Rosguill, Downings - 28th June '06 (Laurentic Congering)

[JGF]

People: Myself and 5 Dutch Anglers.

Duration: 10am - 6:30pm

Tide: Ebb

Weather: Sunny AM then cloudy with wind picking up in evening.

Bait: Ragworm (for wrasse) Live mackeral, flappers, whole dead mackeral (congers)

Rigs: 1up,1 down, 2 hook pats (Wrasse) 4-6ft 130lb Flowing traces & 8/0 bronzed hooks, baited pirks, large wrecking leadheads (Conger).

Results: Plenty of Ballan Wrasse to 3lb+, Red Gurnard, Scad, Poor Cod, Pouting, Conger to 16lb+.

Report:
After a day to recover from the Torsk trip, I allowed myself another day off and headed out with Michael McVeigh and the 5 Dutch lads again.

This was to be another first as he intended anchoring on the Laurentic wreck just beyong the mouth of the Swilly.

We spent the morning fishing for Wrasse (Lippfisch in Dutch) searching to try and find a specimen ballan over a few marks. Did a few drifts past Melmore head and there were plenty of smaller wrasse being caught but moved into the Swilly and tried a couple more drifts until the Ragworm were gone. Picked up a few larger wrasse here but none near specimen size.

After getting mackeral, we headed to Laurentic and dropped anchor about 1:30pm with an outgoing tide.

After about 20 mins the conger started showing an interest - a few managed to savage the baits and avoid capture, and a few managed to wrestle their way back to safety parting the line on the way. The first couple of fish were straps up to about 8lbs, then a larger one about 13lb+ and next i managed to coax one of about 16lb+ to the boat.

Even though we managed a few more the 20lb+ fish proved elusive, or too stubborn to be shifted. The wreck has debris scattered over a wide area due to all the salvage trips to recover it's cargo of gold, so plenty of hiding and potential snags, however rigs were kept to the bare minimum so losses weren't too painful.

[img]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b287/aontroim/c-laurentic-conger.jpg[/img]
One of the first conger to make an appearance

[img]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b287/aontroim/c-jgf-conger.jpg[/img]
Me with heaviest fish of the day


Nice to finally get anchored on the Laurentic and get at the conger - none of the Swilly boats anchor on it at all, and it's such a shame as there are loads of conger on it - we had a quiet day by usual standards.