Rock Mark mouth of Cork Harbour 13/8/14

Myself and Morgan44:

4 -5 hours:

2-3 hours rise and 2 on the drop:

Strong breeze, dry, a bit of blue sky and cloudy before dusk.:

Rag and Mackerel:

1 up rig on a T swivel:

11 Ballen Wrasse, 1 Corkwing Wrasse, 2lb 1oz Three Bearded Rockling, 6lb 8oz Strap Conger:




We started off collecting bait in the Harbour at a low spring tide and after collecting our fair share of Razorfish, we headed to another spot for 20 minutes to collect some Rag-worm just enough for a day's fishing.
Next we made our way around the harbour to spot that Morgan had been catching Wrasse at for the last few weeks, I have to admit I never caught a Wrasse until a few weeks ago and I was really looking forward to this and I'm happy to say I wasn't disappointed.
We began fishing just a little after 6pm with the tide still on the rise.
Morgan had only dropped his first bait in the water when he started to get small quick bites, over the next half hour this continued and resulted in 3 Ballen Wrasse, soon after I had a ballen and a cork-wing which was a first for me as I only previously caught a cuckoo wrasse.

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Another 7 wrasse came to Morgan the biggest one around a pound in weight then he noticed his line tighten on his other rod he struck fast and managed to steer the fish away from the rocks and out into open water, which resulted in a strap conger of 6 and a half pound after a nice scrap on light gear, a PB for him in Ireland and the myth busted for me that conger don't feed during the day.

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Next it was my turn my rod kicked and I made it only to find the fish had gone to ground I kept the tension on it and could feel the fish kick but with no movement I was sure I was on to a conger myself, I tried moving left and right and pushing the rod out as far as I could but no joy so I decided to give the fish slack and reeled back into it and thankfully I was able to get a hold over it and bring it to the surface which resulted in a specimen 3 Bearded Rockling a PB for me at 2lb 1oz.

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I had a very enjoyable day even though Morgan kicked my ass in terms of fish caught .
I was very happy with 2 new species and a specimen while he had a PB Conger for his time here in Ireland.
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One other little bit of success for me was the rotten bottom weights worked and with a bit more tinkering to the idea will make the perfect weight for rock fishing.

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Well done lads!
I'm using the same weights for my rock fishing haha
Marcin

Nice conger lad!!!!

Nice report Lovely colours on the Corkwing and well done on that beast of a rockling! Good idea on the weights too!

Thanks sweetwrasse

It was the stones that made the difference !!!

Fairplay lads on a good evenings fishing with a good report and photos to go with it.

Some tasty fish there lads, cool photos.

love the weights man saves melting lead how do u put a hole in em drill or what

Dave 78 must take all the credit for the stone weights , he collects them with the holes in them off the shore line , really are great for rough ground fishing with minimal casting involved , I think there will be a lot of stones used on the rocks from now on thanks to him

Thanks Morgan, my secret location for getting them is pillmore in youghal and the rocky beach next to knockadoon pier past ballymacoda, the holes are created by natural erosion, you might need to doctor some of them with a hammer and bolster, most are perfect naturally smooth and created by mother nature