Donegal Bay has a long tradition of sport angling with the harbours of Killybegs, Teelin and Mullaghmore being home to a charter fleet since the early 1950’s. Sport then as today was particularly well known for the quality of its Pollock fishing. Interestingly the anglers in Donegal Bay led the way in the development of light tackle pollock angling and during the late eighties enterprising skippers borrowed from their American counterparts and the leadhead/jellyworm combination became popular. Fished on a spinning rod with 15lb mainline this new technique allowed the pollock to give a proper account of itself and in time the method became popular throughout Ireland, even spreading to the UK. These pollock are incredible fighters and the scream of the drag when the fish first feels the hook is one of the highlights of a day afloat in the Bay. These will be reef fish ranging from 3lb to 9lb but every year at least a couple of fish over the 12lb specimen weight are recorded. The reefs around the three islands of Innishmurry, Inishduff and Rathlin O’Beirne are rightly famous for their pollock sport and a day spent drifting with jellyworms will provide plenty of action, you might not hook every fish that bites (the fish can be finicky at times) but by varying the colour of worm and the speed of retrieve you’ll be very unfortunate not to land at least a half dozen.
The reefs of course are also home to other species and in particular ling can be plentiful, active predators and weighing up to 15lb large mackerel or fish baits will see you bring some over the rail. Scaling down the gear will see plenty of cuckoo wrasse, pouting and coalfish joining your ling. Change baits to worm or crab and by asking your skipper to venture into the shallow rocky areas will see you into an endless amount of ballan wrasse, and if you want a crack at a specimen a day spent wrasse hunting with a bucket of crabs in the shallow lee of the islands can put you in with an excellent chance. A nice way to spend a day afloat is too spend the morning fishing jellies for the reef pollock before venturing in tighter to the shore in the evening to fish the ballan wrasse. Your arms will ache by the time your skipper takes you home!
The mixed fishing within the bay can also be good with plenty of gurnards, whiting, dogfish and dabs coming to either baited jigs or a flowing trace. Scaling down to 12lb class rod will allow you to enjoy these smaller fish and of course a cool box of fresh whiting and dabs to be taken home at the end of the day is one of the absolute pleasure of sea angling. Fishing for thornback and homelyn ray is also a possibility during the later summer months and during a weeks fishing your skipper will be able to provide at least one days sport chasing these prehistoric looking fish, don’t be surprised if the rarer cuckoo ray also puts in an appearance. In fact the best way to enjoy the sport the bay can offer is to take a weeks fishing, each day targeting different species or different areas. A full five or seven days spent afloat is a wonderful tonic, the expectation each morning of a different opportunity once aboard your charter boat is great.
If it’s the bigger predators your looking for then by the middle of July a run of blue shark can be targeted in the bay. Fish usually average around 60 to 70lb although bruisers over 100lb can also turn up. Smaller shark species can also be encountered including tope and spurdogs, with the tope in particular being excellent fighters on balanced gear. The beauty of fishing in the bay though is that almost anything can turn up, opening out into the Atlantic ocean and with the proximity of the gulf stream and the 200 metre line means that almost anything can turn up. This far north also means that torsk and halibut are not out of the question either!
