Rosslare and Cork Small boats comps 2010 Screeming Reels

The Rosslare and Cork small boats comps, reports. Screeming Reels
Rosslare.
Arrived nice and early on the Saturday and moved into the nice house in Rosslare, with all the gear unpacked, including the travelling fridge and freezer, bait sorted and put to bed( two weeks’ worth!!) it was off to rosslare harbour to head out and get some fresh mackerel, well that was the plan! The sea was nice and calm, but the macks did not want to play, and after three hours we had a dozen! At least it was better than none!.
That evening our other crew member arrived along with Dezzer and Arther beechy, and the discussion was immediately about rigs and tactics for the week ahead. It was obvious from the weeks forecast that it was going to be a tough time, with mod to fresh winds forecast for most days, so a plan was hatched for each day.
Day One, this was a restricted day and the area we had been given was a line drawn from the northern tip of the little saltee to the tip of carnsore point only and we had to remain north of that line as the seas were choppy, but fishable, this put many good areas out of bounds, but still plenty of species to be had. Fishing throughout the day was hard, and it didn’t help matters that our third member of the crew had decided to hit the wine the night before, fair play to him he kept fishing, but it wasn’t long before the inevitable happened, with much sympathy coming from Seirt and myself, I managed to get an action shot of the event, and we also put out the gar rod as he had created a fantastic slick!!
We ended the day on sixteen species, a good start
Day two, This again was a restricted day, but we could go west if required, again it was a sloppy day at sea but not as bad as day one, and we managed to add 6 more species to end the day on 21, so all going nicely. At least Nev was feeling a little better this time!
Day three . We had made up a good plan if it was going to be unrestricted, and on arrival at Kilmore we had the good news that we could go anywhere, we had a target of 6 species, we knew we needed and off we set, we soon had two of these with a scad and a pouting and offshore we headed into still a very lumpy sea , but no wind. To say it was an uncomfortable journey out would be an understatement, and after 30 mins of getting our spines jarred, we arrived at the mark, at this point , where’s siert? Nev and myself looked round and he was lying on the deck with his head between the seats FAST ASLEEP !!!!!!! God only knows how he did that.
Well we were straight into the fishing and we hit the garfish and haddock and whiting we were targeting, so off to a reef for the conger which arrived. At this point we had added 7 species so we’re very happy with three hours left, this is when we made a tactical error, we spent a good two hours hunting a huss, and it did not arrive, and we headed home ending on 28 species, when we got in there was already rumours that we were tied on first place , but more worryingly they were talking of cancelling the last day!
This proved to be the case , and much to our disappointment the last day was cancelled due to the forecast of fresh northerly winds. As it was ,the boat Louise B had a better weight than ourselves as we had set ourselves the target of the bass on the last day( that will not happen again!)
After the disappointment, we reflected on the day’s events and had a few beers! We had still just fallen short of the hat trick, so we had done well, and Louise B had been at the event for 23 years and it was their first win, so well done to them.
One funny moment on the night we found out we had been piped, a crew member from the boat we had piped twice on weight the previous two years Quote, Now you know how we bloody felt!!!!! So much for sympathy in the fishing world!
Cork Small boats
After a fast packing of all the gear and fridges ect, which would have done a formula one pit crew proud, we headed in convoy to Cork, We arrived at Trabolgan nice and early, with the intention of again getting some fresh macks, this we did.
The week’s weather was looking ok with the chance of losing day midweek, but the weather for Sunday was looking fantastic. Little did we know how fantastic.
Day one, It was a lovely day after the hard week we had in rosslare, we had a plan as usual and at the off, 27 boats headed west towards crosshaven always a great sight to see 27 boats at full speed. We stopped early in the harbour and had our first species onboard a scad, then to the harbour rock, and a poor cod and a tom pot blenny was soon added, off we headed towards the lings, with a brief stop at the daunt for a coalfish, we then started drifts north of the lings, where we added a good few offshore species, including the Haddock, and a fine specimen Megrim caught by seirt.
As we thought a pout was proving illusive so we had managed to get all the species we wanted offshore and headed back to the smiths for our pout, and we soon had him in the bag, the day was going well, we arrived back in the harbour at 1.30 and I decided to have a quick count and found we had got 20 species!, we went to the well known blonde mark, and it was not long before I pulled up a blonde but he was too small, as I was placing it over the side, seirt latches into a good fish, and up comes a super 15lb fish, as this was going on my rod seemed off and up came a third blonde, job done. At this point we went to what we thought was a thornback ray mark, first cast in comes a Tub Gurnard! This was our lucky day, followed to by two large plaice and flounders!! Some ray mark. On our way back to the weigh in we had realised a dream start to any comp 24 species in less than 8 hours fishing including a fine speci megrim, a day neither of us will forget.
Day Two. It had now sunk in what we had done on day one, and it was now we started to say whats left that we had good marks for, and as with all species hunting, there is always a low to follow a high! And today was it, we tried for thornbacks and huss, and other species, and it just didn’t happen, with us only adding a corkwing wrasse on day two.
Day three. This was not much better, as we became obsessed with catching a dragonet and a thornback, both remained elusive to us and we spent far too much time trying for these two species, but we did manage to add a goldsinney wrasse and a very fluky and welcome Brill!!
Day four arrived and it was obvious that we were falling behind the pack and a little bit of depression set in, it was now apparent that we had done our homework offshore but not on the harbour species, like mullet etc, with many boats returning grey mullet from pre baited swims, something we were not used to doing. We did manage to add a goby and finally a thornback ray but we knew it would not be enough, and surely it was not.
At the evening presentation, we ended up in 4th place on 29 species, Beast master who had lead day two and three could not add any species on the last day and ended in 3rd with 30 species, Sea pigeon after a fine last day was 2nd on 30 species with a better weight, but the local boys had done it again by adding two species on the last day, Team Skua 1st with 31 species a new comp record.
Well done to them.
It was a great week with some big highs and some big lows for us, but that’s species hunting, we both learned from our mistakes this week, but by god we will be ready for the off next year!!
Regards
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Poor Nev, he isn't going to forget that in a hurry great fishing Martin, the 24 species on day 1 was fantastic and very scary, just don't repeat it in the rosies comps !! A tough 2 weeks especially after the rotten weather we all got in Rosslare. I think we all learned from our mistakes

well done men is nev the secret dubby a lot of time and effort went into the 2 weeks most people would find it hard to stay focused for a days fishing never mind 2 weeks running with bait,gear and rigs to sort out i spent 4 hours cutting up used gear from rosslare comp roll on next years comps

thats class angling men and a great amount of species. well done for sticking it out. wouldent say it was too comfortable in moderate winds

"Local boys??" I'm from Dublin thanks very much You have more of a local passport entitlement than any of us Martyn with the amount of hours you spend in that Harbour

Another great comp and we were very lucky with the weather - yet again.

Roll on 2011

Sorry rob, forgot how that remark would upset a Dub!!!
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First class report Martyn
Well done lads