Ballycastle 5th July 2015

First club trip of the year to Ballycastle, in fact the first fishable local outing of the year as our first 3 trips were blown off by strong winds. Our Skippers for the day were Sean McKay and Willie Vernor, with their 2 boats accommodating 14 anglers between them. Targets for the day would be Spurdogs, which according to Sean were showing in good numbers South of Rathlin Island.

We drew lots for boats and boat positions at the harbour, 6 anglers to fish with Sean, 8 with Willie as his boat was bigger. As it turned out, the lads on Sean’s boat were to do substantially better than those on willies boat, luck of the draw. The forecast was for reasonably calm seas but with periods of heavy rain. This was an understatement as we would soon find out.

Our day started well with plenty of good sized mackerel showing for bait, and we pushed on out to the marks South of Rathlin in the hope of Spurdogs. A tale of 2 boats here as one boat had a much better day than the other. Sean McKay’s boat found the Spurdogs in great numbers and size, with maybe 30 good fish caught through the day. The best of these fell to Steven Burns and Bill Bannon, Stevie taking first place with a smashing fish of 16lb 8oz, and Bill taking 2 nice specimens of 15lb 6oz and 15lb. Club guests Al Marsden and his son Jordon enjoyed a good day with several decent spurdogs and a nice pollock for Jordan.

Willie Vernors crew did less well with perhaps 6 spurs, biggest being 11lb for Glen Murphy. Alan Buchanan took a 10.5lb and 8lb spurdog and Martin Buchanan took his first spurdog of 10lb. The only other fish of note was a decent pollock for Mark Buchanan.

A good days fishing was had, only marred by torrential rain, which gave us all the biggest soaking of our lives while we were disembarking at the pier.

1st place      Steven Burns     16lb 8oz Spurdog      15 points

2nd place    Bill Bannon          15lb 6oz Spurdog      10 points

3rd place     Bill Bannon          15lb Spurdog             5 points