2011 will not sneak out and will not just disappear with a whimper on the stroke of midnight, but like so many days this winter will leave only the memories of lost days and missed opportunities as it blows itself out on the wings of winds gusting to nearly forty miles an hour escorted by squally rain.
And does the New Year look any better?
Apparently not. For at least the next seven days when wind and rain join forces to put the final nails in the coffin of my enthusiasm for winter fishing in Clare. It isn’t that I wont go, for the compulsion to seek the solitude of the shoreline still runs deep within me. I will be out there the first decent opportunity I get. The urgency to dig and to hit the right tide at the right time has just bled out of me, with every planed trip being cancelled due to the weather or worse, driving to the marks and finding them unfishable. Each disappointment has left a cut in my once unstoppable urge to fish. Things may get that bad that I could be forced to hunt for flounder around the estuary with the hope of an odd bass thrown in. If I am lucky there may be a winter run of pollack in North Clare.
I can only gaze at the clouds skating on slate skies and dream of the cod of the Severn Estuary and remember two-pound whiting which once were a nuisance in Jackson’s Bay.
I missed the chance of the May pollack due to lack of mobility, which brings me to think on just what kind of a year has past. Looking back through images I have taken January started with a small schoolie while out on the 2nd with Joe and ended up twelve months later with a similar fish alone in the dark.
January and February were typically slow with a handful of bass to show for my efforts and March I went to hospital to get fixed but came out more damaged than I went in!!
But March was the beginning of some good fishing. With many thanks to Joe for picking me up and carrying my gear I managed to fish with my leg in plaster and later on hobbling on crutches start landing some decent fish and by May we were back down on the Shannon and catching rays again
Mackerel remained an enigma for us again. The season seemed very short and for much of the time we were alone on the hotspots. The regular horde of barbarians turned away by days of disappointment and thankfully litter was not quite as prominent on the rocks at Ballyvaughan as in years gone by. The usual nests of snapped rods, birdnests of horribly thick mono and eastern European larger cans still dotted the otherwise reasonable landscape.
Tiny white, silver or black baitcatches at distance seemed to account for most of the fish we landed. Although I cannot remember any good days there must have been some as my baitfreezer still has a healthy population of cleaned and filleted mackerel or does that bare testament to the lack of fishable days this winter?
It was sort of a plan that my reduced mobility would keep me to one general area which I would fish at all times in all weathers and tide states. This plan seemed to work and by June both Joe and I had landed double figure huss, something we were to get so blasé about that we stopped weighing big huss. But still no tope had shown themselves despite them turning up at other similar marks. I Knew they were there as I had a close encounter with a pup the year before.
Then one day out on my own I hooked and landed my first Irish shore caught tope,
Not a big fish but a great fight and I had proved people wrong who scoffed at me
After a couple of disappointments Joe managed his first
Still on crutches I headed back for a couple of weeks to South Wales in search of smooth hounds but if it wasn’t for my mate Bone I wouldn’t have seen a fish. good to be back but the fishing was forgettable to say the least.
At the end of July on a spur of the moment change of venue I ran into what turned out to be a fish of a lifetime when I landed a 38lb tope from the shores of North Clare. I am not sure who was most shocked Me, Joe or the swimmers who watched me drag the ‘shark’ from where they were swimming.
For the rest of the ‘summer’ I fell in love with lures again. Not in the manner of some who spend thousands of pounds on rods, reels and bits of plastic but more with the stuff I use for pollacking and a few Japanese lures. Much to my annoyance the most constantly successful lure in my box was not a high-tech soft bait or well designed hard lure but a nasty piece of metal with a blue stripe!! I did manage a few bass off the surface and I was instantly ‘hooked’ and can see why so many people are obsessed with this branch of the sport.
And that was all that happened last year. I wonder how other people got on? Was it a good year for you or are you out chasing cod now instead of seeing in 2012 in a flood of good company and strong alcohol??
What are your aspirations for 2012 and is there something you want to achieve? a new species, personal bests, trips abroad or just enjoy your fishing again? For me, I want a big stingray and a bigger tope before I sadly have to leave Ireland later this year.
Good luck to you all, have a happy new year and may you all meet the goals you set yourself. Thank you for reading and continuing to join me in my fishing journey through the County of Clare
