As Sunday was very calm with only a light westerly breeze I decided to have a go at lure fishing, inspired by Pat O'Shea's success in catching a 65 cm bass on a Feed Shallow the previous weekend. I made my way to a mark with a mixture of deep and shallow water terrain. The sea was flat with just gentle swells and the water was crystal clear. I started fishing in a small shallow boulder strewn bay which was now been infilled by the rising tide. After a while I worked my way to the left and fished into some deeper gulleys using a variety of hard and soft plastics but there was not a hint of a fish.
Close to high tide I made my way back to where I started as this was often a time when bass move in close. Then I spotted the fish, a good size bass, probably about 6 or 6.5 lbs just lazily cruising about, 30-40 cm below the surface and no more than 2.5 m out from the rock ledge I was standing on. I had a Feed Shallow on at the time and made a number of passes of the lure right under its nose but the fish ignored it, apart from making one turn to look at lure passing by. I switched to a weedless Slug-Go, letting it drift pass the bass, but again there was no interest. I was beginning to think the bass was asleep!!! After a few more casts I tried an Xlayer, followed by a Hazedong and finally a Waveworm before I lost sight of the fish. I continued casting out in the direction I last saw the bass but there was no interest.
I fished on until darkness, close to dusk I could see some activity on the surface, tips of several fish tails swirling about just above the surface. At the time I presumed they must have been bass as I thought mullet would have moved offshore by now. But despite casting a range of lures across them they were not interested. However, yesterday I was speaking to John, my crab supplier, and he mentioned that there were still mullet in the Youghal Harbour area, so perhaps with the mild winter the mullet have remained close to the shore.
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