By far the biggest problem facing anglers planning long range multi session trips to exceptionally exposed areas such as Ireland's Atlantic coast, is the threat of lost days after you arrive due to the weather. Sometimes it's un-avoidable. But having gone to all that trouble and expense, the last thing you want is the disappointment and frustration of being stuck ashore for days on end thinking of what might have been. The same applies to dinghy anglers doing long range trail aways both to Ireland and some of the more far flung corners of the UK. Contingency planning is always a good move. Alternatively, pick a first choice venue where despite the failings of the weather you can at least still get afloat. Such venues are rare and are to be cherished when found, particularly if the fall back fishing would be good enough in its own right to warrant a visit anyway.

Westport in County Mayo on the west coast of Ireland is one such a place. Over the years, the port's sea fishing has probably courted more than its fair share of press coverage. But as far as I am aware, never for the points and from the angles explored here. The harbour is tucked away inside Clew Bay, reputedly protected from the open Atlantic by 365 islands deep within the bay itself, and two larger islands (Clare and Achill) at the mouth. Weather permitting, the outer islands are internationally renowned for their rough ground potential including big pollack, coalfish and ling, while the cleaner ground surrounding them and inside Clew Bay is a heaven for a wide variety of rays, huss, flatfish and more which I will elaborate on as the story develops. The key phrase here is "species variety". But let's not forget species quality too. Some of the biggest fish currently coming out of Irish waters are available to boats fishing this area.

Primarily, my visit was geared up to exploring the notion of charter fishing regardless of what the elements might throw up, and in that respect, the weather cooperated fully with wind and rain throughout the visit. The big consolation was that it was wet and windy in the UK too. Except, I was getting afloat, and with Austy Gill aboard the White Seahorse I was in with a realistic chance of cracking the 100 pound barrier despite the other limitations imposed. Later in the evening spent in the Helm, Vinny Keogh who owns the pub/restaurant, accommodation, and the boat began to shift the emphasis to small boat fishing. Austy has enough people wanting to fish aboard White Seahorse to be out every day throughout the boats licensed period of May to October. White Seahorse is a well maintained, spacious, and particularly sea worthy 35 foot Bullet which has seen more than its fair share of ton up fish over the years. And as Vinny pointed out, and Austy reiterated, most of these fish were taken within safe dinghy range.

Vinny wanted to talk about the prospects of organising a well sponsored open small boat competition based at Westport. Having fished a few Irish competitions over the years, I felt obliged to point out to him that ventures such as this are not all about guarantees of getting afloat every day and a big variety of fish. Good accommodation, eating and drinking facilities, launching, and secure trailer storage are all important parts of the equation. No problems on that score Vinny promised. In addition to the modern centrally heated self catering apartments with their dish washers, washing machines and all other mod cons attached to the Helm, there is a huge self catering block with its own gym and swimming pool just a couple of doors along the way. The food, drink, and live music nights at the Helm are excellent. But just to suit all tastes, there are other pubs and dining places both along the quay and back in the town. Most famous of these is probably Matt Molloy's with its live traditional Irish music every night. Westport is a larger than average Irish town with everything any visitor could ever want.

Unfortunately, the launching facilities were not in the same class. The slips concrete is only touched by the water for around 3 hours either side of high tide, after which there is a muddy stony shore leading down to a trickle of water too shallow to launch into. Again the reply was no problem. The quay area of Westport is dissected by a small river with the quay itself stretching along its southern flank. The wall runs for hundreds of yards and could be used to tie dozens of boats up to allowing one launch at the start of the week and one retrieve at the end. Boats are just as safe and secure in a sheltered harbour as they are on their trailers. More so in many respects. The trailers could then be taken away to a secure storage area for the duration of the competition. Note the excessive use of the word safe. Safety is now the major consideration in Irish angling. A lot of English boats would not get an operators ticket as they stand in Ireland due to the weight of safety legislation imposed on Irish operators. Everything from stability testing, EPIRBS and life rafts through to multiple fire extinguishers and instruction charts all over the boat are now the order of the day. No doubt some UK skippers are going to claim this is a slur on them. It isn't. Most English charter boats are perfectly safe. In many ways the Irish have gone reassuringly over the top.

