21/08/2026
Had the pleasure of hosting young Bill French from the US for his only day of fishing while over here in Ireland on his first trip across the pond.
Bill is an experienced freshwater kayak angler targeting the small and largemouth Bass in the Lakes and rivers of NY State amongst other things, so we set out early in search of their saltwater cousins on a misty summer morning here in West Cork.
There’s a lot to learn even when switching from fresh to saltwater kayak fishing but we got through the coaching and then got a near instant response to our lures at the first location which continued sporadically for the rest of the session.
Bill was blown away, and even I was surprised at the action we witnessed throughout the trip. I lost count of the overall number, but I do know he had three bass over 60cm on topwater lure presentations, one of which was on one of his favourite freshwater lure patterns back home, the Whopper Plopper!
So Bill happily continued on his short tour of Ireland vowing to return for some more fishing and I can fully understand why!
