Charter skipper Donie Geary reports on deep sea fishing for his clients outside the Cork Harbour area from his base in Cobh.
It’s not often we complain about the heat but this weekend was certainly the exception, for the past 4 years I have a group of four English anglers for 3 days fishing. We left at 9.30am after deciding to try for blue shark,75 minutes later and 10 miles south east of Roches point I dropped the bag of pre/frozen rubby dubby over the side and rigged the rods to prepared for the action. The boys were catching many whiting, gurnard and the odd doggy and we got our first run at about 1.30 pm when Dave’s balloon vanished for a few seconds and resurfaced about 50 metres away but that was it. The next run was at 3.30 when Steve’s rod bent over this time, the fish was hooked and 15 minutes later we boarded what was the only shark of the day a fish of about 50 lb. and released him quickly.
On Sat. we decided to drift sand for species and we were joined by Richie Fortune from Ardeen B&B, and what a day’s fishing we had, not so much the quantity of fish but the quality. we landed whiting to 2lb. red gurnard to 3lb. ling, pollack, coalfish, pouting, wrasse, and of course dogs and Richie had the pleasure of landing his first Megrim.
On Sunday we decided to do some reef fishing and headed for Ballywilling rock which is about 3 miles from Ballycotton island
We had a busy day with plenty of Conger to 30 lb. ling to 10 lb. pollack to 9 lb. and a lot of the smaller species on top. Steve, Dave and Paul will return to England to day and the only complaint they have is the heat.
John Boy
Lochin 33′. 300 HP Caterpillar
Skipper: Donal Geary
Base: Cobh Operational area: 30 miles out of Cork Harbour
Address: Sycamore House, Ballynoe, Cobh, Co. Cork.
Telephone: +353 (0)21 4812167 Fax: +353 (0)21 4812167
Email: [email protected] Website: www.sea-fishing-ireland.com