The little village of Culdaff in north Donegal has a population of just 200 and is situated on the picturesque Inishowen Peninsula. It has a beautiful sandy beach popular for bathing, water sports and fishing, is a favoured place for sailing, and has a famed sports and beer festival every August. McGrory's Hotel, situated in the village, is known throughout Ireland for it's live music nights and fine restaurant and is the main gathering place for local and visiting anglers.
The Culdaff area is rich with history with a stone circle at Bocan, the Carrowmore High Crosses, and the megolithic tombs at Deen and Care. It is also the birthplace of Charles Macklin, a famous 18th century actor.
The area is noted for it's wild craggy coastal scenery with vertical cliffs and offshore rock pinnacles rising up from the foaming ocean. Malin Head, the most northerly point in Ireland, is just to the west and rises to 362 feet, this being called Bamba's Crown after one of the pagan queen's of pre Christian Ireland. Out to the northeast you can see the shoreline of Scotland most days of the year.
An example of the pollack taken from Culdaff
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Culdaff doesn't know it yet, but it looks set to become one of the biggest names in Irish sea angling once the word is out. A few UK groups and anglers from Northern Ireland have been quietly visiting Culdaff for years and enjoying amazing wreck and ground fishing, but only now is there to be a real promotional push to highlight this unique area.
For those that lived through it World War 2 was one of man's bleakest moments. It left a legacy of horrific destruction and nowhere is this legacy more obvious than in the waters off Culdaff.
Hitler's WW2 U-Boat wolf packs lay in wait just offshore here for the vulnerable convoys making their way across the Atlantic bringing vital supplies to the UK and Russia. The convoy ships were hugging the coast from just a couple of miles offshore and out to 40 miles or more. The destruction was massive. Study the chart for this area and there are literally hundreds of wrecks'and that's just the ones they know about. There are scores more that were never recorded and commercial vessels are still discovering uncharted wrecks to this day. The local charter skipper Desi Mills reckons he has a choice of 150 wrecks within 30 miles of shore, and that's only counting the ones known and already on the chart.
Most of the wrecks lay within an easy 30 minutes to one-hour steam. There are no long boring journeys prior to fishing here. You just have time to tackle up and ready yourself and it's time to fish.
The wrecks are not the type of wrecks UK sea anglers are used to either. There has been minimal commercial fishing here due to the fast tides and deep water. The wrecks are virtually clean of lost gill nets, the main culprits for snagging anglers tackle. What's more, with minimal commercial fishing, the wrecks are literally packed with fish, and I mean packed.
The numbers of coalfish on the wrecks has to be experienced to be believed. If you're fishing three rubber eels or muppets it's three fish a drop, every drop, and they average 6lbs to 10lbs. You arms will ache after a few drifts from just continually playing fish. The best coalies seem to run to 14lbs, but there are much much bigger ones down there.
Likewise the pollack. The pollack swim with or below the coalies. But the pollack are stacked up too. The smaller fish on top, and the big bruisers down underneath. The knack is getting through the smaller fish to the biggies. When you do, you'll find the pollack are running over Irish specimen size at 12lbs plus.
Ling are also resident in amazing numbers. Fish between 10 and 20lbs are the normal fair, but then there's the Snake Pit. This is a big hole close to a wreck that divers say is stocked full of big ling and conger. The divers literally fear this place and stay well clear. The future aim is to anchor and fish in to this hole, and the chance is there for the Irish ling record to go.
The wrecks are also home to the rare torsk, a mix between a ling and a cod with a big head. Occasional wolf fish are also reported, they of the big teeth and evil looking face.
Then there's the ground fishing. It's true to say that you never quite know what the bite you next get will produce. Just about everything that swims in Irish waters is likely here. There is clean ground just out inside Culdaff Bay and close to the cliffs that produces all three gurnards, plaice, big dabs, turbot, brill, rays, spurdog, whiting, launce, codling, tope, scad and mackerel, plus always a surprise fish or two like the john dory pictured here.
SEASONS
The wreck fishing is governed only by the tourist season. Irish anglers fishing outside the recognised summer months continue to hit big fish on the wrecks. It's my belief that the best fishing may well occur during the late winter months when big cod may be resident on the wrecks, plus the bigger female pollack.
The ground fishing is also consistent right through from May to November. From December on to through April, then expect more in the way of whiting and codling, but research suggests the stocks of general fish stay high, though there are less gurnards about.
Mackerel appear during late May along with herring that stay inshore through June. Mackerel are late leavers here with stragglers caught right through to Christmas. Big scad shoals are found just offshore from August onwards.
BOAT TACKLE
Though the tides are fast, you can easily fish with 30lb class tackle. Braid is unnecessary, but even when fishing 40-feet of mono as an elastic buffer you'll still find you'll lose fish. The locals prefer good old-fashioned mono and they consistently out fish anglers using braid.
Also carry an uptider with you. This will do nicely for redgilling with flying collar rigs for the pollack and coalies, but also doubles up well over the cleaner ground for general fishing due to the sensitive tip. Match it to a 7000 sized multiplier loaded with 18lb line and you're well away. That said, if you do intend to target the bigger pollack with this lighter gear, then I'd load with 22lb main line and run clear 20lb to the rubber eel. There are big fish down there.
Just to be sure, carry weights up to a pound or more for the offshore wrecks, but I fished up to 8 miles out and never needed more than 12ozs, and the tides I fished were near to springs.
