At least one great day’s fishing on the wrecks as the Audacious provided a seemingly endless supply of Pollack & Ling (also Coalfish but won’t mention them!)

An 85 pound Blue Shark was caught off Downings on 19 July.

Very early – water temperature now 16 Centigrade.

Mackeral now abundant.

And second part: –

1 LB 5 Oz specimen Cuckoo Wrasse.

Fishing still Okay – rethinking numbers of Mackeral around – still possibly a normal year, but the odd day Mackeral are very hard to come by. The next week or so will “tell the tale”

Nice Plaice

Fishing at first week in June is pretty much normal. Mackeral are patchy – as expected start June. Reef Pollack better than this past number of years. Limeburner fishing fair, with an unexpected number of Haddock. Sand as usual – good & bad days. Tope good. No reports of Porbeagles. Wrecks absolutely full of Coalfish – not really fishing wrecks due to this problem. Few Spurdogs around, including one of the photos below.

All in all, great start.

Cuckoo Ray

Homlyn Ray

Double Dab

Goldshinney Wrasse

Cuckoo Wrasse

Tope

Nice specimen Tub Gurnard at 2.9 kilos – 6.4 pounds – Dutch record at 3.1 kilos nearly got hit!!!

Tope of 159.5 cm – just short.

Fishing fairly normal for this time of year. Enough Mackeral, Limeburner OK, Tory OK, Reefs OK. Reasonable start to 2014 after 2012 & 2013 misfires!!!

20 Tope runs today – not too bad!

No problem with Mackeral – once we found them! Loads of Coalfish, Yuk. Good enough reef Pollack, Gurnards, Dabs, Plaice. All in all a reasonable start to the season. No Turbot on the usual spot – hope this is just a one of and not a repeat of last year?

Another boat was out from Downings 4 May. 1 Mackeral, good Pollack fishing on the wrecks, poor fishing at the Limeburner, and just a few fish on the sand. 13 species on board. Still a little early.

2013 winds down and looking back over an unusual year, there were some “strange” developments: –

Mackeral were bloody patchy – most frustrating and infuriating at times – I remember spending 3 hours getting just a couple dozen Mackeral for the day’s fishing – on NOT JUST ONE DAY.

Coalfish were unhealthily abundant – not only in the early part of the year when good numbers are expected, but right through the year.

Sharks which showed such great promise early, failed to really materialise (perhaps because of the lack of Mackeral)

10 days in the big Turbot “hotspot” & NOT A SINGLE TURBOT OFF THAT MARK.

Bluefin Tuna returned with a vengeance – more on this in the Tuna News section

Reef Pollack continue to be elusive – as has been the case for around 7 years now.

As ever, I look forward to the twists and turns of fishing and eagerly await 2014 and what it brings……………………………………

Porbeagle Sharks 2013 have been as elusive as this past few years. A few have been caught – but absolutely no regularity.

Blue Sharks started very early – mid-July and despite a promise of a bumper year, they have been just OK – certainly not great. The Rosguill boated her first of the year – 65/70 pounds after spending 2 full days with a super slick & perfect weather conditions.

End of August and there are extremely few Mackeral around. Some at Mouth of Lough Swilly but have spent several hours for a handful of Mackeral.

Other fishing is good enough – Limeburner fishing well for Gurnards, Whiting, small Ling, Doggies etc. Rays on the sand are particularly good. Wrecks normal – not mad numbers of Coalfish.

2013 – halfway through is a weird year. Mackeral seem to be everywhere one day and gone the next – very perplexing.

Spent a full day with a good rubby dubby slick out looking for Blue Sharks (and Porgies) – nothing – in almost perfect conditions.

Other boats are basically reporting similar – some reasonable catches some days and poor on others – suppose that is called “fishing”. The only consolation is that there are fish there – just have to work for them!!!

Fishing continues at a “reasonable” pace – not great, but not bad.

Reports of a lot of Porbeagle Sharks caught just last week – however, they seemed to disappear within a few days.

There was a Blue Shark caught off Downings on 11 July and another spotted on the surface – now this is extremely early for Blue Sharks, and my gut feeling is that this will be a bumper year for Blue Sharks – water temperature is around 15 degrees – up by at least 1 degree on normal years.

Entering the middle of the season now and fishing remains mixed, inconsistent, mediocre, patchy.

On a more positive slant – there are fish there – they just need to be coaxed more!!!