Bass Fishing Ireland's East Coast
The River Boyne Estuary offers both boat and shore fishing for bass at Baltray on the northern side, and Mornington on the southern shore. There is a slipway at Baltray for launching small boats but this is not viable at low tide. The estuary mouth is a popular bass angling location during the summer months and free lined sandeel is a traditional and very successful method for taking fish there. Legered crab has also accounted for specimen bass to over 11lbs (5kg) in recent years. Various types of plug such as the “Tormentor”, “Crystal Minnow”, and “X-Rap” are all capable of producing fish in the right conditions, while fly fishing too is gaining a dedicated band of followers and has proven very successful on dawn or dusk tides. The best period is the last hour of the ebb and first two hours of the flooding tide.
Bass turn up spasmodically on all the beaches north and south of Dublin and in the large estuaries at Rogerstown, Malahide and River Liffey. Specimen fish can appear almost anywhere, with evening tides in autumn, offering best possibilities.
The Wicklow beaches at Silver Strand and Brittas Bay are worth visiting in spring or autumn after easterly winds have pushed up a surf. Bass will feed freely in these conditions particularly on the first few hours of a flooding tide with crab, ragworm and lugworm being the best baits.
The stretch of east facing coast from Kilmichael Point to Raven Point in Co. Wexford offers good bass fishing possibilities from April to June when crab baits will out fish virtually everything else. Hotspots are Clogga, Clones, Ballinoulart, Morriscastle, Tinnabearna and Ballynamona. Evening tides into darkness are generally most productive. Plug fishing and spinning around Roney Point has also yielded big fish, while fly fishing is also becoming popular there.
Every year Wexford Harbour, which is a nursery area for juvenile bass, produces
good catches of fish. Much of the season is dominated by undersize fish but
larger bass enter the harbour in autumn. It is then that the elusive “double”
is liable to turn up. Crab and ragworm are best baits there.
Bass fishing is best during spring and autumn on all the southern Wexford
beaches, particularly Rosslare Strand, Ballytrent, Carnsore and the “Coombe”
where crab, sandeel and mackerel strip all catch fish.
Boat fishing in the tide races at the Splaugh Reef, below Rosslare ferry port and around the Saltee Islands, off Kilmore Quay is very popular with bass anglers and there is a good average size of fish at both sites. Live baiting with launce or “Joey” mackerel is a deadly method, while plug fishing and spinning with shad type lures can also provide excellent sport.
To the west of Kilmore Quay is a south facing finger of rock known as Forlorn Point. Bottom fishing and spinning from there can be excellent at times with fish of over 12 lbs (5.5kg) recorded. Even further west the Burrow Strand fishes best for bass on evening tides and where the beach terminates at the entrance to Ballyteigue Lough is a also an excellent bass holding area. Spinning and fly fishing can be carried out there with great success in spring and early summer. While crab baits attract occasional double figure fish.
Copy provided by Norman Dunlop, Sea Angling Advisor, Central Fisheries Board
Images courtesy of Jim Hendrick.
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Sea Fishing Bye Laws
a) It is prohibited to take and kill or have in possession any bass of less
than 40cm in length
b) It is prohibited to take and kill or have in possession more than 2 bass
in any period of 24 hours
c) It is prohibited to fish for bass with any rod and line during the period
commencing on the 15th May to the 15th June.