Boat Angling Ireland prove that there are much more than sharks in Donegal. With a wonderful catch of Pollack, Coalie, Ling, Pouting, Cod, Red Gurnard,Grey Gurnard, Whiting, LSD’s ,Spotted Ray, Thornback Ray, Mackerel, Plaice, Turbot and Dabs the lads have plenty to boast about. They report:
26/27th July 2013 The word floating around midweek was that the Porgies had dispersed and were few and far between , still I had to get back to the North West as the forecast whilst changeable was still too good to miss.
Seirt was enlisted as the crew for this trip, so I knew if there were fish about we’d get them or at least he’d get them
We decided to base ourselves to the west at Meevagh. It’s nearly always a pleasure using the facilities here and soon we were on our way out to get Mackerel. As has been the story around most of the coast this year, they were hard got, it took us a good hour to get about 50
Given the calm seas it was an easy decision to steam off and try to relieve some of the wrecks of there slippery inhabitants.
We found each wreck well populated with hungry shad snaffling Ling to 12lb, Pollack to 9.5lb and Coalies to about 6lb. Seirt also got a couple of Cod on bait, the best touching 12lb , easily the biggest Cod ever caught from my boat
31/07/2013 Peter and Dave Craig from Boat Angling Ireland took a trip out to the Maidens onboard the Harry O and report:
We left Ballylumford at 9.15 and headed round to Skernaghan for mackerel. 20 mins later we had a good bucketful We headed out to the Maidens and anchored up in the hole for the last few hours of the ebb and then the entire flood tide. Tide was a wee bit stronger than expected but we were soon into the usual doggies and blackmouths. We were hoping for a few spurdogs but none turned up today , however Dave got a lovely bullhuss 15lb which is a PB for him.
The wind started to pick up from the SE then the rain started The boat took ages to get around the anchor and the rain got heavier and heavier. It was bloody miserable even with the wetgear on Dave then hooked into a skate but his braid broke after a brief battle
Then it was my turn, a good take on my lighter doggie rod it was skate on.
The Kenzaki 30lb rod was fairly put through it’s paces but it coped well.After about 40 mins it surfaced about 50 yds downtide, which at this stage was at it’s strongest. It kept diving down and resurfacing behind the boat and did this 7 or 8 times never had one do that before. After an hour it was at the side of the boat and safely gaffed and brought aboard.
It looked a good female and when measured turned out to be 184lbs which equaled my PB.
She was quickly tagged and returned none the worse and swam away strongly . By this time the rain was torrential and visibity was very limited , the wind was blowing the rain into the cabin,everything was getting soaked. Dave plodded away for another 45 mins before we had had enough, soaked through we called it a day. Things slowly picking up at the Maidens, happy days.
Report courtesy of www.boat-angling-ireland.com
