Archive for November, 2016

Estuary Flounder in South East Ireland.

Saturday, November 5th, 2016

Bright anti – cyclonic weather in early November draws out the flounder fisherman in me, a bucket of peeler crab (thanks to Jock Crawford), a chill north east breeze and a dropping neap tide created ideal conditions for a trip to the estuary. A fortnight ago Gerry Mitchell had a red letter day on a rising neap with flounder topping two pound weight albeit further up the main channel, would the olive green flatties still be in the mood?

Jock Crawford with the first flounder of the morning.

Commencing fishing about 1.5 hours after full tide we cast twin flowing paternosters baited with crab onto the ebbing tidal flow. Employing grip leads due to the strong current first cast optimistically produced a small flounder, which proved a false dawn as from then on things were slow.

Beaded flounder rig baited with peeler crab.

About an hour or so later a lift to my rod resulted in flounder number two running a pound an a half weight and that was it until the first evening push of the flood. A right good rattle caused my rod tip to pull sharply forward before straightening in unison with a belly of slack line. A big flounder or a bass? It remains a mystery as now rod in hand and line tightened the fish rhythmically bump bumped towards me. Transmitted through the rod, “this lad is on“, so I leaned into – nothing – clearly the action had pulled the bait from the fishes mouth.

Estuary flounder fishing in Co. Wexford, Ireland.

In such circumstances a moving estuary fish rarely returns for a second bite and so it proved. That fish moved on a November evening chill set in which was the signal for Jock and I to up sticks while being treated to a glorious red/orange winter sunset. It had been a grand day in good company, a few fish had shown, the conversation and craic had flowed, sure we’ll do it again soon Jock…………