News - 2006
Jan-Mar
I've really let the site slip over the winter so now I'm just trying to get it back up to speed before the summer species really kick in. So a quick summary of what's been going on so far. It's been a slow spring for me in truth and I simply haven't been out near as much as I would have hoped. I spent most of January still chasing codling up at "The Wall" in Monkstown which really was fishing exceptionally well all winter this year. By the end of the month though things were starting to tail off quite a bit but plenty of fish to 3lbs were still available at extreme range to frozen black lug and crab. The Abbey in Youghal also seemed to be producing better cod fishing than I remember in the last 3 or 4 seasons, however the stamp of fish was not on par with Monkstown. Further efforts at Culoo proved fruitless for codling however the place was still alive with small wrasse to 2lbs in February. We even managed pollack around the 3lb mark on bottom baits. Right in the depths of winter! A few bass were showing on the surf beaches here and there but I didn't see anything exceptional and to be fair I never really got out and had a good crack at the sea-trout either. 
One or two session's bottom fishing the usual marks threw up a few small fish but really I didn't put in the time this year and saw nothing better. The winter league with the local club here was down on numbers of fish from last year too and tailed off as the matches moved into late February and by March fish were pretty scarce - that and the fact that we got a few horrendous weekends of weather in a row which either kept me inside or killed off any enthusiasm I could muster up. However I did hear of a few anglers getting some nice thornies from Dingle Harbour from mid March onwards with some good 7 - 8lb fish too. Instead I opted to spend time getting all the gear ready in anticipation for the summer ahead.
April
Months of preparation are starting to pay off it would seem. The ray have arrived in good numbers by now with The Spa throwing up some nice fish already including thornies to low doubles and painted to just under specimen size. I'm a bit surprised to hear the painted have arrived this early - it's usually May before I catch them with any regularity from here. Sea-trout are moving through the beaches too with lots of fish falling to spinning tactics including reports of some nice fish a fraction under 2lbs. Flounders look like they are returning from spawning with good catches reported from surf beaches like Inch. I seem to be catching them at almost every mark I fish at the moment; they're everywhere. The Easter weekend really saw us get started properly, four hard-core days of non-stop fishing! Unfortunately the return didn't really reflect the amount of hours we put in! 
First session was at Inch Friday morning which after blowing up 2 reels and losing 4 rigs in the first 3 casts (what a feat!) I did manage to scratch 2 flounders from a small surf. Top of the tide at The Trench that evening produced a single painted ray around the 4lbs mark. Saturday was spent at The Spa and while conditions looked ideal, the ray refused to play ball and all I managed for the entire day was 2 more flounder. Right, change of location and a trip to one of our favourite marks in Cork Harbour on Sunday in search of plaice produced just 2 more fish, neither of which was a plaice!. Shane went plugging for bass at a mark near the mouth of the harbour and while conditions looked very favourable nothing showed. Monday was a bit special however; a F4-5 NW threw our plugging plans out the window so we headed for a sheltered mark on Slea Head to see if there were a few pollack and wrasse starting to show off the rocks. 
We had some good wrasse to just under 4lbs and lots of pollack in the 2 - 3 1/2lb range along with a cracking 5lber. Not bad for the middle of April. Have a look at him here. Towards the end of April we took a few days off and while we put in some serious rod hours at various marks we were rewarded with more quality than quantity. Not complaining though as we had plenty of thornbacks, lots of flounders and small bass, an early season tope, stingers and the first of hopefully some nice undulates. Check out the photos here. Mackerel and launce have started showing at Culoo, oh and the gars are in on the beaches down here too... and it's only April!
Next Month:
Well, it's all guns blazing from here on in. Stingers will be arriving in numbers here soon and we'll be off up the west coast after hopefully more tope towards the end of the month. The bass which have been a bit lethargic in the colder water up to now should really be hitting lures. Better painted and undulates should start making an appearance with the thornies also. May for me usually means stingers and tope with maybe a session or two thrown in this year for shad down in the south east. Mid May to mid June can also produce double figure undulates from the pier in Fenit, an evening tide with HW falling maybe an hour before dusk is the prime time. All the rest can wait until mid June onwards - I can concentrate on everything else for the rest of the summer.
May
The month started well with plenty of bass about. Nothing particularly big but plenty of fish falling to lures from a variety of marks before the bass ban kicked in on May 15th. From talking to various anglers it seems that numbers seem to well up this year with lots of fish being reported. Good stuff! The most surprising thing I suppose about this season is the number of undulate ray that appeared inshore and in the year the CFB has taken them off the specimen listings because of their rarity! I certainly have never caught so many of them before. Amazingly over the month of May I've had more undulates than thornbacks which is a bit mad and some good fish too the best pushing the scales round to a solid 13lbs just a pound short of specimen which is a real cracker from the shore. 
I put up a picture of him here on the photos page. The mackerel have arrived and seem to around in good numbers from Culoo too. The flood tide is producing best but on the ebb we've been getting lots of good launce falling to shrimp rigs. The Spa has not been fishing as well as it was at the end of last month however with a notable lack of any ray - very patchy. Just the odd thornback here and there. Again from meeting anglers and looking at my own results the stingray have not shown and the fishing for them has been very slow and unpredictable also. As with the bluddy tope which have proved very difficult and were late in arriving. Having said that while large numbers of pack fish didn't show on the beaches the quality of fish we did take was much better than any other season I can remember. I think we had 4 males over 30lbs during the month which for male fish is something a bit special. The full moon tides in the middle of the month produced a 36lber and a 38 1/2lber (both ma les) on consecutive casts one particular evening. I won't be repeating that in a hurry! However the best was yet to come and when the pack tope did finally arrive it was manic. The session that stands out was on the new moon on the 27th. In the space of an hour and a half we had nine screaming runs. It could have and should have been brilliant but out of 5 hook-ups we only landed 3 fish. Ouch, what a missed opportunity, that hurt big time.
