DINGLE ADVENTURES
Anglers flock to this famous peninsula in autumn and winter in search of bass and rays
Great places to fish in County Kerry.
Nine years ago, my wife made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. If she went on a beach holiday in the USA with her sisters, then I could choose our holiday destination for that year. I could even have that Irish sea fishing holiday I’d been going on about for ages. Offer duly accepted, I had to choose a destination for my first sea fishing venture to the Emerald Isle. Living in Cheshire, I’m not far from the ferry terminals in Wales, so it was not a difficult journey. Being in my late forties, I’d grown up reading ‘Angling’ magazine, which featured some great sea angling writing by Clive Gammon, John Darling and Brian Harris, who all waxed lyrical about the bass fishing on the Dingle Peninsula.
In particular, they wrote about the surf beaches at Inch and those of Brandon Bay (Fermoyle, Kilcummin, Gowlane and Stradbally). Clive’s writing was so good that I could almost smell the sea as I read his prose.
Before that first trip I scoured the internet for as much information as I could find. One name stood out in terms of modern sea fishing on the peninsula: Bob Moss. His two seminal works ‘A Guide to Shore Fishing on the Dingle Peninsula’ and ‘The Third Breaker’ became essential reading for me in the weeks prior to my departure.
Late autumn and winter are generally considered to be the best months for sea fishing on the peninsula because the Gulf Stream brings warm water, and Atlantic depressions provide the essential surf.
I decided to go in August, mainly because I wanted my wife to enjoy the trip too, and hoped it might become an annual part of our holiday calendar.
TARGET FISH
My aim was to catch rays – to which I’m seriously addicted, as you will have gathered from my last article (Sea Angler 561) – and also bass. I know that there is some phenomenal pollack and wrasse fishing too, but these fish just don’t do it for me.
On that first trip I caught dozens of thornback rays, more than I would catch in an entire year fishing the rock marks of North Wales, but no bass.
Thankfully, my wife loved the Dingle area, and the angling holiday did indeed become a fixture in our calendar.
For the next seven years we stayed at a wonderful cottage, just outside Dingle, that overlooks the sea. It has two fishing marks within easy walking distance – a small beach and the Dingle Lighthouse rock mark.
The beauty of the Dingle Peninsula is that there are so many good fishing marks you could fish a different one every day of the week for month after month. I decided to limit myself to a handful on the basis that the more I fished them, the better my knowledge would become. It’s an approach I use to good effect in North Wales, where, by concentrating my efforts around a few marks, I could build up my knowledge of the best tides and conditions.
Over the past years, my go-to mark for thornback rays would have been the Dingle Lighthouse rock mark or the Reenbeg shore mark, which is basically the last mark you can fish on the opposite side of the entrance to Dingle Bay to the lighthouse.
I could almost have guaranteed at least a dozen rays, all usually to just under 10lb, in the two to three hours fishing available at these marks. It is very easy fishing, with no distance casting required, because the channel is almost under your rod tip. Sandeels suffice for bait.
However, over the past few years my catches at both these marks have dwindled away to nothing. I blanked in the last two years, except for a few mackerel and pollack that grabbed my sandeels on the retrieve. I have no idea why this is the case, and I’m aware that other local anglers have struggled to catch too.
TRABEG
Just east of Dingle is Trabeg, one of my favourite marks. It consists of steeply shelving dark red sand leading down to a sandbar that only gets exposed on big spring tides. The beach is quite small but dominated by cliffs that make it quite an eerie place to be at night.
If there’s little surf and you can get on to the sandbar at low water, then both thornback and painted rays (small-eyed rays) are a distinct probability, although you will need a fairly long cast to get to them.
If there’s a surf, then bass will be there, although if you can’t get on the sandbar you will still need a good cast to get into the trough where the fish are found. Once again, sandeels are all you’ll need for bait, and this mark has produced a lot of bass to 4lb for me, but nothing bigger.
Under the right conditions, you can get a fish every cast, although the dogfish can be a real pain. I had a couple of attempts to fish there last year, but the weed prevented me fishing. This was a real shame, as the surf just screamed bass.
