Tralee Bay Sea Angling Club

As promised here follows a report on our fishing trip starting on Saturday 11th June for one week there were three of us fishing Ian , Trevor and myself. We took with us 500 gutted lug which Trev kindly dug the day before we left , we also took 300 peelers which we collected on two evening tides a few days earlier. We already had a good supply of sandeel out there in our hosts freezer left over from last year. After a five our delay on the boat arriving in Cork ( swansea/cork ferry, we shall not use that route again as everytime we have been since the new owners have taken over we have had a delay) , we finally arrived in Ventry at 4.30pm.We have a friendly ( fairly !) species competition evrey year to give the week a little competative edge and have done since 2004. I came up with a list of all the species we could possibly encounter and gave each a points score as to how hard it was to catch and its rarity , for example Dogfish 1 point , Turbot 10 points , Spotted ray 20 points etc. Scores were updated at the end of each day the winner at the end of the week having the most points , which gives me ( sorry whoever wins bragging rights for the next year!).  Dumped the gear and headed straight down to the rocks for some Mackerel , sounds easy and should have been , we struggled to get five between us , and this was the theme all week a distinct lack of Mackerel wherver we went , never known it so bad.The most we had was nine and that probably took an hour and a half !!. Since I have returned I have spoken to someone who was boat fishing out of Kells the same week and even they struggled to get enough , and thats in a boat!! , where are they??. Anyway back to the fishing , fished a Flood tide at Trabeg absolutley plagued with Dogfish , I would have thought I was fishing Ventry if it was not for the stunning scenery at Trabeg!!. Undeterred we retuned the next morning to fish the ebb an all three of us blanked , onto Inch for the flood. Started a couple of miles up with Thornbacks the target , cast out and a seal appeared where I cast. I moved 500 yards further up the other two stayed put. Cast out again , and the bloody seal appeared as if by magic exactly where I cast!. Moved back a mile to give the seal the slip , which worked thankfully . We fished an hour and Ian caught his first Stingray 17.5lb. We fished on for a couple of hours but only had very small flounders a Turbot and a dab. We pulled our sandeel net to get some fresh eels and in one pull we must have had over 500 of varying sizes which lasted us all week comfortably. We fished Stradbally next on an ebb tide with Painted ray the target , Ian had the only fish a 3lb Bass . Next up was Kells Bay, should really be renamed Polish bay due to some of our eastern european cousins fishing there every day and taking virtually anything that swims. Fishing was excellent Ian had a 4lb spotted ray , trev and I both had thornbacks , we all had Dogfish ( obviously !!) we also caught small conger , Pollack , good sized dabs , Ballan and Goldsinny Wrasse , a 1lb 9ozPlaice and several starfish!. Ian and I fished that night Dingle Marina in the howling wind and pouring rain while Trev tackled a large Indian ( takeaway variety !!). Caught several mini species , Black Goby , Shore Rockling , Goldsinny Wrasse , Poor Cod , Pouting and lots of Ballan Wrasse. We fished Banna strand over low water with Turbot the intended species. I had thre bass in the first three casts all 3-3.5lb , then a small Turbot then one around 1.25lb. Ian had a baby stinger around 3lb along with a micro Turbot and Trev had a small Flounder . Next stop was Febnit pier , I always catch a Corkwing wrasse here by casting a 3 hook rig baited with crab on small hooks under the pier , first cast Corkwing!! , 10 points thank you very much , shall we go now !!. We carried on for a bit and had commom / silver eels and Flounders but the fishing was very poor. We fished the rocks at Dunmore head and Slea head but again fishing was poor , I had a coalie around a pound on feathers , Trev had a pollack around 2.5lb , and we all had Ballans biggest 3lb 9oz. Fished Kells again but this time it fished badly , Ian had a micro red scorpion fish , infact it was so bad the Polish went home before us , a sure sign for us to pack up too!. We had a go at Derrymore more in desperation for some Ray action than anything as conditions were far from ideal. We all fished in front of the car park , first cast I had a baby stingray, a most welcome 18 points! , third cast I had the mother of all bites , the rod lurched over , it took a little line and then stopped and I could not move it. I bent the rod into it with the reel on full drag pulling hard until the line felt like it was going to snap , all the fish did was to pull back. After around 10 minutes af trying pulling from different angles the fish finally moved off the bottom and I made a few yards only for it to go to ground again. This time I pulled for a break and it came free , but it still had some weight just not as much as there was . Anyway I landed a 7lb Painted Ray on the top hook , the bottom hook was straightened. Big Stinger would be my guess but we will never know. They were the only two fish we had. We did return fro an evening Ebb , but all blanked.Found some egg cases at Derrymore , since I have been back I have looked them up as I did not know what two of them were , we found cases from a Bullhuss , Undulate Ray ( quite a few) Thornback Ray and Dogfish. The Huss and Undulate cases were extremely fresh. We fished Ventry one evening but only had dogfish and could not get through them to what we hoped to catch which was Bull huss and Thornies , which we have had with regulartiy in recent years. I have tried to attach a few photos and our species competition chart but cannot seem to get them attached???. All in all it was my favourite trip in the twenty + years I have been coming over  , we have certainly had better fishing and weather but we had a great laugh ( mostly at Ians expense, he reckons himself to be a bit of an ornothologist  , which is useful considering the amount of birdsnests he gets ! , he also doesnt seem to mind carrying some of my gear in his box , he just doesnt know its there until we arrive at our chosen spot!).

Bradley - thanks for your excellent report - brilliant. Everything you tell us is confirmed by our own experience this year. Weird is the only way I can describe it. The mackeral have been scarse and we put this down to the low water temperatures - even compared to the last two poor years.

I agree that the fish that straightened your hook at Derrymore will most likely have been a big stinger. I have had to haul anchor and move the boat directly above a big fish to get him off (or more likely out of) the bottom on more than one occasion. The only consolation is that had he chosen to get his head up and make for the lighthouse there would have been little you could have done to stop him.

Thanks again for your report - I'm delighted that you had a good time whilst in Kerry. If you email a selection of your photographs I will create a folder in the gallery - I know visitors to the site will be interested to see the range of species you landed during your time with us.

Thanks again.

cheers for that lads, im heading to dingle on saturday for a week with the wife and kid but hope to get in a few short sessions. the report gives me a bit to think about.

Fair play Bradley excellent report and well done on the amount of species you succeeded in targeting. Everyone needs a good story about "the one that got away", would of been nice even to get a glance of him. One of our club members had the same experience and hook straightened in a comp recently......what are the odds it was the same fish haha. Well done again.