People:Myself, Scotsman, PHanover
Duration:Sat Afternoon
Tide:Filling to HW and back down a bit.
Weather:Strong Northerlys, Dry though and calm seas.
Bait:Crab, Mack, Razor
Rigs:Various
Results:Codling, Whiting, Pollack, Coalfish, Whiting.
Report:
It seems like forever since the last time I had popped Duke in the water and after servicing and overhauling the boat and engine a couple of weeks ago I'd been chomping at the bit to get back in the water with compos and work doing their level best to interrupt things. An eagle eye had been kept on the weather throughout the week but as it came closer, I wasn't too hopeful about getting the hull wet due to strong winds forecast. We had decided we were going to have a go regardless and if it was too choppy, to fish some of the marks in the inner harbour. However, thankfully, turns out that a stiff northerly blowing down the harbour does its level best to flatten the sea to a sheet of glass, it was game on!
There were, pleasantly, no incidents at the slipway aside from the usual lack of bungs.... (how many times is that now?!) We had been unable to launch from our preferred site of Ringaskiddy due to the spring LW and had to travel to Crosshaven instead. Thing about Crosshaven is the lack of parking and we had to opt to abandon the trailer above (not quite as it happens.. :D )the HW mark and park the Jeep elsewhere. Steaming off, our first stop was at a flattie mark that produced well for me last year with some nice Plaice coming to the boat. This proved fairly fruitless however and after an hour or so, we headed for some reefy ground further out. That, wasn't before Lee created some drama of his own with his rod and reel inexplicably going over the side at one stage as the bracket it was in, cough, ahem, fell off.... :? Luck was with him however, long standing readers will know that if you're in a boat and lose something over the side, the best fella to have beside you is me..... Not this time however as lee managed to retrieve his gear all by himself with his spinning rod. You're a lucky so and so..... :D
First drop down on the reef yielded a doggie to myself, with the blank saved (yes, it indeed can happen on a boat too....) we began to drift the reef. A few fish came to the boat, codling, pollack and coalies. We were however, losing gear at a serious rate so moved back on top of it and dropped the anchor. A nice few codling then came over the gunnels with the biggest a plump 4lber. Best tactic appeared to be letting your bait bounce downtide in the strong current. Poor old Lee had a bit of a nightmare with the anchor rope resulting in 6 hooks having to be surgically removed from it on retrieving the anchor.... :lol:
Following on from this, we had a couple of brief stops to try once again for some flats but it was'nt to be with hordes of small whiting making their presence felt and with a nasty cloud coming over we headed back to port.
The safely abandoned trailer, was somewhat, how can we put it, submerged and caused much merriment with the two lads standing on the slip as I went to retrieve it. As it emerged from the water, complete with its carpet coating of bladderwrack, one of the lads produced a camera. Whilst they were indulging in this merriment, they took their eyes off the boat, you can see the frantic gesturing in the pic below as I roared all kinds of abuse at them to unsuccessfully get them to turn around and stop it swinging around off, and into the side of the slip.... The joys of retrieving in a howling crosswind! We managed to get Duke out of the water with the wind making life extremely awkward lining her on the trailer and off we headed.
It certainly wasn't the best days fishing I ever had in Cork Harbour but it was fantastic to be back out on the water again after a long lay off and good to get a few miles on the engine without incident after overhauling it myself too.
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