Vinny already organises The Helm Skate Festival every year which is a charter competition drawing in boats from nearby ports. The use of a large powerful RIB is also enlisted to keep an eye on people generally, and to remove "casualties" should that be necessary. The importance of this is that the RIB would also be enlisted should a small boats competition get off the ground, though for a slightly wider range of reasons. Safety of course is paramount. Having all those islands, many of which are little more than rocks with submerged reefs is another reason for a safety boat. It may prove necessary for the small boat armada to be guided through this maze to a gathering point in open water at the start and end of each day. Another important reason is that common skate are not allowed to be brought ashore or killed by law in Irish waters. So in the time it takes to get a big skate from the bottom to the top, the rib could be alongside to provide verification and a weight estimation before the release of the fish.

Taking the conservation aspect one stage further, Vinny wanted to organise a competition in which no fish needed to be killed. If every boat in a species hunt needs to kill one of every species available, there could potentially be one hell of a pile of discarded bodies at the end of each day. We thought long and hard on this one. To put the verdict of any competition beyond dispute it needs to be transparent. While bringing fish ashore to the scales or for a species count satisfies that criteria, it wasn't really in the spirit of what this competition would be all about. The problem is, not all anglers are good at pinning the right names on the fish they catch, and dare I say it, even if they were, with money or prizes at stake, could they all be trusted to do so. Best then to ensure things are totally above board. But what about conservation. The alternatives were either to put a minder on each boat, or give every boat a unique identification sheet that must appear on the digital photograph of each species caught. At the end of the day the cameras would then be down loaded via a card reader, and each boats pictures put into its own folder. Identification could then by made by the organisers at the close of the competition. Worth considering at least.

This is all at the embryonic stage, though with the right kind of support it could very well happen. In addition to the core business of the species hunt, all the usual extra prizes such as nominated species, best round fish and best flatfish would be on offer, not too mention best common skate. Obviously there would be practise days as well. There are a lot of species to go at for both on the clean as well as the heavier ground. Besides all the predictable such as pollack, coalfish, ling, cod, dogs, huss and rays, there are various wrasses, pouting, scad, gurnards, whiting, flatfish and even the odd haddock. Out over the deeper water beyond Clare Island are some pretty good blue shark grounds. But even these pale into insignificance compared to blue fin tuna. In recent times, the west coast or Ireland has come to the forefront as one of Europe's premier tuna fisheries. Unfortunately, Ireland does not have an EU tuna quota, so the Irish government finds itself in the difficult position of not being able to promote it. With more boats gearing up to fish for giant tuna each September and October, this looks set to change. A tuna of 708 pounds caught by Martin O'Malley out from Clifden just before my visit.

No big tuna for us or anyone else during my stay. No common skate either, though we did have the big baits down over both days. Plenty of thornbacks though on the cleaner ground. More rays in fact than dogfish which is no bad thing. Loads of mackerel on the scene too for bait with some reasonable inshore pollack beneath them if you could through over the patches of reef well within the bay. We certainly could have had more species had we been looking for them. But with skate the primary objective, this didn't seem to matter, besides which poor weather tends to dampen the enthusiasm somewhat, particularly when you combine wind with rain. The enthusiasm for the venue on the other hand was strong. Every angler I spoke too had an English accent and most were return visitors who go back year after year. If the small boat competition gets off the ground, I will be making the return journey myself.

INFORMATION PACKAGE

All the fishing and accommodation can be arranged through Vinny Keogh at The Helm, The Quay, Westport, Co, Mayo. The telephone number is (Ireland +) 098 26398. Email:thehelm@eircom.net For charter anglers, Ryanair do cheap flights from a number of UK airports to Knock. For small boats there are both fast and slow ferries from the UK to Dublin Port.