Mini Hermits??

I was fishing in Garretstown Strand, Cork last night, blanked so hence no report! (Plagued with surfers, any way of getting rid that doesnt involve chucking a 6 oz griplead in general direction of??? :evil: ) On way back to car I took a walk through some rockpools to sea what was moving around that may be of use bait wise. After gathering a few small hardbacks for wrasse bait I noticed winkle shells moving round the bottom of the pools at a serious speed. I grabbed one to investigate and there was a mini crab inside. There were loads of them in those particular pools.

My first question is this, what are they? A small hermit or something different? Second question, has anyone tried using them as bait with any degree of success? Granted it would prob take 2 or 3 of the larger ones on a size 2 to make a decent bait but they are plentiful and easy to spot and handle. A quick squeeze with a pair of pliers would soon remove them from the shell.

Petekd

Hi Pete,
Not sure about the crabs, but surfers, ask Bigcol he knows how to deal with them, here he is in action down on Inch there's plenty down there!

Sean,

[img]http://www.firiescountryfurniture.com/Other/Inch_2004_04_23/4.jpg[/img]

yup they be small hermits alright! the bigs ones have to grow from little ones right? and there's always going to be lots more small ones than big uns coz of the high mortality rate of being on the lower rungs of the food chain....never tried em though, seem kind of fiddly!
ye should all go away and buy the dvd box set of david attenboroughs blue planet!!! all the answers are there!

Patrick

Cant imagine David Attenborough being much use at dispersing wetsuit clad, board toting pests who are far removed from their natural habitat!

that's what a breeze block with a rope tied on the end is for!

Or those catapults they use in coarse fishing for groundbait!

Have you tried going up and loitering around their cars? That tends to make them pretty nervous..... same way them pissing about near my rod and line gets on my wick.

Ever noticed how with acres of beach, they're down on you like a gannet within minutes of getting into the water? What's the attraction of a three hook rig in your arse and the risk of a good beating to boot? Some sort of adrenaline rush?

Yeh , Sandman , I was pondering on the crowding around an angler on an otherwise deserted beach . Maybe Attenborough would explain as follows : "Being gregarious gave man an evolutionary advantage . But now the overwhelming desire to be near another human being totally overcomes any concern about pi**ing them off . This leads to strife . The very highly evolved and peaceful Angler sublimates his agression by hammering fish" .

Something like that .


OK , so the very very highly evolved ones release them alive .

i got in an arguement wath a mate at work about this one yesterday. he loves his surfing, and i love my fishing, so neither of us were going to back down. he reckons that if he was to arrive at a beach, and the only surfable break on the beach was where an angler had already set up stall then tough sh*t he was going to surf that break. he reckoned that should he cross the anglers lines then the fins on the board should be relatively sharp enough to cut the line. and there wasn't a hope in hell of him backing down. the whole point of first come, first served went straight out the window. could you imagine walking onto lahinch beach or any popular surf spot in the country and firing out a 6oz grip lead, with the arguement, ah sure if the lead hits one of them it'll go through them and the board!

although in his defence, the guy also said that by judging from the photo with bigcol in it, the surfer hadn't a bulls notion, he reckoned he was in the wrong place on the strand, and that the onshore wind would have made it near impossible to make it out beyond the breaking waves.
still annoys the hell out of me that, this is the general attitude of surfers. To think some little Idiot would arrive down in daddies bmw and just land himself ontop of your mark.....man i hate everyone

Patrick

frodo: Yer man said the fins on his board would cut through the line?

That's not much use if it catches him in the snot though is it...

on the other hand i reckon a bit of tolerance on both sides goes a long way. I go mountain biking a bit and there's a lot of friction between walkers and hikers (who enjoy a gentle ramble in the woods and hills) and bikers ( who enjoy rattling at breakneck speed around said woods and hills and jumping over rocks/logs/hikers etc.).
As a biker I can kind of understand how somebody would get irked if they saw a lycra-clad lunatic hurtling towards them on a narrow woodland path, but my argument is this - we are all people who get out there into the countryside, even though we enjoy it in different ways, and it is people like us, bikers and walkers alike, who will protect the woods and hills for future generations because we don't want to see our playground taken away.

I see some parallels here with the surfers v. fishers argument - they may irritate us but just like us they will be the ones to kick up a stink about pollution or developments that would harm their surf beaches. The real enemies, methinks are the people who wouldn't know what the country was if it bit them on their arses and who wouldn't miss it if it was gone.

of course, people who drive daddy's beemer should be bludgeoned with a fence pole anyway. That goes without saying.

Christ, what have I started! Think the best idea of the lot was the loitering outside their cars one. You can imagine how panicked Tarquin and Melissa would get if some scruffy angler dressed in combat gear etc started taking an unusual interest in daddys car!

Would like to say that not all surfers are the same but I have found the majority i have come across do not give a proverbial about anyone else on the beach.

Was back in Garretstown last night, no surfers which meant no surf which meant no fish ( well one LSD but I dont count them anymore, not when there are Bass to be had! ) The virtually flat sea did not stop someone launching themselves around on a body board 20 yards to my right. Wouldnt have minded but there wasnt another being in the water for as far as I could see. Same old same old and dont even get me started about dogs.......!

If any surfer wants to try cutting my line with their board, they're welcome. One minor miscalculation will likely result in a 3 hook rig getting dragged into their ankles at a goodly rate of knots, followed by a griplead for good measure. The loss of the terminal gear would be well worth the laugh.

Is there a specimen weight for surfers - or a closed season/bag limit/etc? :lol:

How many people here have actually had a hookup?

Hooked the lovely Surf Gal Yasmine in Gran Canaria a year or too back if that counts :lol: (And of course I practised catch and release, it was only day two of the hols!)

Back to ways of getting rid, try shouting "Shark" That should get them moving!