Cork Harbour, secret mark, 11th Feb

People: Me

Duration: 9:45pm - 1:15am (3.5 hrs)

Tide: LT 10:45pm

Weather: Very calm, light northerly wind, extremely cold.

Bait: Crab

Rigs: Clipped sown 2Hk Pats

Results: 8 Codling (30 - 40cms)




Report: Well I was going to keep it a secret, until Colin & Jim found me . This mark, known locally as the station master's hole (I'm not being rude , but this is what its known as), is hardly ever fished. Its actually an old boat mark for cod just in the channel off Cobh. It was while talking to a few 'old hands' during the week that I was reminded of it. This particular spot was always fished at the start of the flood, and with the fishing in this Sundays light line comp viewtopic.php?f=24&t=25759 covering this stage of the tide, this spot was worth a reccie. The only trouble was......I was going to be doing this from the shore .

It was going to be some ask for me to try and get my rig out this far but I was going to give it a go. I set up with an hour of the ebb left, put on a two hook clipped down pat baited with John Bhoy32's finest crab, wound into the cast and blasted everything out towards the horizon...or more correctly, the middle of the channel. I quite surprised myself....I reckon I hit 120yds...not bad . Shortly after Colin & Jim arrived and some lively banter ensued. The tip of the rod nodded away a few times, signifying a bit of interest, but in the interests of polite & correct conversation , I ignored it. Just before the lads headed off I reeled in. Fish on ! It was alright too, a nice codling of 30cm. With that the lads went on their way.

Baiting up I again surprised myself with another mighty cast . It was now low water and I didn't have to wait long before I had a few more rattles. Striking this time I was into a bit of weight and there was a fair old bend in the rod. I had something a bit better here as there was a bit of lively head shaking going on. The culprits soon broke the surface...two nice codling. Almost twins you could say as both measured in at 40cm....the biggest I've had off the waterfront at Cobh this year !

In prepping the bait for the next cast I accidently cut the snood while stripping the old bait off with scissors. I hadn't brought much gear with me so I decided to retie the hook on. This slightly comprised the integrity of this clipped down rig. This along with the basic mistake of not having a stop knot on the snoods was to result in me missing many fish for the rest of the night. Almost straight away I started missing bites. On retrieval I found the bait shoved right up past the hook onto the snoods, obviously from the sheer force of the casts. No matter how hard I tried to secure the bait on with elastic I was still having problems. I could have nipped home for some power gum or amnesia but I thought I'd stick it out. If I went home I'd probably have stayed at home. By the end of the night I managed another 5 codling but mised twice as many more. The one plus, though, was that all fish were over 30cm . That's better quality fishing than I've had so far this year. The other plus is that I now know that this spot can fish for us on Sunday if we chose to come in here .

I'll post up some pics later.

nice fishing pat, well done on the pair of twin's

Don't worry Pat your secret's safe with me
Not too sure about Colin though.... not to mention loose lips roadrunner

Ahhh the good ol "station master's hole"

FFS you didn't tell roadrunner where it is he'll be talking through it

No, I won't....that station master wouldn't like that .

Here are a few pics:

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BTW we've lost 4 anglers today for Sunday's light line comp viewtopic.php?f=24&t=25759 , which means that there are 4 places up for grabs. Any takers?

some nice codling pat well done

lovely codling there pat . we can't seem to get them past the 30cm size up here at the moment . we're back to weighing them in ounces instead of pounds