Early Summer Bass and Pollack: Your Coast-to-Coast Irish Fishing Guide

This is Artificial Lure with your coast‑to‑coast Ireland fishing report. On the Irish coasts tonight and into the morning, we’ve a run of generally settled early‑summer weather: light to moderate west and northwest winds, cooler at dawn, and small showers drifting through the northwest and west. Met Éireann notes a mix of broken cloud and clear spells, with the calmest conditions along the southeast and south coasts overnight and into early morning. Sunrise is coming early now – just after 5 am across most of the country, a touch earlier in the east and a few minutes later in the west – with sunset around 9:45 to 10 pm depending on where you’re standing along the shoreline. Those long, low‑light windows are doing the business for lure anglers. Tides are on the neap‑to‑building side in many areas, with modest highs and slower currents, but the usual rule still holds: the last two hours of the flood and the first of the ebb are when things switch on. Check your local harbour or port tide tables, because 30–40 minutes either side of posted high water has been the key feeding spell for bass and pollack. Around the **Wexford and Wicklow** beaches, anglers have been finding decent numbers of schoolie and the odd better‑sized **bass**, mostly on evening flooding tides. Shallow diving hardbaits, white soft plastics, and surface walkers fished across the first breakers have outfished bait at times. Fresh peeler crab, razor and lug are still taking fish after dark, especially when there’s a bit of colour in the water. The **Copper Coast and Waterford estuaries** are starting to come alive. Reports this week mention mixed bags of bass and flounder, plus a few early gilthead bream where the estuaries meet clean sand. Small paddle‑tails in natural baitfish colours, rigged weightless or on light jig heads, are the go‑to here. Bait anglers are doing well on crab, rag and worm cocktails presented just beyond the surf line. Moving west, the **Cork coast and West Cork headlands** continue to produce **pollack**, **coalfish** and the odd **ling** from rough ground and kelp gullies, especially for those working metal jigs and 4–6 inch soft shads vertically from boats or from higher rock marks at high water. Mackerel shoals are patchy but showing on clearer, brighter days, so keep a small set of feathers ready; they’re still one of the best fresh baits you can get for everything else. Up along **Clare and Galway**, clearer seas between showers have given shore anglers some good pollack and wrasse fishing off rock marks. Natural crab, hardback or soft, remains deadly for wrasse, while bright, slow‑rolled soft plastics along the drop‑offs will find the better pollack. When the swell drops, these marks can really light up at first light. On the **north and northwest coasts – Donegal Bay, Fanad, and Inishowen –** anglers are reporting good mixed sessions of pollack, coalfish and a few ray from sandy bays. Sandeel imitations, slim metals and blue‑silver feathers are the pick for lure work, with sandeel and mackerel strip the top natural baits. Two hotspots to keep in mind over the next couple of tides: - The **Copper Coast rock marks between Tramore and Dungarvan**: great for bass at dawn and pollack when the tide’s pushing, especially with white soft plastics and small metals. - The **West Cork headlands near Baltimore and Union Hall**: strong chance of pollack and coalfish on the flooding tide using 30–60 g jigs and shads, and the odd better bass when there’s a bit of surf and colour. Overall fish activity is best around those low‑light periods and the stronger portions of the tide. Think subtle, natural‑coloured lures in clear water and darker, more solid profiles if there’s a bit of stain. Fresh crab, lugworm, rag, and mackerel strip remain the top baits all around our coasts. That’s it from Artificial Lure. Thanks for tuning in, and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss a report. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai. Great deals on fishing gear https://amzn.to/44gt1Pn