Duration: 7 hours
Tide
??Weather:clear with south westerly f1-f2
Bait:mack, artificials, shads etc etc
Rigs:various booms and monster rigs and balloons
Results:mackerel, pollock, whiting, haddock, cuckoo wrasse, red gurnard, ling, poor cod, pouting, blue shark
Report: boarded the Maigdan Mara just after 8:30am and waited for rest to show up(including the skipper who had a late night at the blondie gig)..
set off on time and a quick stop to get a few fresh mack to compliment a few day old and year old mackerel... after that we set off again and while in motion it was time to test peoples stomachs.. you guessed it.. dubby time..
.. .arrived at the mark in the open atlantic ( well it was south west of inis oirr, next stop, states)
back to fishing again with a sonic boom and size 4 hooks (species hunt for me) a few pollock and mackerel the skipper set up for the big boys... 3 rods went out one after the other and balloons bobbed up and down.. then the dubby went over the side...
not long after the blue balloon started making funny moves... skipper yelled all in (i was only half out this stage so quick retrieval for me) 'right.. who wants to bring this in'... heads looked backwards and forwards.. and before i could say 'i'll take it' i was already halfway down the deck before anyone else was halfway in with there lines
skipper said i'ts only a small one... i didnt care cos it would be my first one
it seemed to come in easily at first.. then all of a sudden... dive dive dive... i could hardly keep my hads on the rod, but held it with all the energy i had (not much) slow retrieval again and still no sighting of it... slowly came up again and we could see the balloon making an appearance from the depths .. a flash of cobalt blue confirmed what it was.. not that there was any mistaking it.. and an.. 'ooOOoo.. it could be a big one'.. from the skipper.. then it dived like there was no tomorrow.. oh f*** there she goes again tearing off another couple of yards of 30lbs mono (10 second run)... christ them things cant half move.. slowly again with the retrieval and this time it came to the surface 
ok big isnt a word i'd use sparingly with this fish.. massive.. huge... beats fishin for smoothies any day this time it was time to land.. but the fish had different ideas.. again another nice run. (5 seconds, still felt like eternity at the time) but slowly again brought it back to the surface.. finally tailed onto the deck and a circular hook removed from the scissors tagged and now photo opportunity 
approx 75-80lbs
that was it for me.. knackered wouldnt describe it completely b***x*ed would come close.. no sleep the night before didnt help either, but a few mins later it was back to catching more pollock haddock wrasse ling whiting pouting and mackerel for me...
i'm sure the others will describe their account of the events...
bragging rights below....
click on pic to see bigger
i'm still aching and sore.. buit i dont care... well worth the day out... some nice big pollock and whiting.. and even a nice big red gurnard came aboard
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Steve also managed to top up his species count by 4 i think it was. All in all an enjoyable day and i had some good sport on the pollack with a few decent doubles taking line at times..... here's another few photos
