jonney wrote:I had an absolute blast with Bantry Bay Charters, setting off from Glengarriff a month ago.
Great bunch of lads, did a full day charter with 8 of us.
Rods. tackle etc was included.
They fried up the mackerel & ling we caught as a spot of lunch.
Good local knowledge and good banter.
Planning on going back to them.
This was what we ended upgoing with! Darren was sound out. The only
minor complaint would have been more fishing but as a shore fisher myself I'm always going to want to capitalise on that boat time but it was great we saw Eagle's nests, a babbby eagle, two minke whales, he told us all about the mussel beds in the bay and pulled up a lovely crab pot introudcing us to his new friend of four days Mr. Cracking Great Lobster (along with brown edible crab, velvet swimming crabs etc.) who I could not unfortunately persuade Darren from parting ways with for a fiver *sigh*.
The weather was unreal despite the autmn chill settling about the south of the country at the moment.
I submitted a boat report there:
When: 26/09/2020
Where: Launching from Glenfariff Pier
Who: Bantry Bay Harbour Charters took myself and three buddies and two tag alongs on a tour of the harbour plus fishing! Out into Bantry Bay and fished area just beyond Whiddy Island, inside the bay.
Duration: 13:30-17:00ish
High Water: 12:46
Equipment: Didnt pay too much attention but standard enough, as was onboard!
Bait/Rig: feathers/baited sabikis with mackerel
Conditions: Novice at describing these but very sunny, clear skies, bit of a drift on, little enough wind
My Result: A rake of joeys, only a handful of mackerel brought home to table.
Buddies results: Two decent sized Pollock, a small scad, a tubgrey gurnard probabaly no bigger than my hand and a rake of mackerel.
Overall catch brought home: about 10 decent mackerel and the 1 pollock. Big shoutout to Darren, our skipper on "The Deep Star" from Bantry Bay Charters who even did a small cookup while we fished! They also accomodated us on very short notice as our changing schedules dicatated a last minute change from Courtmacsherry to Bantry Bay. Spotted two Minke Whales feeding up fairly close (close being maybe 40m?), apparently it was rare to get so close. No photos this time unfortunately.