Port na Blagh area, Donegal

[scrob]

People: myself and a friend

Duration: 4 Hrs on Sat 11th July, 8 Hrs on Mon 13th July

Tide: All..

Weather: Mixture of sunshine, showers, heavy rain, wind, blistering sunshine. All 4 seasons really

Bait: Fresh mackerel

Rigs: Feathers, rubber eels, and condor bars

Results: 40 pollock, 40 mackerel, 1 plaice

Report:

Spent 2 days exploring the Horn Head area, from Skate Bay right across Horn head and back in towards Dunfanaghy pier, around the rock and towards Marble Hill, and the sand over the entrance to Ards.

We had a mixed weekend's fishing, quite poor given the target species and previous experience. In 16 hours of fishing feathers across 2 rods we barely managed about 40 mack, which leads me to wonder if a trawler had recently wiped them out in the area. Still, some decent ones for the freezer and some smaller ones for bait. The rest went back.. We tried literally the whole area above and sometimes went for almost an hour without a single hookup which was quite worrying (normally in this area you can't get away from them). The odd lone pollock was also picked up on the feathers but they were pretty small.

I tried some flattie and 3 hook flapper traces baited with mackerel strip. I only have a short rope so was only able to anchor in 40ft of water at the mouth of the river on Killyhoey beach (no result here) and at the mouth of Ards just opposite the 3 Beaches. I had a little more success here, with a small plaice followed by a cannibalistic mack! Unfortunately the bait proved otherwise fruitless which was disappointing.

We spent the finale of the weekend in Skate Bay fishing for approx 3 hours which yielded a great catch of around 30 pollock. I learned that keeping the boat as close to the rock face as my guts (!) would allow resulted in a much better yield. No huge fish but plenty in the 1-2lb range. I decided to use a light spinning rod with a heavy condor bar and caught about a dozen or so spinning which was a nice refreshment from bouncing heavy weights all weekend. I also tried a mackerel fillet on a congor trace on the bottom on the off chance anything big was lurking around but no takes on this.

All in all a nice weekend but slightly disappointing. Was hoping for more flatties on the bait rigs and a few tub gurnard somewhere in the mix. Hopefully the fish were on an "off day" rather than my fear of being badly hit by a visiting trawler..

[fishermannum1]

nice catch of fish there mate, hard luck on the flattie hunt, but at least you have stocked up on some bait with the mac; nice sessions and report there, well done..

[hugo]

I suspect (hope!) its conditions and not trawlers, Scrob, cos most of the boats down here are having much the same problem this year. Mind you, Killala SAC had boat contest in the bay 10 days ago, and one lucky lad from Dublin decked sixteen species in one day! Maybe its us....