Are you missing out?
There’s so much more than bass fishing on the popular beaches of Ireland’s County Kerry
Any angler asked about County Kerry in Ireland will know about the popularity of the bass fishing on its surf beaches, but what tends to be forgotten is the enormous variety of species and diverse range of angling on offer.
I’ve caught close to 30 species of fish in a week’s fishing in Kerry, which surprises some anglers heading there for the first time. It even raises a few eyebrows of some of the more experienced visitors who go with mainly bass in mind. They’re missing out on what else might be in front of them.
To get the best from these beaches, you need to be adaptable to the weather and vary your tactics. If there’s surf, then fish for bass, but if they are not feeding, and this can sometimes be the case, then having alternative species and a switch of tactics in your armoury can put you back on the fish.
STING IN THE TAIL
Tralee Bay is noted for its run of big stingrays. While mid-April to late June is the main season, few realise that smaller stingers up to 12lb can stay though to midSeptember or so. Springtime stingers run to well over 40lb, with the Irish record at 73lb coming from here. Huge fish estimated at between 80lb and 100lb have been hooked and lost.
Stingers favour middle-sized tides rising towards high springs, generally, and in daylight hours, with the early and
middle flood period often the best. Overcast cloud to subdue the light levels also gives you an edge. Bigger fish tend to come off sandy, muddy ground in close proximity to shoreline rocks and weed. They hunt for crabs along the rough ground edges, even into water only a couple of feet deep.
Most anglers fish a pulley rig made from 80lb mono. A size 4/0 to 6/0 Mustad O’Shaughnessy 3406 hook has the extra strength required. At the open surf beaches, such as Stradbally, standard bass tackle is good enough for smaller stingers, with ragworms the best bait. Like the bass, stingers run the surf about 50 to 70 yards out.
UNDULATE RAYS
Good numbers of undulate rays are caught from Tralee Bay. It’s well known that the roadway between Fenit village and the pier fishes as well as anywhere. Here you are casting into a channel that runs alongside the marina. A good spot is about two-thirds of the way up on the seaward side of the road.
Double-figure undulates are caught here regularly, and the bigger fish will need to be moved along the road and landed where it meets the pier. These rays feed best when there is some run in the tide.
A flowing trace rig is best, with about 30 inches of 30lb fluorocarbon or 40lb mono for the hook trace and a size 3/0 to 4/0 Viking hook. Squid or sandeel baits are the top options.
A good tip is to fish braid on a bigger 8000-sized fixed-spool reel to help combat the tide because it cuts through any weed better than a mono mainline. Grip weights up to 6oz may be needed. If you don’t get any bites within a few minutes, try lifting the lead weight and bouncing it downtide a little way. This can often find a fish.
April through to October is the best time for them, but a few are caught later if the weather stays mild. July to September can be very good.
TRIGGER FISH
The period from late July and especially August and September is the time to find triggers hunting around the rocks where the surf beaches meet cliffs. They may be present in front of you at depth, and they like the cover provided by kelp or weed.
Although they can be taken on most tides, smaller neaps are often good due to a more constant depth of water. On bigger tides, the triggers show from about mid-tide to over high water and like a little run in the water.
The way to fish is with a spinning rod rated up to 3oz, matched with a 4000 fixed-spool reel loaded with 20lb braid. Triggers like a bait suspended off the bottom, so float tackle with a ball weight stopped by a bead and swivel is best. Keep the hooklength long, say about 20 inches, to give it movement. Make it from 20lb fluorocarbon to combat the trigger’s teeth. Add a strong size 1 to 1/0 Aberdeen hook because the long shank helps to protect the line from those teeth. You should strike as soon as the float goes down.
A simple groundbait entices the triggers to feed. I use bran or even porridge oats mixed with chopped mackerel. If you’re struggling for mackerel, buy some cheap tins of tuna in sunflower oil, or sardines. Mash this up this so it just holds together when compressed in the hand, and add a hand-sized ball every few minutes to keep the triggers interested. If it breaks up a couple of feet down with bits falling quickly and some semi suspended, that’s just about perfect.
Often, you’ll see the triggers down in the water. If they disappear, add more groundbait immediately and they’ll return. The key is finding them (so good polaroid sunglasses are a must) and then constantly feeding.
GENERAL SURF FISHING
Surf fishing tends to mean bass in Kerry, with one rod as a general tactic, but a switch to two rods and varied tactics and baits will increase your species count, even including sea-trout.
I fish with two rods, and each employing a different tactic. For long range, a 4-6oz beachcaster and a Penn 525 reel loaded with 18lb line and a 60lb shockleader covers all my heavy work. I use a clipped-down rig armed with a single 3/0 to 4/0 Viking hook. Once baited with either mackerel, a squid and mackerel cocktail, or a sandeel bait, it is
cast as far as possible. In daylight or darkness, this rod targets thornback and spotted rays, maybe smaller blondes if I’m close up to cliffs and deeper water.
Extensive patches of boulders or rocky ground mixed in with sand should be fished with squid or a sandeel to target small-eyed rays, though these are taken over clean sand too. This same tactic, when in close proximity to cliffs that bookend a beach, will produce the occasional bull huss and conger eels.
The other option with this rod is to put on one or two squid and launch it into the surf
with a big fixed-grip lead and then let off some line as you walk back with the tide. I’ve seen big bass caught to this simple method.
With the second rod comes a choice. It can be a lighter bass rod rated 2-4oz with a 6500-size reel loaded with 15lb line and a 25lb shockleader and a 3oz lead. This is ideal for calmer days when there is a gentle surf, little wind and no weed. If the surf has some life, or there is weed in the water and it’s a windier day, then I prefer a normal 4-6oz beachcaster.
The lighter bass rod is fine for detecting bites in calmer weather, bearing in mind you are fishing it from the rod-rest rather than holding it, so rod tip movement is your indicator. In rougher seas and weather, the heavier rod is best for deciphering bites due to its stiffer tip.
I usually fish with a three-hook flapper rig armed with size 4 to 2 Aberdeen hooks. This is cast between only five yards out from the sand line on a flooding tide to 50 yards. That first 20 yards from the edge is often the most productive. Here you’ll take bass, decent ones too, especially at night, flounders, turbot, eels, coalfish, plaice and whiting, depending on the season.
Put a few casts out 50 yards and you’ll add dabs, smaller rays and bass. Better bass fall to the smaller baits fished at just 20 to 50 yards rather than specific bass baits punched much further. Try long, short and anywhere in between until you find the fish.
Grey mullet also throw convention to the wind occasionally by taking big lug baits intended for bass, as well as small fish strips cast just into the surf. They show best in a steady rhythmical surf that’s not too big and one that has wide tables between each breaking wave.
I also take twohook rigs with 30inch hooklengths with float beads. I leave about six inches of lighter 8lb fluorocarbon below the float bead and use a size 8 short-shank Drennan Super Specialist hook. Baited with small strips of mackerel, this will take garfish that you often see splashing on the surface just a short way out from the surf line in calmer seas. It has also accounted for mackerel and scad. I find yellow or white beads good on brighter days, and red or orange on cloudy days.
Another thing I’ve noticed about small patches of light rough on Kerry beaches is that they will hold a few small ballan wrasse. Now and then you’ll put a worm or crab bait deliberately tight to a single big rock or small rocky area among otherwise clean sand, and you’ll get a ballan of 3lb or more. Smaller worm baits pick up corkwing and goldsinny wrasse when tight to the rock, too.
I love fishing the surf for bass, but also appreciate having the option of so many other species. For me, Kerry gets a gold star every time for what its beaches can offer. ■