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Cheekpoint Harbour, Co. Waterford.  You are so close to Waterford Town and so far from the sea it seems difficult to imagine you are facing salt water, but indeed you are... and the estuary's constant dirty water keeps the fish feeding during daylight when most other marks, especially in the winter, are fishless.  There are effectively two marks here, one directly out from the left hand pier, aiming for the deep channel marked by the green buoy (centre picture above).  The other mark is a small shingle beach behind the point accessed from above the harbour.  Instead of following the road down into the harbour, keep heading straight on and it brings you down behind the headland facing due east, as opposed to north (above).  This mark, which can also be accessed by simply walking around the headland at low water, tends to perform better for the codling and can offer strap conger as well.  Access to Cheekpoint is from the Passage East road, itself a branch off the main road to Dunmore East out of Waterford City (R684).  It is well signposted, the only confusion likely to be in the hilly village itself.  There is limited parking around the harbour which fishes best around high water.  Most of the target species, especially the Codling and Whiting follow sand eel and sprat up the harbour.  The Codling are better tackled in darkness, but both feed by day thanks to the mucky water.  

It is a mud bottom and relatively snag free.  Hook size needs to drop to 2s or even 4s for the flatfish, many of which are just palm sized.  A Flounder over 500 grams is a good fish for this mark.  Mackerel strip and other fish baits seem to work best.  Ragworm can be dug at low water on the mussel beds in Passage East and Lugworm can be found locally or in the tackle shops.  I have tried frozen peeler crab, squid and sandeel, with only the last proving effective and only for Whiting. Since the fish are often encountered in shoals, it pays to have a second (and even a third!) trace baited up and ready as there can be manic minutes interspersed with quiet half hours.  Not distance required, a thirty to forty metre lob suffices.  There is a strong current in the channel so grip leads are needed but watch leads or flat leads will work better on the flatfish.   A nice spot, it sports an excellent and very popular restaurant.  This is a working pier, with the pilot boat often stopping off here so there can be lots of water traffic around. Outside of winter it is best fished in darkness around the flood. I was reliably informed that the freshwater eels go mad for sandeels all along the estuary in the summer!

Probabilities: Flounder; (summer) Freshwater Eel, Sea Trout; (winter) Whiting, Codling

Possibilities: Plaice, Conger (small)

Rare Exceptions: unknown.