Beating the North Easterlies and rising pressure bass on the fly today in Wexford.
Ger Doran is a young capable and dynamic angler. Not prone to bravado his gentle style and angling skills combine to also make him a brilliant saltwater guide. Much is expected of guides in these modern times. Some of that crazy expectation is often driven by misplaced and irrelevant demands by people, including other so called guides, who have misinterpreted what a guide is, what he or she does and how they should do it.
Ger carves his own path, slowly and with patience.
I believe its a brave move by Ger Doran to do what he has done. I have the utmost admiration for him for he has stepped off the cliff and into the world where he faces not only the angling challenges, but all its associations too, by himself and with the help of those around him he can do it. Its a tough task in many ways.
You may remember a recent post made HERE an article made By Rutte and Rolle in Wexford. This article has started to generate German interest in saltwater fishing in Ireland and in the Wexford area, not only in bass fishing but also in general saltwater fishing techniques. I received a call this morning from Tim in Germany to reserve a week in Wexford. Bass fishing and general fishing in Wexford for three people, nice work!
Because of their commitments its not an optimum tide for bass fishing for the group but Monday and Tuesday are reasonably good and I will guide the guys accordingly and then Ger will take over from Wednesday through Saturday.
And isn’t this what its about? Both Ger and I can work together without feeling (to a large extent) we are competing, each discipline facilitates the other and we can merge and remain supportive of each other under what I would consider very challenging and difficult circumstances. Of course on the coast this is more dynamic but there is no reason not to recognise the strength in collaboration and communication. But then again that’s not always obvious.
Ger has his own website at www.southeastanglingservices.com
Good luck Ger and well done.
I’ve been biding my time a little and now that a ‘personal benchmark’ approaches I’m anticipating what might lie ahead. Mind games are always complicated things to play and I generally resolve them by just getting on with it. Its the waiting that causes the anxiety. The path taken to the end and the ensued result of course never really plays out as you have imagined and this is commonplace in bass fishing.
This is the first time in nearly five years that I can feel the coast has an opportunity to provide us with really good bass fishing, bass fishing perhaps like it used to be. Apart from the extended cold period during Spring which shredded the countryside there are lots of
things in our favour. Very low rainfall during June, and indeed in the southeast its has been a very dry Spring, the lowest rainfall levels in perhaps six or seven years, extended periods of high pressure good light levels near or above average, increasing air and water temperatures even if they are still slightly behind the norm. Water quality is extremely good and remains clear on the coasts that I have visited.
I have always believed that the extremely wet and overcast spring and summers since 2007 and the environmental changes have had an impact on our bass fishing. This was whilst subconsciously avoiding the thoughts of something more sinister. This impact may have been cumulative and has forced the fishing to deteriorate over time. I have made note of this for e.g. HERE, HERE, HERE with plenty more observations made throughout this website.
So in fact all the meteorological reasons, excluding a colder than average spring, that I believe that have impacted negatively on the fish over the past few years, don’t really exist at this time.
On average I spend 80 days guiding on the coast and at least another 40 developing the fishing and workshopping so I have a close and intimate ‘relationship’ with the influences I’m working with, I experience it on a day in and day out level. Contrary to popular belief only 50% of this time is spent in Wexford so I do see a lot of and many different locations, timings, patterns and the interdependent relationships that you associate with bass fishing, these are part of my job, my life really. Much is currently in discussion as regards how far we are behind in relation to the norm. A month, six weeks…. I don’t know how much this behind time is but I do feel we are in a better position than we have been for a considerable number of seasons.
So on Friday night of the 5th two customers arrive from Chichester to fish with me for a week both on the fly & lure. This is the first real acid test. I have already completed a w
eeks guiding with Jean Yves where we fished Wexford, west and east Cork over the last spring tide co-efficient, more about that later. I’m effectively writing off June as the behind time and now the season begins in earnest like it should. I’m not talking here about isolated incidences of fish in specific marks – ALL systems should begin to operate to a least some extent and build nicely into July and beyond and be accessible to both lure and fly anglers from the shore.
With high pressure set to dominate from the 5th the influences will be from the North and East and fishing will be adjusted to fit those circumstances and as always its only ever a forecast and so things will change. But it continues to be positive, sunny and dry, this will help the latter parts of the season.
