September in Ireland Part I

Yet another away trip for some BFF members!  

I make an annual September bass fishing pilgrimage to Courtmacsherry, West Cork in Ireland and this year I was joined for a week by Peter Macconnell.  We also  met up with Mike Duckett & Tony Vallack who were staying at Rosscarbery – about 15 miles west of where our cottage was. Peter later stayed with Tony & Mike at Rosscarbery.

I take my Avon inflatable & outboard which gives another dimension to the fishing.  I had almost four weeks of sunny weather but the wind was firmly in the east for the first couple of weeks.  My wife, Sue, travelled over with me but flew back early to resume grand parenting duties.  She landed the first bass of our trip – a 3 pounder – and declared that “this bass fishing is easy, I may well take it up…………”

I took Peter out in the inflatable to fish the estuary.  It was quite breezy and as the tide was ebbing strongly I tied up to a handy buoy.  Peter had a positive bite and a bass raced downstream with the tide.  In the excitement Peter lost his hat (never to be seen again!) while I quickly let go the buoy to follow the bass.  Luckily it stayed the same side as us of the numerous buoys as we were carried along by the current.  Peter eventually got it to the boat where we netted it, took some scale samples and weighed it at 7lb 8oz before returning it to the water. Result for our chairman!

Driving from Plymouth to West Cork via Fishguard or Pembroke and back is a round trip of about 900 miles so Sue & I travelled on Brittany Ferries’ flagship from Millbay Docks.  The 41,000 tonne MV Pont Aven sails from Plymouth to Cork via Roscoff at weekends as well as doing two trips to Spain during the week.  Total driving was about 34 miles each way!  The extra cost of this route was offset by the saving of three tanks of diesel for the Jeep and a relaxing cruise.

Sue had the first bass of our trip - a 3 pounder

5lb 8oz bass for me

and a 7lb 8oz bass for Peter

This is the tougher side of Irish bass fishing!