Boat Angling Ireland website members report great tope fishing at marks off Dunaff and Culdaff in Co. Donegal…
One small boat angler fishing out of Dunaff reported that mackerel proved a little hard to get with full strings of coalies coming aboard every drop,but eventually enough were caught for bait. Fishing the bottom yielded grey gurnards, red gurnards, whiting, ling and pollock and it wasn’t long before the tope rod sprung into life. The fish gave a good account of itself it eventually came to the boat, was swiftly swung aboard, tagged, measured, photographed and released.
That set the scene for the rest of the day with seven more coming aboard. Three others got off at the side of the boat. Two of those landed were exactly the same measurements working out at 36lbs, the others were all a bit smaller. One fish was taken on an animal rig intended for the ground fish and another was accompanied to the surface by his mate who made a hasty retreat when he saw the boat.
Another small boat angler, Neil, fishing off Fanad Head hit loads of big mackerel and the biggest herring seen there in years. Neil and his crew could not find tope there so moved of to Dunaff. After an hour of drifting they had no bites on any of the rigs. Then all of a sudden the first rod screamed that was it their first tope of the year weighing in at 35 lbs. Fishing was non stop for around 3 hours. Neil tagged 14 tope, the biggest being 38 lb. All the tope caught were males. 3 more fish were lost at side of boat and they had endless hits…
Kayak angler, Graham, fishing in the same area had some nice dab, a few coalies and gurnard but nothing that I was out for on frozen baits before eventually locating some shoals of mackerel with which to fish for tope and other small sharks. Initally he had some more flats, gurnard and loads of doggies. His spurdog set up started bobbing so he reeled down and struck and the fish took off with a screaming of a run. The fish turned out to be a nice tope of about 26lb. Later he had an 8lb spurdog to finish the trip.
Report courtesy of www.boat-angling-ireland.com
