Ballycastle 31st August 2013

This was the clubs 2nd outing of the year to Ballycastle aboard Sean McKay’s boat Lady Lynda. 6 members attended.

Paul Campbell

Alan Buchanan

Alan Campbell

Bill Bannon

Gerard Girvan

Stephen Montgomery

The weather forecast for this outing did not look promising. West – South West winds of   20 – 25 knots, gusting to 35 knots later were predicted, but Sean reckoned if we stayed close in to the land, we would be reasonably sheltered and safe.

We left harbour at 09.00, and headed west to an area of sand-banks, where Sean reckoned we would have a chance of flatfish and dogs of various species. There was a lack of fresh mackerel in the area, and Sean had advised us to bring some frozen baits as a stand-by. This proved good advice, as we saw only 3 mackerel caught the whole day. We anchored up for what proved to be a lumpy and uncomfortable 3 hours, and we took a succession of L.S.D, s, whiting, gurnards, dabs and a solitary codling for Stephen Montgomery. The weather got increasingly windy, and the seas became rougher, so much so that a couple of the guys had to call “Hewie and Ralph” and so Sean upped anchor, and headed closer to land to try an inshore reef for Pollock.

The reef produced 6 pollock for Alan Buchanan, best of which being 5lb 4oz; all taken on spinning tackle with an orange sidewinder tipped with mackerel. We tried one more move to find a more productive reef, but the increasing wind and huge swell spelled an end to our days fishing, and for safety reasons we headed back to harbour.                                  

Not a bad days fishing given the difficult conditions, we would have loved to have ventured out to the back of Rathlin, where some nice haddock have been showing lately, but we will hopefully get another go here on our next outing later on in October.

Ist place    Alan Buchanan     5lb 4oz pollock            15 points

2nd place   Alan Buchanan     2lb 6oz pollock            10 points

3rd place    Alan Buchanan     2lb 4oz pollock             5 points