Duration:2 days , 9 hours each
Tide:ebb to flood
Weather: great
Bait:rag, crab, squid, mack,
Rigs:all in the wallet
Results:21 species
Report:Hi.
Well this is a report on the inaugural running of the Martin O’Brien Small boat Festival organised and run by Tony Tait, and the Rosie’s Fishing Club
The festival was a two day species hunt fished out of Aghada in Cork Harbour and the local area.
SATURDAY weather initially light winds, but forecast to increase to 4/5 s/w to west, which it did on the change of tide, so a restriction was placed on the competitors, no further south than the daunt rock and a line across to power head.
With this in mind and a good forecast for Sunday, we decided to get as many “difficult “species as we could around the Harbour area. Initially we dropped into the channel at the oil terminal, and a great start was had, picking up a scad, mackerel, whiting, and a codling, four species in the first 10 mins !
Off we went to try and pick up a flounder and bass, unfortunately the tide had started to ebb strong by the time we got to the mark, and after a 30 mins we headed to a different spot to continue the bass hunt. Whilst using one rod for the bass, I decided to try for a ray, with some nice chunks of mackerel on a spreader bar, well , no ray, but as we decided to move ( no Bass) up comes a fine big flounder on a 4/0 and a big chunk of mack in its mouth! Happy days. ( It’s the only way to catch them!!)
Next was a stop on the bank for launce but they were scarce , and we had no luck, so we headed to a ray mark, and first drop, up comes a fine plaice, again on a spreader! An hour passed with no joy, so we then tried for a bull huss, but the wind had freshened and caused us to swing a good bit at anchor, so making fishing in rough ground very difficult. At this point we decided to venture a couple of miles offshore towards the smiths, and anchor . This we did in lumpy conditions with wind against tide. Soon we had the LSD’s coming to the boat, and also a nice grey gurnard, a surprise ling, and then I got a big pull, this fish did not want to come up, and I was hoping it was a nice ray, but soon could feel that it was a conger, but it was acting strange, and when we got it to the surface attached to the spreader bar was a thick piece of rope descending into the depths, the conger was boated and the rope pulled, it had been there a long time, and after a lot of grunting up came a fine 10kg bruce anchor in v good nick! Result.
We had another good conger at this mark, and as it was getting much lumpier we headed for shelter of the harbour, here we soon picked up a good ballen wrasse and a corkwing, and for the last hour we tried for a blond ray, but again no luck.
Back at the slip it became apparent we had done well with a total of 15 species for the day, 2nd was Willie in Dave jolly’s boat OHANA with 13 species, with the other boats around 8-10 species.
SUNDAY, weather , flat calm and a little rain, but good prospects for the day.
Well, as with all species hunts you have to start with a plan for the day, and as with nearly all species hunts that plan is usually out of the window in the first hour!! We had a plan to hit six more species to get to a total of 21, and there was a few bonus species that we might pick up on the way.
First target was a launce, but again it proved elusive, so off to number two a coalfish, this we managed to get in less than a minute so off to get the next five , red gurnard, haddock ( don’t mention the war) , garfish, pouting , cuckoo wrasse. The conditions offshore were fantastic, with lovely calm seas, it was also apparent how popular cork has become with small boat anglers, there were boats all around the horizon!!
First to hit the deck was a steady supply of LSD, with the slow drift they were destroying the rigs set for our target foe, on two occasions we boated spotted ray but both undersized, then we hit a whiting plague of biblical proportions, but we did get a pouting and cuckoo wrasse, and the good old garfish put in an appearance, so four out of five, BUT, there is always a species that doesn’t play to the rules and this time for us was a haddock, we boated a good few undersized ones, but could not get one in size, but , we did managed a megrim, so happy days we had hit the 6 with a couple of hours left.
So we elected to head back to the harbour and try for the blonde ray again, and we did get a run, but frustratingly it dropped the hook.
It seemed like we had only set out a couple of hours ago but it was time for return to slip for 5.30.
Back at the slip everybody was helping with the retrieve of the boats, as is the spirit of the comp, soon the questions were flying, how did you do, oh we had three more species but all undersized, etc, and it was apparent that it was going to be a close run thing, ( as it usually is!!)
Back at Rosie’s bar the crews began to gather for the prize giving, nearly E1500 was up for grabs, due to fantastic sponsorship from the local business in the area.
Donal D had a great comp, with some fantastic sized fish, and this enabled his crew to walk away with many of the nominated species prizes for the largest fish, he also picked up the biggest conger, a fine fish around 13 kgs, But the overall results were as follows,
3rd place Apollo 19 species
2nd place Wimps, ( over form uk ) 20 species ( who incidentally had 19 species on day two!!)
1st place Screeming reels 21 species
So we had done it, a well happy crew.
To summarize, a great weekend, with a well run and well sponsored event. The fishing was first class as always in cork, A total of 28 species were registered over the two days, not to mention a good few more that did not make the size limit. The comp will be an annual event, so if you fancy a try at the species hunting, keep an eye out for this one, a nice way to get into this kind of competitive fishing
Regards
Screeming
Ps sorry no pictures to busy fishing!!!!
and congrats on winning 28 species is top class angling
. we came fifth overall with 17 species winning six cash prizes which isn't bad with no chart plotter and wasting 4 hours.
what more could you ask for 
