Black Head Lighthouse, Co Clare

Date: Sunday 13-10
Venue: Around Black Head lighthouse, Co Clare
Boat: Honda Marine 2.7, 6hp
Low water: 11am
Fishing time: 7:30-1pm
Weather: Almost sunny with S/SW wind, waves around 2-3ft

Firstly, Hi Everybody!
This is my first report here. After checking the forecast, I decided to try Galway bay on my little boat. Never been here before on a boat but plenty experience
in Clare area.
The fishing began just before sunrise, I got a first mackerel while drifting with the sock anchor. Then it became quiet.
I changed the location by moving close to the lighthouse and put a proper anchor on 12 meters. While casting one rod with feathers I put 3 hooks flapper
with mackerel/peeler/shrimp baits. Very quiet, only one bait - small dogfish on mackerel, no wrasse/straps or other fish.
Then got one pollock on feathers, then 3 more mackerel also on feathers just after the pollock.
One of my dreams is to catch all types of local sharks with Bull Huss and dogfish caught previously, 5 shark species to go (spurdog, smooth hound, tope, blue and porbeagie).
Why not to try to catch a tope? As the mackerel was big I had to use a half of that. 6ft trace attached to the main line with the lead on a running clip.
No baits after one hour, no mackerel on feathers either.
I decided to drift with the wind towards the east to the village I launched the boat from..
On the right from the lighthouse found a stretch for around 1 mile of so with constant depth of 22-23 meters and no snagging.
I put some soft plastic with feathers dragging close to the bottom and the tope snack on the second rod. Not even a bait even with plenty fish on fishfinder.
Returned back just after 1pm, not a great day but still managed to get a few fish. Probably something to do with large moon, low tide, coming rain, etc..
Thanks for reading, any advises on the tope fishing? or just simply go to Waterford/Wexford one day?

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Others here will know better but my understanding is that the tope in Galway Bay are a lot further east and found in the inlets with strong currents. It is a very long time since I fished regularly from the rocks there but from what I recall, most of the fish were caught close in (closer than your picture). The bottom is sand in the main, fairly clean and featureless. You might want to consider putting a bag of very fine chum down with your anchor to give fish a scent trail to bring them to your boat...

Thanks Kieran, will try next time. The chum would be good idea as well. I was thinking to go to the east of the bay between Kinvarra bay and Eddy island but the water is not really deep over there and expected to have more chances around the light house.
Is that sand bottom on the main be any good for flats/rays if using spreader booms with traces? I am not really an expert in boat fishing yet. Thanks