Rockhunter took advantage of the calm before the storm last week and managed to catch some cracking cod. He reports:
22/01/2014 : The conditions looked good for a cod session, no rain of any significance over the last few days, slack tides and a cold clear night. I had ordered 2 dozen crabs the day before so I was well prepared. I got to the mark at about 7 pm. No sooner had I cast out the first bait when I had a bite but the fish came off after a few turns of the reel. I recast and set up the second rod. Not long afterwards I had another bite, this time it stayed on but it was only a small codling of a pound and a half. As I was releasing it there was knock on the second rod, this was a better fish of 3.25 lbs.
Ten minutes later I had another 3 lb fish. I was getting plenty of gentle tugs as well, presumably small fish pulling on the bait. Then at about 8.15 pm there was a hefty tug on one of the rods. This was a very strong fish which did its best to try to dig in to the channel sides all the way in. It was a plump 5.5 lb cod – the best fish of the session.
This was rapidly followed by a succession of fish some of the order of a pound or so but several keepers as well including cod of 3.25, 4.5, 5 and 4 lbs.
It was my best session of the 2013/14 season with a total of 13 cod, including 7 keepers above 3 lbs.
23/01/2014: I had plenty of crab left so returned to the same mark the following evening. It was a mild dark overcast night with a light southerly breeze. I was hoping for a repeat of the previous session. There were plenty of fish there, I was getting a series of bites in rapid succession but they were all small fish, between 0.5-1.5 lbs. I had ten of them over the space of two hours. They were too small to keep although three were deeply hooked and floated when I tried to release them so I retrieved those.
I had to wait until close high tide before I had the first decent bite. It felt a good fish and I almost had it in, the shockleader was winding on to the reel when it dug its head into the side of the channel and as I tried to pull it out the fish got off. However, it was a sign that some bigger fish were finally moving in. Shortly afterwards I had a 2 lb cod followed 20 minutes later by a 4 lb fish.
Then I had another sharp tug on one of the rods. It was another strong fish which put up a good struggle all the way in. It was a 5.25 lb cod.
With that I decided to pack up. What had started as a slow session with just small fish and improved dramatically in the last half hour.
RockHunter
South Coast, Ireland
http://rockhunter-southcoastbass.blogspot.com/
