Ballycastle 23rd October 2016

Last club outing of the year and 2nd trip of the season with Hamish Currie on his boat “Predator”. Hamish changed ports for this trip, from Red Bay to Ballycastle, there being a big East wind forecast. On the day it was still rough enough, just about fishable but not exactly comfortable. 7 members were on the trip.

Stephen Montgomery

Bill Bannon

Paddy Trainor

Alan Buchanan

Dan Boyle

Glen Murphy

Frank Montgomery

We set off from the harbour at 10.00 am and headed towards Rathlin Island, intentions at first were to gather a bit of mackerel bait. They were thin on the ground unfortunately; only about a dozen or so along taken with a bit of Coalie were landed, but we had a back-up box of squid along as a standby. We decided to once again try the famous “Pinnacles” marks where we had scored so well 2 weeks prior to this outing. Conditions were far from ideal. A big Easterly wind kicked up quite a choppy swell, and would be pushed along at a rate of knots once we started fishing in earnest. Hamish wasted no time, steaming out to the marks at a good speed. Soon we were sending our rigs to the bottom in hope of some big Ling and Pollock.

Fishing was slow to begin with, and hard work, it being really hard to hold bottom in the strong tide and stiff breeze. A change to heavier 2lb leads helped and a few fish started to show. Small Pollock and Coalies at first, but a few decent Pollock among them of around 3 to 4 pounds fell to Dan McMahon and Stephen Montgomery. Alan Buchanan took a wee codling of around 2.5 pounds. The swell soon took its toll, and Paddy Trainor suffered a bad bout of sea sickness. Not to be deterred however, he dropped his gear back down and promptly took a brace of good Pollock, best of them a cracker which would later pull the scales to 11lb 2oz on the pier, winning the pool as heaviest fish of the day. Alan Buchanan took a nice Ling of 11lb, and Glen Murphy, caught a Ling of 7lb 12oz a short time later.

We were well battered by the time lines up were called, and the rough journey back to port left us well and truly exhausted.

All in all then a decent days fishing, hard earned.

1st place           Paddy Trainor            11lb 2 oz               15 points

2nd place          Alan Buchanan           11lb Ling              10 points

3rd place           Glen Murphy             7lb 12oz Ling         5 points