Sea Angling & Diving

Sea Angling

Donegal Bay is the ideal sea-angling venue; from our base Donegal Town we have easy access to the entire bay, which is one of the most diverse fishing grounds in Ireland.

On our doorstep are famous tope marks where we can fish Skate, Ray, Tope as well as flatties and even Monk. This area is full of estuarine channels with a sandy muddy bottom and deep scoured holes, the bottom dwelling fish congregate in these holes waiting for lunch to come to them on the tide. We sit uptide on a heavy sand anchor with a ruby dubby bag on the anchor chain and set ground baits. While we are waiting it is the norm to fish light tackle for flatties.

A little further west we fish reefs where there are nice ledges and drop offs. Sometimes we drift the reefs and at other times we fish on the anchor at the reef edge or on sandy bottom areas between the reefs or patches of hard ground. Here we target John Dory, Wrasse, Pollock, Cod, Gurnard, Pouting, Ling, Conger, Bream, Coalies, Garfish etc. we have even caught squid and two different types of octopus on these marks.

We Fish Shark from June to October, the area is very good for big Blue shark who cruise the north east Atlantic all year and move inshore this time of year. Porbegle, Mako, Thresher and six-gilled shark are also known in the area.

Recently we have equipped the charter boat with trolling gear and will be targeting albacore when they next show up off our coast. The Giant Bluefin Tuna is of course hot on our list of priorities and to this end we are fully equipped and ready to go. We operate a Tag and release policy for exotic species.

Diving

The clear waters of the North East Atlantic abound in sea life and coast of Donegal is home to a vast number of species.

The Diving is varied with everything from Sea-Caves, Reefs, Bulligs, Gullies & Drop-Offs to Fast Drift Dives over Limestone Slab, Sand, Boulder, Pebble Waves and Scoured channels or relaxed low energy sites with Sea-Grass Colonies and Kelp Forest.

We have some wreck sites, both historic and modern, but the area is better known for its U/W wildlife and scenery. We use a Seabed mapping System and high definition sonar and can place and retrieve Divers with great precision.

The Skipper has been Diving for 18 years and has a good knowledge of the area.

We can supply tanks and weights but prefer if you bring all your own gear.

We carry Oxygen and are trained in First Aid and Diver emergency procedure.

Whalewatching

We use a Hydrophone and so can listen to the Whalesong. While there are 24 species of Whales & Dolphins in our waters we normally only encounter Fin and Minke whales. Bottlenose Dolphins & harbour Porpoise but any thing can turn up.

Wildlife Tours

The boat is based in an S.A.C. and we share the area with a large colony of Harbour seals and some grey seals. The seals can be observed up-close 365 days per year. The area is also home to large numbers of Duck, Curlew, Oystercatcher, Heron, Dunlin & Swan.

We visit Inismurry and Rathlin O’Byrne Islands and the sea-cliffs with their vast Sea-Bird colonies, expect the unexpected! We encounter Basking shark, Sunfish, Bluefin Tuna even exotic flotsam that harbours unusual species.