catching them around the Co.Down coastline.
There a happy looking little species (and spiky)
After quite a few of these things went quite for ten minutes as I slowly drifted away from the productive reef so I decided to paddle to the far side of it to see if any of the Wrasse species where here yet, dodging incoming trawlers in the process. Baits down and it was on again Codling again coming up two at a time every drop before I had a different and better nibble on the line followed by a better fight.
Female Cuckoo Wrasse
I was right up came a beautiful little Cuckoo wrasse and they just kept coming!!!!!!
The great thing is that the reef is so shallow bringing the Wrasse up does not affect there swim bladder, allowing them to be released unharmed.
Male Cuckoo Wrasse
Just as I was starting to run out of Rag and call it a night I had this beauty, it has to be the coolest looking Wrasse iv caught yet as it was very well marked.
Class colours!!!!
As the sun started to fade away behind the Ardglass skyline, so did the fish and I started to paddle inn.;
It was well worth the effort heading out for a few hours as I clocked up five species in such a short time, and from now on in the fishing here will only improve for the next couple of months.
Untill my next adventure
Tight lines!!!!
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