This in from the Cork coast as Jim Clohessy of TopFisher.eu is back on the water again after another long period of poor weather:
We’ve really been having a torrid time with the weather lately. With a decent forecast we decided to head offshore to check out some new ground and also visit a few wrecks.
It was a beautiful morning and we headed offshore in nice conditions albeit a little more lumpy than the forecast would suggest due to a southeast swell.
We fished a mix of new-to-us ground where we had a broad range of species, lots of big coalies and some close-to-specimen red gurnards, but no haddock nor whiting in this area.
We moved to a few wrecks and tried here with both bait and lures. Lots of small pollack and ling were shockingly scarce! We eventually located some big whiting. I have parents that are big whiting fans so I was delighted to stock their freezer with some cracking whiting. When they are getting to 2lbs+ they are a great fish to catch.
While it was relatively quiet inshore offshore there was plenty of sealife with dolphins hammering bait balls around the place. We investigated one “tuna looking” action but it was just dolphins really hammering into the grub!
It was a day of unexpected results. I was hoping for a big ling and fished hard for it. We were surprised with the amount of reds and were delighted to be hitting big coalies. We had no haddock but in fairness the whiting we hit made up for them and there wasn’t much chance of anything else hitting the baits when the whiting were about. Marlon had his first Megrim, it was on a lure too!
We decided to head for home as the wind was rising a bit from the SE, as forecast.
All told a superb day on the water with over 80nm covered.
