Hi John. There are plenty of wrecks in both of the areas you spoke about. Off the North West of Scotland a lot of ships were sunk during the war. These were from convoys making their way to this country, they were heading into the Clyde, Belfast, Liverpool also ports along the East coast. As for the West of Ireland, again there are plenty of wrecks particularly off the North West coast for the same reason. At the end of the second world war a lot of German U-boats were taken out and sunk off the Antrim and Donegal coasts. I believe they are all lying about 20 to 30 miles off.
There are very few boats fishing any of these wrecks, because local anglers prefer to fish inshore on the hard ground where there is some excellent sport to be had from ports such as Portrush, Port Stewart etc.and around Rathlin Island.
About 10 or 12 years ago a pal of mine who used to run a charter boat out of Port Stewart had a party aboard one day, he was asked if he could take them onto one of the wrecks. He told me that after two hours the group said "we've had enough take us in ". They were taking 4 and 5, 20 lbs. plus coalfish on each drop, along with ling well over 30lbs. and cod of the same size. So yes John, I reckon you could say they are just about virgin wrecks.
Tight Lines.
