Hook Head Tope

Was fishing for mackerel and codling about 2 miles south of Hook Head last Saturday using baited feathers and got a number of bite offs and even got two tope to chase hooked mackerel to the surface. I was hoping to get a chance at hooking one this week but so far work and wind getting in the way. I have (thanks to Waterford Angling and Outdoor) gotten a few wire traces with size 4 meat hook up-tides made up. My question is what is the best way to target these, tight to the seabed on the drift or anchor up?

Relatively tight to the seabed. I've used long flowing traces in strong tides and caught them. The bait must have been well up off the bed. Tope are a bottom feeding shark but so you'll be targeting them in the bottom of the water column.

I fished the Tope festival in rathmullan in June. One lad on the boat fished a float with a 30 foot drop in 120 foot of water and caught 5 tope. Several tope also took on the retrieve. Not always feeding on the bottom

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when fishing for them its mostly bottom fishing buy no they dont only feed on the bottom they feed mid water and close to surface too

We had them recently in Kilmore on a simple running boom off a 6oz lead, connected to 250lb mono attached to an 8/0 Hook.
A Mackerel fillet was preferred to a flapper.

Rods just were 10g - 60g spinning rods.
Reels were 4000 size loaded with 30lb braid straight through.

Let the bait hit the bottom and then give it 6 turns of the reel up to avoid snags.
Set your drag and get ready to hang on

This was successful at both drift and at anchor.

Good luck!