De Wall, Monkstown, Cork.

[petekd]

People:Myself, Phanover, Donal

Duration:9.00pm to 12.00am

Tide:HW @ 9.30

Weather:Fine and calm

Bait:Mack

Rigs:7/0s, Feathers

Results:Mackerel, pouting, poor cod, conger, whiting, coalfish, scad.....


Report:
We headed for the wall for the first time since those halcyon cod fishing days back in January with the intention of winkling out a conger or too. We had been promising ourselves a conger bash here all summer but had never gotten round to it until now.

Set up with the 7/0s and various rods cast out varying sizes of mackerel in pursuit of a biggie. Alas, it was not to be. Several small knocks resulting in nothing and a quieter hour I havent spent in a long time. Where we were fishing was semi lit up by street lights and to our amazement, fish started hopping out of the water all the way along the side of the wall. Curiousity got the better of us and the first drop down yielded a Scad. The shrimp rigs came out immediately after that and just dangling them or skimming them across the surface began producing a variety of fish. Donal had a hat-trick on one cast with a mack, a scad and a coalie on the same trace. Competition stuff indeed!

Only one conger put in an appearance, a small strap of a couple of pound which was quite disappointing. I cannot get over however the amount of fish that were to be seen there last night. Given the quantities of fish, you would have thought it was just a matter of waving something in front of them and hooking up. This however was not the case, you could see them following lures and sniffing them before turning away which was maddening. After an hour or so of dangling, we did however have a nice range of species to end the night. All fish bar a few mack for bait were carefully returned. Would have been a classic opportunity for some SWFF if you watched your backcast with the traffic....

[g.wyse]

How ya pete,sounds like a decent couple of hours although i'm surprised by the lack of big conger considering what iv'e seen and heard that has been caught over the last couple of weeks down there ...still backs up what i was saying about De Wall being an all year mark for anybody who wants to spend a couple of casual hours with line in water .

[x]

although i'm surprised by the lack of big conger considering what iv'e seen and heard that has been caught over the last couple of weeks down there

Might have hit the nail on the head there. Were they released again or attacked by a lynch mob?

[g.wyse]

Hi Sandman, i know what you mean but everything i catch with maybe the the exception of mackeral is released ,i recently had to say no to a couple of guys i work with, they couldn't understand the concept of catch and release or putting the most of their catch back(i'm not against taking a few home).As for others fishing the mark i've only once seen a couple of idiots hacking a fish to bits , which another couple of regular anglers(not sure but they maybe on this forum) quickly had a word and they moved on.

[x]

Aye, all it takes is some thug with a knife or a stick and a conger maybe 10-15 years old is finished for good. At least if they're released reasonably carefully, they're tough enough to survive so other anglers can have a chance at them. But a few yobs can wreck a mark for conger fishing overnight.

[g.wyse]

Totally agree , just filled out the survey.Great idea keep up the good work.