People:Myself and the McGroary fella
Weather:Glorious, sunny, calm. Bit breezier on the Saturday.
Bait:Fresh mackerel
Rigs:Baited feathers, leadheads, flowing traces and gilling traces
Results:Grey Gurnard, Codling, Pollack, Mackerel, Dab
Report:
And so, after a change of boat, a change of engine, some new electronics and a great deal of waiting around for a free weekend, Duke 1 finally made its way into the waters of Cork Harbour on her maiden voyage. Of course, as ever, this was not to be a trip without incident as previous readers to reports of mine will know.... You would think with all the money that had been spent and time put into this that things would go smoothly..... They kind of did but not after much huffing and cursing at the engine which was anything but smooth on day 1! After launching from Crosshaven it was running roughly and as we were on the point of coming back to the slip, it seemed to clear itself.
With some trepidation, we made our way round past Camden fort and out to the mouth of the harbour. Mackerel seemed to be everywhere and were showing in most places we stopped to drift. Fishing other than that was quite slow, its been almost a year since I was last out and I didnt quite have my bearings again. We did manage a couple of pollack, a couple of grey Gurnard and a solitary Dab in the middle of all the mackerel. Glad to have been able to get some scales on the deck at least we turned and headed for home with hopes for bigger and better things the following day. The sights of dolphins surfing the wake of another boat close by and the pair of otters hunting at the slipway were an added bonus.
After popping the hood on the engine the following morning and discovering oily residue around the plugs, I checked the oil level in the engine to find it was way overfilled... My self diagnosis was that due to this some of it was finding its way into the cylinders and causing the problem, a complete change of fuel, a clean of the plugs and we were ready for the off again. We launched from Crosshaven once again and headed on our merry way out of the harbour. The engine was running much much better thank god. There was a nice bit of wind against tide to deal with with a stiff southerly and an ebbing tide to make things a little choppy on the way out but the wee Orkney handled it superbly.
Once we were out past Roches point, the sea flattened off and we headed East towards Power head. Not really knowing where exactly to go, fishing was quite slow with only odd little bits and pieces coming to the boat. A phone call to Diamond Domeney put us right however (thanks Donal :D ) and we were given a couple of marks to try. One unfortunately would have to wait for another day as it was another 2.5 miles out and the clock was against us. However, on moving in tighter to shore we managed to pick up a couple of nice pollack. One in particular caused much merriment as I had dropped down my gilling trace, wound it just off the bottom and reached for a bag of crisps. Midst stuffing my face and with the lures static in the water on a very slow drift (.3 to .4 of a knot) with the rod tucked between my knees it suddenly heeled over to the tune of a decent fish. Try swearing with a mouthful of crisps and you will get the picture.... :D Following a decent scrap on my 10lb class rod, a lovely pollack of 4-5lbs hit the deck. I followed this with another similar sized fish which hit the lures as the snap link hit the top ring on the rod.... That was fun, it fairly stripped line off as it dived!
Apart from the odd small codling, nothing else really showed and with the clock ticking on we headed back to the mouth of the harbour. Following a couple of unproductive drifts near Roches Point, we moved to Harbour rock. Fishing a team of jellies, pollack after pollack came to the boat with them taking right on the surface most times. Even when they didnt take, when you dropped the trace back down you could see them flying after it.... Great sport! They werent anywhere near as keen on the leadhead approach however which was unusual. Interesting thing was that we were only fishing in 7 metres of water at that point. I would say we had 12-14 fish in the space of a half hour with a bonus codling amongst them to boot. A nice way to end what had been, although quiet on the fish front, a super day at sea. We had managed to cover 13 miles over the course of the day on less than half a 15litre tank of fuel.... Not bad!! Cork Harbour seems to be full of mackerel at the moment as they were marking on the sounder again from Camden fort out in most places we tried.
And so it ended, and following the traditional chip stop we headed home. No lost keys, no lifeboat calls, no leaking hulls, no nasty weather and a few fish to boot. Isnt that how boating should be....??? :D
Mightily impressed with the Garmin 178 chartplotter, GPS and sounder unit. It was a joy to use, with as much info as you would need clearly displayed and simple to operate. The finder worked extremely well with none of the usual rubbish marking you get on cheaper models. Very pleased with it and for anyone looking for a reasonably priced multi purpose unti for a small boat, they wont go far wrong with one of those.
All fish bar the mackerel were released and given the shallow nature of the ground we were fishing went back a treat.