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Back to the West Coast…

August 6th, 2014 Ronan Creane Leave a comment Go to comments

The west coast river mouths are not an easy location to catch a fish. Time of tide is critical but it can be any time during the rise or fall. A weekend over there is simply never enough. Just when I start to get an idea of the right time of the tide to fish and where, it’s time to go home again.. Every time I go there I have to start the learning curve again. Time of year, tide, trout food and weather will be very different and most importantly, the mouths themselves change after every flood. All these variables keep it interesting, that’s for sure.

Iza and I hit the coast recently. On day 1 of our weekend we fished the hour to high tide, the entire fall of the tide and the turn. I had one little sea-trout and a decent Yellow Eyed Mullet. Iza had a little trout too. I was hoping for that magic hour but it never came. I assured Iza that her soft plastic would be even more lethal than my di7 if we could just find a few fish. She heard my trying to keep her enthusiastic many times before and I think it was wearing a little thin. She fished hard all day none the less!

On day 2 we went to a different river mouth. It was completely different to every other time I’d been there. The sand had shifted to the far side of the lagoon and all the current and depth was on the near side. I looked at it and my first thought was that its not worth fishing. The flowing tide was raging in and it was very coloured. After a coffee I had a better look and started noticing some holding water, the best of which was off the rocks right in front of the truck. I advised Iza to fish into an eye that had formed as the flowing tide passed by a rip-rap groyne. As she made her way down I had a quick cast with her spinning rod (I could not help myself) and immediately hooked a 1lber. I felt guilty for taking Iza’s fish but not for too long. Iza got one almost right away, a 4lber, then another, 5.5lbs; then another 4lber; then a 1lber. That was the magic hour! I did not get a single touch for the day and neither did Iza after landing the fourth one..

That’s how it goes. On the next visit we’ll learn it all again!

By the way, you have 4 weekends to get over there before the place is mobbed with whitebaiters for 6 weeks!

Ronan..