We weren’t sure what to expect on the ferry crossing as she isn’t a huge ferry and they forecast a lot of wind for tonight. The wind was behind us and as it happened it was a delightful crossing on a lovely little ferry.  We had a steady ride home the following day stopping a couple of times including brough castle (on the A66) and had lunch at an icecream parlour before looking around the castle. We caught some traffic closer to home around Huntingdon but still did the journey in around 11 hours. We had a great time and I will head back as soon as I can. I thought it might be handy to put some info in regarding cost and tackle ect for anybody planning to head up there (which I would recommend to anybody).

There is currently no facility for individual bookings on any of the boats operating from cullivoe so the only option is to hire a full boat.  The prices are as follows

Boat up to 8 people £680 per day

Accommodation £30pp per night (I don’t know the price to hire the whole place)

Prepared meals £10pp per night (a lovely home prepared meal but you have too cook it your self )

Ice on the fish £35 (this is optional but the best way to keep your fish fresh)

We fished on mid range tides and favourable wind conditions. Most of the cod, ling and coalfish we did on the first day came from 100m or 300ft or more of water. Kenny advised 1.8lbs of weight and a weighted shad or his favourite rig is a set of large gummy macks (orange) and a large pirk or 1.8lb lead.  We fished the shads on a Portland rig with 3-4ft of 150-200lb trace line advised by Kenny. The best shads seem to be the large puffin lures although my best ling came on a fladen Conrad giant in mackerel colours. Basically you want 10-12/o hooks as most lighter gear will be bust up. Mainline should be 80-100lbs braid and a 4/0 size reel. Rods want to be 30-50lb class. This helps to handly the large lures along with big fish but is also essential to set such big hooks on such deep water. Tacvkle losses are minimal as most fishing is over clean sandy grounds and even when we fished the wreck we lost sod all as the fish were that far away from it.

If you plan on any other species then it is worth talking to Kenny while booking to check what tackle to bring.it is however worth considering he has very little (if any) availability this year.  For the Pollock under the cliffs he advised spinning rods and sidewinder lures with no additional weight. For the drifting for flatties 4-8oz weights and lighter rods along with some bait such as worm, mackerel and squid would be handy. Hopefully this helps any future bookings and happy fishing.

http://www.oberon-boatcharters.co.uk/