Codling in Dun Laoghaire

Caught a couple of very small codling in a session from the west pier Friday afternoon :P . Has anyone else caught them from here? do they ever get to any decent size?. I have fished here often in winter but only encountered the Piranha Whiting before, think maybe the difficulty is getting past them to bait the cod :evil: . Any suggestions on how would be best to target the codling without attracting the whiting?

Small live annoying whiting as bait?

Had 1 whiting badly mauled when I got tired of hauling them out and decided to see if anything would take them, don't know what it was. Codling were hardly big enough to cope even with the small whiting :D

Even tiny cod have a fairly large mouth and don't hesitate to gobble stuff near their own length when hungry. They don't seem to have any concept of their own length in relation to what they are trying to swallow....

like sandman said a codling will eat another fish around the same size as itself. next time take a second rod with you for livebaiting whiting. a whiting will not stay alive if cast out so what you got to do is. tie on a 4/0 to 6/0 hook onto your main rig body and then tie a size 1 or two hook omto the bend of the bigger hook on a 1 inch length of line, bait the smaller hook and chuck it out. hopefully a small whiting will hook itself and a cod should have no trouble swallowing both bait and empty hook. a bit hit and miss but usually pulls the bigger fish.

ive fished here loads of times on the west pier only ever took one half decent codling,teired everything inc live baits which are a waist of time not because they wont take bigger fish but because the bigger fish are not here you will take conger down the wall on the live baits but.

if you want a crack at a bigger codling plus bigger withing and dogs have a go at the corner on the back of the east pier fish lug and crab at distance and mackerel for the whiting. fish the incoming tide usually starts to fish 2 hours into the flood after dark best. when reeling in theres a ledge 20 yards out so reel like f*** or youl lose a trace every time other wise its clean further out.

Thx for the bait tips guys, will give them ago over the next couple of months (don't get the time to dash any further than DL Pier in the winter). Have fished the East pier quite a few times also, but tend to avoid it as so busy, particularly when the makerel are about. Never caught any Codling from the East Pier before so I though maybe I had found them :lol:. Will post results on the Reports pages.