An evening to remember...

Photo by Jim Hendrik

After a tough afternoon session under the sun for a change (20c!) in which we both fished, Jim on the fly and me trying every single plastic I carry to no avail and which involved lots of sweaty and sometimes hairy climbing and treking it all came good in the evening. Within the first five casts my lure was slammed in an identical manner to yesterdays fish which resulted in a decent sized fish being landed, photographed, and released after which energy levels soared as the andrenalin kicked and the senses sharpened in anticipation of what could follow such a promising start. We switched to the surface, relocated slightly to "rest" the spot we'd just taken the fish from and within a few more casts there was an almighty disturbance of white water behind my Dark/Gold Patchinko that made me take a step back, followed by a solid hit after I'd twitched the lure on the surface, this resulted in a smaller but much welcomed second fish, more photos followed and a safe release was made but the best was yet to come.... We swapped to a Smith Zip Sea Pop and again after not many casts the lure was hit and I connected with what felt like an ok sized fish, after a couple of seconds the fish came off  but......as I started to quickly wind in to recast the popper was slammed again whilist still subsurface by a much more powerful fish, subsuface popper fishing ?!? Thankfully this one stayed on and after a spirited battle with some powerful runs and some close encounters with the rocks the fish was beached. This fella had swallowed my popper whole and I was relieved to get the trebles out with the foceps and with no damage to the fish, more photos and off she went, amazing during such a tough period of Bass fishing in Ireland many thanks to Jim for, amongst many other things, never giving up on the chance of a fish, looking forward to doing it all again next year. See Here for Jim's super photos.