I wont hang around in Wexford this weekend to fish with my customers but will make a dash further west early on Saturday morning and return again on Monday evening – the excitement and the hope I feel for the possibilities for good fishing, combined with the never far away and lurking dread of disappointment, well I guess that’s what any pre test nerves are all about.
Bass fishing is always about you and the moment, and then again, there’s always acid test number two!
Why would fisheries managers, who openly admit that harvesting too many spawning females caused the last decline, go out and do the same thing again, allowing anglers to take two fish a day over 28 inches?
I am not just using my fishing success to judge the health of the striper population; I’m getting information from man
y other anglers that fish a lot harder than I do, I believe charter captains using effective techniques like wire-line trolling or bait anglers fishing in deep water are not true indicators. In my opinion, the best barometers are the fly and surf-plug anglers. Fly fishing is the most difficult way to catch stripers, followed by surf fishing with artificials. In the last six to seven years say, anglers I know who fish using these techniques, fishing is falling off in many New England locations, and in the last three years its gotten worse. Ten years ago, locations in shallow water in late spring in Cape Cod bay would usually have hundreds of fish each day; now they have thirty to forty fish, sometimes half that. This is not based on one year but more than five years of checking these locations.
Now, if there is a small push of fish one day, the next day is often dead. In the good years when you hit fish, they were usually there for three to four days or longer. In the late 1990’s in May, the ‘bowl’ just south of Chatham Lighthouse on Cape Cod might have had a hundred anglers fishing – now its mostly empty. Guides I know that specialized in light tackle and fly-fishing for stripers have stopped doing trips or fish for other species.
There is one easy solution to this problem: Stop killing the breeders. Both recreational and commercial fishermen target larger fish because regulations require that practice. A slot limit similar to what the state of Florida has for most of its game fish would stop the killing of females. In the Northeast, only the state of Maine has a slot limit. If stripers were protected from 28 inches to 48 inches, they would have a least eight to 10 years of freedom to spawn. A one-fish-a-day, 22 to 26 inch slot limit would solve this problem, letting anglers keep a fish while saving the fishery. When it comes to fisheries management, Florida is the example we need to follow. Unfortunately, because of commercial interests a slot limit will be a tough sell. Even most six-pack captains would fight any laws that would take away from their business.
Obviously, the best solution would be to make stripers a game fish. However,I’m afraid the only way we will get game fish status is if we lose this great game fish one more time.
Lou Tabory – Fly Fishing in Saltwaters July/August 2013 – State of the Striper, what can we do to prevent history from repeating itself.
One of those excellent evenings of fishing that will go down in memory. Two names have featured regularly on this website since I began guiding in 2003 – one of them is Illex fishing gear the other is the regular French customer Jean Yves Quillien.
We both enjoyed an incredible evenings fishing with fish taken on both surface and subsurface techniques – we fished one of my favourites early in the tide through shallow water the brilliant I-Shad fished weedless combined with the Wide Gape Texan hook – finnesse.
Fish came first to the 4.8” I –shad and then later we increased to the 5.8” and continued to take fish right through the rise. Low tide fishing is fun see here from 2010, after a brief lull we changed up to surface lure fishing with increasing depth hiding the weed fronds – these were the first fish we took from the surface this year.
The Illex bonnie both 95 and 128 (featured as one of my top favourites of all time), the Illex Mudsucker 90 and the Illex SK Pop Grande, I couldn’t help it I just kept bringing them on.
Rods fished were the Illex 110 and the 220 element rider, paired off with Shimano Ci14’s and sunline braid with Rio fluoro carbon leader – and boy was it fun in the tidal rip taking those fish on the surface with light gear! Its not often I go on about equipment but a session with a customer taking more than 8 fish on the surface is really something special.
All the gear we used is available at Henrys Tackle, Waterford Angling Centre Murphys of Wexford and Southside tackle too.
Long time favourite fly colour of mine Lavender and Grey, when combined with pink and grey and a ‘secret ingredient’ blended by Brian is leading to success on these bright sunny days.
Shrinking the flatwing to mini size and tying it sparse almost to transparency then attaching a very fine tippet of fluoro of <= 3kgs has pushed our daytime fly catches up and up.
Great fun watching other members of the shoal mob the fish which had taken the flies in crystal clear conditions.
THIRTYARDS 
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