Willie O' Connor from Kilmore was up early Saturday morning last, for the 2 hour drive from Waterford upto Cork Harbour. However, it was worth the early start as Willie and crew member Brian chalked up 13 species over the course of the day. Willie is a regular visitor to Cork Harbour and tows his boat 'Off da Hook', a Warrior 175 each time. He also competes each year in the Cork Small Boats Festival (http://www.skuaangling.net/) and has built up a considerable wealth of knowledge of local marks.
Willie takes up the story himself '...we started out from my house at 4:15am and were in Cork for 7am. We tried out a few different things at the start within the Harbour which resulted in, would you believe, catching 26 mackeral within a short space of time. We also picked up whiting and launce. After such a good start, we made a short move and were soon into codling upto 4lbs and had two lsd's. Our next move was to a mark outside the Harbour. As we motored out I spotted a boat at anchor that I was sure was Dave Jolly in Ohana. As I know Dave we called over for a quick chat. Back to the fishing and a drift had us soon into grey gurnards. The drift was quite fast, though, at 2.5 knots. Another drift on a different patch of ground produced a few pollack and ling to fresh mac. Dave dropped by on his way back in. He then motored towards the Harbour and took off like a bat out of hell. The Honda 150 on the back of his Warrior is savage. At that stage we decided a move was in order. There were lots of boats over the Smiths reef so we went to a spot here that I wanted to try. We anchored up and set out a rubby dubby bag. In no time at all we were picking up ballan and cuckoo wrasse; nothing major but welcome all the same. I tried a mackeral flapper and picked up strap conger whereas Brian stuck at the wrasse fishing, picking up a few more ballans. Heading back into the Harbour we did another drift. I had 3 herring on the first drop and Brian added 2 mac and a launce. With these we decided to anchor up on the Turbot Bank and were rewarded. At this spot we had 4 blonde rays to 12lbs. The tide was ripping at this stage. We upped anchor and did a few more drifts picking up more codling on lug and mack strips. We finished up at 5:15pm as I didn't want to get stuck in traffic. It was a good days fishing; a few new things worked and some didn't. It was a good craic with Brian. We ate all around us and, typical of a good day out, time just seemed to fly by.'
Thanks for the report Willie and the photo.
If you have a good day's fishing out of Cork Harbour why not let us know. Email us the details on corkharbouranglinghub@gmail.com.
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