Next Month:
From here on in it's anybody's guess. The Shannon and Galway Bay should both be producing tope from selected shore marks and hopefully sport will continue until the end of June. However after putting in something like 80 "rod hours" fishing for them during May I'm all burned out. All the usual ray/huss/conger etc. will be around now for the summer. Big wrasse and pollack will be available now. My mate Shane already took a specimen wrasse last weekend back on a mark in Slea Head. Remember the bass ban is still in effect until the middle of the month on June 15th but judging by the trend we saw around the start of May it'll be well worth anyone's while going out to target these fish as soon as the season opens again.
June/July
Well June pretty much passed me by what with world cup fever taking hold and all the rest of it. Seems like such a distant memory now... We did put in a few trips to Galway and the northern side of the Shannon Estuary after more tope but to no avail. In fact I spent the entire June bank holiday weekend camped out on an island for 3 solid days with only two dogfish to show for my troubles. The rock fishing has more than made up for it though. Plenty of pollack around all the usual marks on Slea Head with the northern side of Dunmore Head fishing particularly well. While there have been bass falling to plugs too it hasn't been outstanding certainly not in the marks I fish around Kerry. Plenty of schoolies around at all the usual places alright but bigger 4lb plus fish have been hard to find. Cork Harbour on the other hand seems to be alive with fish. As a general rule of thumb any ground fishing I've done over these past two months has been an absolute disaster down here - trips for congers and ray have proved fruitless and from talking to other anglers, they would seem to have faired similarly. Fenit Pier has been producing the occasional stingray along with the usual thornies/painted etc. It seems everywhere is alive with mackerel again with the pier at Fenit and at Brandon further west holding plenty of fish. A few mullet are showing in Cork Harbour but seem to have fallen under much more angling pressure in the last year or two and they're starting to get very cagey so they are proving more difficult than usual. This coupled with a few unsuccessfull attempts to target those gilthead bream down in Waterford has all in all left me more than a little frustrated at times. Not to worry something magical always happens down here (if you stick at it long enough) and so it was when we got a local boat to drop us out to an unknown, uninhabited island for a weekend in July in our quest for monster pollack. I could go in to th e amount of fish we took from this mark at one stage I'd 7 pollack in 7 casts on the fly including two fish touching four but really the highlight of the night was when a deeply spun (~ 60 second drop) Storm Shad produced this cracking fish - what a monster!
Next Month:
August is usually a top month and from my records from the last year or two it would seem while July can often be slow here in Tralee mid August until mid October can throw up some of the best fishing of the season. Definitely top of the list this year is a crack at a triggerfish which I've never taken. There have been numerous reports from Cork of golden grey mullet and gilthead bream but specifics about marks are hard to come by! While the sea-trout may be a little scarcer, bigger painted ray should be making an appearance along with the usual thornbacks, plugging for bass should improve and from this stage in the season on is when I'd normally expect the bigger pollack and wrasse to show. There's a good chance of Inch or Rossbeigh throwing up a big stinger too - they definitely hang around here this time of year but few bother to target them.
August
The beach rods have been left behind and it's been light tackle all the way for August. To be fair the weather hasn't helped - it might have been the warmest summer in years but it's been the bluddy windiest too I reckon. Good wrasse fishing back in Slea Head as usual with plenty of fish to specimen size available. The triggerfish have arrived too and in numbers and at marks that I've never even heard of them being taken at before. They are some scrappers and pound for pound they'd easily put wrasse and pollack to shame - great fighters and something I'll spend a lot more time chasing in the future. The beaches have been quiet for the most part with the occasional manic bass session being reported here and there but they seem to be isolated incidents. 
One or two stingers have shown up at Inch but the bass have been a little shy especially on the marks around the southern side of the peninsula which is odd... Marks on the outside edge of Cork harbour however have been throwing up much better fishing with plenty of good bass in the 4lbs+ bracket. We still have to connect with the bigger fish though, there seems to be loads of bass around but lots of mid range 3 - 4lb fish. The little bottom fishing that I have done has thrown up a few fish alright with the Castlegregory area producing some nice ray on occasions although it has been patchy. Still some nice painted in the 6 - 8lbs bracket have made it worthwhile. A few exploratory trips down east Cork in search of gilthead bream proved fruitless unfortunately and only resulted in more schoolies but the mullet in the harbour have been very obliging as usual with my mate Rob taking some nice fish on the fly at some of his bass marks. How bad!
Next Month:
We're on a mission to bag a few big bass before the lure fishing tails off for the year so more days will be spent chasing those. The way the summer has shaped up it's looking good for a few monster bass in September and October. September is the month when Fenit Pier can throw up a few specimen sized stingray and they are well worth targeting up there at this time. Beaches at the mouth of Cork Harbour will start producing bigger plaice towards the end of September too. Given the right weather conditions some good pollack and wrasse fishing will be available also. There also seems to be an influx of triggerfish this year and they could be well worth targeting at any of the deep water rock marks back Dingle direction.
