Tigger II, Cork Harbour, 03/08/2009

People: myself and petekd

Duration: 12:00 - 19:00 or thereabouts

Tide:

Weather: breezy, cloudy, rainy

Bait: mackerel, frozen razor, frozen rag

Rigs: mainly flowing traces, few other bits and pieces

Results: two wet boys and mackerel, pollack, plaice, dabs, doggies, tub gurnard, grey gurnard, codling, whiting

Report: Beautiful bank holiday Monday called us out onto the water and how could we resist.... A very few other hardy souls were out and about as well, but the harbour was very quiet for a bank holiday Monday.
Headed out past Cobh to find the water was pretty much brown, decided that we'd venture further out and see what the harbour was like with those southerlies - better than we had hoped for anyway, and no bother to the wee longliner. Picked up some pollack from the rock and then after a bit of a drift we spotted some diving gulls and headed over to get some fresh bait.
Bit more drifting had me a nice plaice, so of course we headed in a bit more to a certain tub gurnard mark, where I picked up a tub on my first drop, followed closely by my first codling since last April (a fine fellow at almost 12cm I'd guess). Pete on a nightmare day, managed his first non bait fish of the day, a pollack.
Decided then we'd go species hunting as we weren't getting a lot of fish, but a bit of variety. Hit our flatfish mark where we managed a couple of dabs, Pete hauling in a massive dab which while not specimen size, probably wasn't far off it (still wasn't as big as my plaice though ) and was arguably the fish of the day. Headed over to another mark to try for dogs and huss, doggies obliged, but not the huss. Ventured back out looking for dragonets and ray, but found lots of doggies, dabs, whiting and the odd gurnard. Started raining quite heavily at this point, but we thought we'd stay on for species 10 of the day which didn't arrive. We headed in and tried a bit of half hearted trolling plugs for bass on our way but got nothing.
Quite enjoyed the day, despite the weather, and my earlier non-enthusiasm for the trip in the morning. The old harbour whilst not spoiling us with fish, gave us a few decent ones and enough to keep us interested.

nice one on the fish how bad was the gales down there in wex ford they were blown about a 7

Davis got a scutching off Scotty alright.... Slack enough fishing but a bit of variety to keep us entertained. I think nearly 2 hours were on the board before I caught anything of any note other than mackerel . Highlight of the day had to be confirming to a dubious scotsman that Tub Gurnard are indeed available inside the harbour and nice to see him poke one out to verify it. Had a fine dab that weighed just under a pound headed and gutted so not a million miles away from speci weight at all. For the record, gone off frozen rag does not work at all from the boat despite having decent results on same for Flounder from the shore in the past.

The weather did its best to ruin things but thanks to the wonders of flotation suits and the like it made little impact. There wasn't a whole pile of enthusiasm for the trip that morning from either side but I'm glad we went out, it was infinitely preferable to lounging around at home giving out about the weather. Shame we didnt get that 10th species but 9 was good going considering the expected Huss and weavers didnt make an appearance and we didnt go to anchor for Conger at any stage. Little Longliner performed admirably on a sloppy enough old day out there, particularly when heading for the Rock early doors. Cheers for the run out Lee...

Nice fishing lads, a very decent session there considering all the rain the night before.

Kev