BOAT RIGS
The most effective rig was a two hook killer rig made from 75lb mono using 15-inch hook snoods and 6/0 O'Shaughnessy pattern hooks. For sheer numbers you can't beat the black body/coloured tail jellyworms, which wherever I've gone have hammered the fish and are relatively cheap to lose. Bright red or luminous yellow muppets also worked well.
If you decide to use the flying collar rig and traditional rubber eels, go for the bigger Eddystone number 1's. These tend to get you down through the packs of smaller pollack to the bigger fish below. If any of you have some of the old Eddystone number 1's left with the flat tail, then I found these absolutely sensational and took my three best fish on them. Red or black being the most effective colour.
For drifting over the clean ground, stick to a two-hook attractor rig off a plastic tube boom. The trace needs a long lower snood about 30-inches long, with a second smaller 8-inch snood above it. The whole trace needs to be about 48-inches long.
On the long snood attach a small silver revolving spoon between coloured beads, and have about 8-inches of mono to the hook. On the upper hook snood just use coloured beads, but include luminous green or yellow ones in them, as this seems to increase the catch rate. The best hooks are Mustad 3261 Aberdeen's in size 2.
If you're after species make sure you have plenty of feather rigs and shrimp rigs with you. It's hard to beat baited feathers for a good mix of bottom fish. Forget the silver ones, go for the Mustad luminous body Flash-a-Boo type and the Mustad Rainbow pattern. Also carry black feathers with you, as these are devastatingly good here just as the daylight starts to fade.
Norman with a John Dory
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Fresh mackerel are rarely a problem hereabouts and are the mainstay bait. Use whole mackerel flappers for the bigger ling, and any small joeys on flowing trace rigs for the better pollack. Also try adding a thin strip of mackerel to the hook with your rubber eel. This can often be the key to increasing the catch rate.
For drifting over the clean ground areas, cut a thin belly strip from the mackerel. This needs to be about 5-inches long and 3/16ths of an inch wide to represent a sandeel. This takes the bulk of the smaller fish if you give them a little slack to eat the bait after the initial bite.
King rag is excellent for tempting the flatfish, though by no means essential. Lug is good on the feathers for targeting the cod and any of the big ballan wrasse that live on the rock patches. Squid strips about 2-inches long are okay for the dabs.
I've mentioned that black and red rubber eels are the main killing colours for the pollack, but I also found that bright orange or yellow had a habit of picking out the better coalies, so also carry a few of these. Also try adding a slice of mackerel to the hook under the rubber eel. Again it can help pick out the better coalfish.
Chrome pirks with a single hook and baited with a whole fillet of mackerel also took some nice ling and pollack as the tide increased and the pollack worked deeper.
TIDES AND WEATHER
The inshore wrecks are quite fishable on the average spring tides, but the smaller neaps are better for fishing the ones 10 miles plus offshore. The wrecks seem to fish best the two hours before slack water, go quiet over slack, which is only for about 15 minutes here, then they fish well again for the next three hours before fading away a little.
The inshore wrecks are protected from the worst of the prevailing winds. Winds from the northwest over force 4 causes problems, as will a north to north-easterly, but these are not that common here, so getting out to fish has the odds well in your favour.
SHORE FISHING
You can fish off the end of Bunagee Pier for small coalies, pollack and the odd mullet straight down the side of the quay wall. Mackerel take feather rigs here and spinners. Casting baits out on to the open ground gives you the chance of dogfish, dabs, flounders and codling. Off the rocks to the left of the pier you'll take strap congers and huss on baits, and good numbers of pollack on small jellyworms.
My choice would be the surf strand, which you can see just to the east of the pier. This gives good night time fishing for turbot, dabs, flounders, coalies, codling and even daylight sea trout, which take small strips of mackerel or small sandeels. A three-hook rig is the best all round choice with size 2 Aberdeen hooks on.
Carry two rods. A beachcaster and reel holding 250-yards of 15lb line for long range fishing in the surf, but also a fun stick like a spinning rod and reel with just 8lb line for the sea trout and flats.
A 3-feet flowing trace and sliding ledger rig is the best way to present the sandeel and mackerel strip for the sea trout and flatfish.
Low water fishes best, but don't worry too much about the size of the tides here. The fish stocks are pretty good, much better than the UK, and fish will feed most tides.
TOP TIPS
There is only one petrol pump in the village and the nearest filling station miles away. Make sure you always keep enough fuel in your vehicle for at least 100 miles of travel.
The charter boat Barracuda is moored at Bunagee Pier. From McGory's, turn left in the centre of the village for Malin and take the next right turn signposted for Bunagee Pier. Another right turn about a quarter mile further on brings you to the pier. There is parking above the pier. Leave the pier itself clear for the working boats to have vehicle access.
CONTACT INFORMATION
ACCOMODATION
McGrory's of Culdaff, Inishowen, Co Donegal, Ireland. Tel: 00 353 7779104. Fax: 00 353 77 79235.
CHARTER BOAT HIRE
Barracuda (33ft Lochin) skippered by Desi Mills. Contact the Inishowen Boating Company, Carrowmore, Malin, Inishowen, Co Donegal. Tel: 00 353 77 70605. Fax: 00 353 77 70764.
TOURIST INFORMATION CENTRES
Letterkenny Tourist Information Office, Northwest Tourism, Derry Road, Letterkenny, Co Donegal. Tel: 00 353 74 21160. Fax: 00 353 74 25180.
Will supply additional accommodation information etc.