The small beach just below our little cottage used to produce good numbers of small thornback rays and the occasional painted ray, but the storms of late 2012 and early 2013 removed a lot of the sand. This was a high-water mark for the rays, requiring a good cast to get to them. The loss of beach means anglers are pushed right to the back of the beach against the cliff face. This restricts casting distance because there is no room to swing a lead weight.
However, when there’s a big surf running on this beach then bass, including some distinctly tidy ones to over 7lb, can turn up at any time. I had three there last year to 4lb 8oz while standing in the water holding my fishing rod – it’s by far the most exciting way of catching bass. One minute you’re holding your rod, the next there’s a momentary release of tension in the rod tip as a bass rips the lead weight out of the sand before the rod nearly gets ripped out of your hands.
Again, sandeels are all you need, and I fish a very simple running leger rig with two size 4/0 hooks rigged Pennell-style.
BRANDON BAY
My most memorable sessions on the Dingle Peninsula (bar one, which I’ll come to later) have all occurred on the silver sands of Brandon Bay.
In summer you rarely see anyone else if you choose to fish a tide going into darkness. The downside is that you need a good swell to bring in the painted rays, and a very big swell to attract the bass.
My best session occurred two years ago. After a couple of very wet and windy days I arrived at my chosen mark just before dark to see a big swell and, more importantly, long flat tables of water that just screamed bass and rays. These tables stretched out for hundreds of yards, and it was just a case of trying to find out which one held the fish.
Waders are essential for fishing from these beaches. Sometimes the fish are in surprisingly shallow water, other times they are in the deeper water which, without waders, would be beyond the casting range of most anglers (me included).
By the time I had set up and cast baits in the water, the wind had dropped and the sky had cleared to reveal a glorious full moon. I waited only an hour for the first fish, a lovely bass of 6lb 6oz that, unusually, gave me a huge slack liner as it shot into the shallower water.
This was followed 30 minutes later by a small painted ray of about 5lb before the bass turned up again and I had fish of 5lb 1oz and 5lb 12oz in quick succession. I fished on through the night until the early hours, landing a further five rays – best 9lb 12oz (above), just short of my 10lb 7oz personal best – and one more bass that was the biggest of that trip, and my biggest Brandon Bay bass at 7lb 12oz.
It’s one of my favourite angling memories, standing on that beach, the rods floodlit by the moon to the extent that my tip lights were not really needed.
There were no other sounds except the surf and the ratchet on my reels as another fished ripped off into the night.
Incidentally, the rays in Ireland seem to fight so much harder than their Welsh counterparts. I’ve often wondered whether I’ve hooked a bass or a ray.
I returned the following evening, but the surf was much smaller, and after catching a 2lb sea-trout, I encountered weed. Thanks to my head torch, I could see that the water was black with the stuff. I put my gear back in the car and moved a couple of miles in both directions, but couldn’t find clear water.
I fished the same beach three times last year but only caught painted rays. The first night was very windy, although mainly dry, and with a reasonable level of surf (2-4ft in height) but only about 150 yards long.
Once I discovered the rays were quite a long way out, I ended up catching 14 to 9lb 5oz, but didn’t see any bass, despite using one rod to vary the casting distance.
On the second night the surf was starting to disappear, and I caught only two rays. On the third night I caught one ray beyond the breakers, until I realised that the fish were in the tables of water that, by now, were very close.
DERRYMORE STRAND
My other favourite angling memory is that of catching my first stingray at Derrymore Strand. Not a huge one at just under 10lb, but a fish that I’ll always remember as it charged up and down the beach. I’d heard it said that stingrays are the hardest fighting of the ray family and, having caught one, I wouldn’t argue.
I went back to the same spot last year in near-perfect conditions – a flat calm sea, warm sunshine, gin-clear water and a late afternoon high tide. I soon had two peeler crab baits out at 40 and 80 yards, respectively.
I’d been told that stingrays can come in quite close to the shore, but wasn’t prepared to see one swim past less than 10 yards out. It was quite a big one too, but, unfortunately, by the time I’d retrieved my nearest bait, it had gone. I felt a little daft dropping a bait almost under the rod tip, but it was all to no avail.
I’m already planning more trips with feverish excitement. ■