Duration:11am-5pm
Tide:Ebb, low, flow
Weather:Rotten, Howling winds and driving rain.
Bait:All finest frozen for me.
Rigs:Various, Mostly 2 hook clip downs
Results:Coalies, Conger, LSDs, Whiting, Dabs.
Catch and Release:: Yes
Report:
Having had a disastrous day yesterday, finding the beaches over East Cork way unfishable due to huge amounts of weed, it was, with deteriorating weather conditions and little hope of much action I headed off to fish my first competition with local club Crosshaven.
Bait was an issue, all I had was a selection of frozen baits, Mack, Squid, Lug and sandeel. Choice of venue was going to be very restricted with some form of shelter being paramount with the horrible driving wind and rain. After checking in, 11.00 came and Myself and Phanover headed literally across the bay to Currabinny pier to fish the channel there. I tackled up with a 2 hook flapper baited initially with sandeel (it was all that was defrosted at the time...!) and tossed it maybe 60 yards across the channel and let it sweep round until it settled. It wasnt in the water 5 minutes and my head was still buried in the rig wallet when the rod hammered around to the tune of a fish. It had to be a doggie and after ligfting into it I contrived to drop it 10 yards from the pier.....
A quick rebait and recast to a similar spot resulted shortly afterwards into another sweep round of the rod tip, no mistakes this time and a fat doggie hit the boards of the pier. Always good to get off the mark early, Sandeel on the hooks again and out it went. I missed another bite before landing Doggie no. 2 shortly afterwards. We had been joined by 2 other members of Crosshaven SAC who left after catching a doggie apiece I think it was. Conditions on Currabinny pier were, after 90 minutes or so bordering on downright dangerous as the whole wind on flotation suit thing was enough to send you sliding along the slippery boards at times
. Seeing as the majority of those fishing had headed initially over to Cobh to fish the Deepwater Quay, it was decided we should head over there. Off we headed, I was a couple of minutes ahead of Paul and stopped in Monkstown at De Wall for a quick look on the way to the Cross River ferry. Lo and behold there was very little wind at all. The chances of fish however were equally as slight with a huge amount of fresh water from the recent/current heavy rains coming down the river. Sod it we said, we'll give it a half hour and see what happens.I tackled up with a large black lug and squid bait fished on a pulley rig and horsed as far as I could into the channel. I was running a bit low on baits so a quick call to the missus had her en route with some more Mack and squid. 30 minutes or so passed without incident until, with herselfs car on the horizon I had a huge bite. Lifting into the fish with one eye on the road to make sure she saw me and stopped I was immediately taken aback with the sheer weight and power of it....! If it was indeed a cod then that 10lber was on its way in! With the missus standing OOhhing and AAHing it was with some surprise and delight (cod 5 points conger 20 points..) I had a conger of maybe 10lb or so on the surface. Species no. 2, and at least something was feeding!
It all went very quiet for some time after that, a phone call was made to the lads on the Quay in Cobh to see what was happening there. They also were struggling, indeed they were on the point of coming across to us so we stayed put. Having taken the conger unexpectedly, I put a fillet of mackerel on a 6/0 pennell rig and tossed it into the reefy ground about 20 yards off the Wall. It sat there for 10 mins or so before it had a quick knock.... Presuming it must have been a conger I left it be and slackened off the ratchet to give it a bit of room to get the bait well in, a couple of minutes later there was another very firm knock, I tightened the drag and lifted into the fish. I dont know who was more surprised, the fish or me as I hauled a fat 39cm Coalfish onto the pavement.... Species number 3 and a welcome surprise.
With maybe 30 minutes or so to go, I reverted to a 2 hook flapper and 2 nice long strips of mackerel tossed 10-20 yards out. With the onset of darkness and the flooding tide, the fish had definitely come on the feed with some savage rattling hits from Coalies. I managed to pull in another 2 before with 20 minutes to get back to Crosshaven I pulled in and headed off. Neverminding the competition, given the venues, I was glad to have a few fish on the deck on an awful day.
Made it back to Crosshaven in time for the second half of Arsenal Chelsea so not so bad at all. The first pint tasted like pure nectar.....
As anyone knows, football must take priority and I had to sit for the whole of the second half before the results were read out. With the 6 fish and 3 species I was delighted to take first prize with Chris Lipinski, (BillytheBass) taking second place with a Dab and a Coalie. Some nice Xmas related prizes on the table too. That was my first foray with Crosshaven SAC and I was more than impressed with the professional but relaxed approach to the whole affair. I will enjoy the Cork angling scene over the next few months with these lads I'm sure.
)still i've been using all frozen bait for the last few months with no problems and the quality of the frozen lug is far better then last year when it was turning to mush when defrosted 
