A beautiful but bitterly cold morning greeted a few of us in Rossaveal this week, as we boarded the Maighdean Mara charter boat for a day afloat in Galway Bay. The target was pollack, for research sampling, so skipper Kevin pointed the boat west for some rough ground where he expected to find them.
It has been a very mild November up to this week, and water temperatures out the bay were a positively balmy 12.8C. A lot warmer than the -1 air temps we set out in, but the calm conditions meant it felt quite mild. We started on some shallow ground, about 14 metres, and from the first drop coalies started coming aboard in twos and threes. It was tremendous sport, with some really hard-fighting fish, and some nice cuckoo wrasse in among them, but not the quarry we were after.
As we drifted on to deeper, rougher ground, pollack started to make themselves known, their explosive takes were unbelievable. A move to deeper reefs (30m) produced a steady take of pollack, mixed with the odd coalie, cuckoo and ballan wrasse. Fishing slowed over low tide, but when the tide turned the pollack came back on the feed in a massive way, with fish coming over the gunwale in a steady stream. Between 5 rods, there were 70-80 pollack caught, a similar number of coalies, quite a few ballan and cuckoo wrasse, and a couple of pouting too. All agreed that by any standards, for any time of year, it was exceptional fishing, and remarkable for November!
Sweet Tooth Pollack
Your correspondent brought along a bag of fruit jelly snake sweets from a well-known discount supermarket chain (cough, Lidl!) and shared them around. One of the crew wondered aloud if a fish would take one. Well, we cannot say it will always work, but the pollack were so hungry yesterday that two drops with a fruit jelly snake produced two pollack! Future outings may involve a comparison with other brands before we can recommend this one…
Go Fishing
Galway Bay Fishing
A regular Galway Bay Safari is from 9am to 6pm. The Maighdean Mara will pick up your party from the pier at Spiddal, County Galway. The boat is yours for the day, though of course skipper Kevin will advise you where the best fishing is to be found. Tackle hire is free.
Address: Galway Bay Safaris, An Boluisce, Spiddal, Co. Galway.
Telephone: +353 91 553888 or +353 86 8547890
Email: [email protected]
