Jim Clohessy is back on the water again in this great report from the Cork coastline…
Autumn is a strange time for boat anglers- Too much to do and not enough time to do it- could sum it up, especially this year. So, when a weather window opens up the choosing of a plan for the day can be a head wrecker. It’s a good time for bass, offshore the wrecks offer potential, and you might not get another window, sharks should be on a downward trend so good to get a last run at them, skate have been tricky all year….
We opted for the offshore run. Not for sharks mind, more for “normal” fish.
The worry was always going to be fog and sure enough we were greeted with pea soup in the morning as we searched out bait. We eventually decided to head out and were delighted to see the fog had cleared outside the harbour. Game On!
Our first stop was at a wreck and we hit it with lures first and had some cracking pollack. Paul was doing exceptionally well on metals. I had a handy ling so I decided to try bait on the next pass. After a couple of drifts I hit into a good fish – A decent ling. We varied between baits and lures for a while before the wreck seemed to go quiet and we headed to try for some haddock and whiting. This was the quietest part of the day with only a few fish. The place was teeming with life. Hundreds of dolphins about and loads of birdlife. Saw one whale in the distance too.
All told it was a great autumn day on that water. There was an incredible radio phenomenon going on yesterday. From the outset in the harbour we were picking up Southampton VTS on our harbour ops channel 12- I was wondering where Cork Ops had gotten the English dude from. Offshore we were picking up all the east coast Irish VHF stations, Falmouth, Bristol pilots, Holyhead and even a French Coastguard channel.
So, while not the best day we’ve had on the water from a fishing perspective, a superb day out nonetheless. We wait for another window.
Jim Clohessy
http://www.topfisher.eu/
Go fishing…
