What makes a good session for you?

What would you consider a good fishing session? Forget about scenery, company etc. What I'm on about is fish. When I started fishing a brace of dogfish would send me home over the moon. But nowadays my expectations are a bit higher.

Pete

Numerous things Pete;

A new species, by far!
A PB
Anything into double figures (Fat chance!) :D
Any session whereby rod tips are rattling and fish are being caught is good for me.

Know it sounds daft but I fished Garretstown a few months back, in the space of an afternoon/evening I had an LSD, a Whiting, A flounder, and earlier on in the day a small Huss from the rocks. Variety is the spice of life!

Hi Pete,

Im still at the "over the moon with two dogfish stage" only took up sea fishing properly last spring after 10 years of coarse and fly fishing and am learning all the time. Have only managed to catch about 12 different species of sea fish yet but i hope to add to that this year. A good session to me is one where i add a new species to my caught list no matter what size it is. I think the excitment of not knowing what is on the end of the line as i reel in is what sets sea fishing apart from coarse fishing for me.

I love to catch what I'm aiming for.
so if i target a species with bait rigs and location and it all comes together with catching target species I feel that the hard work has paid off.

There is always the excitment of catching the unusal or PB as well.

Alright , might as well say it and get mobbed - - - something decent to take home for tea :oops: .
That secures the next exit pass , c/w sandwiches and a flask if I'm lucky :wink: .
So much the better if I've also caught and released something else .
Credit to the general ethos of this site ( and a particular mentor who needn't be named ) - I used to whack pretty much anything that was table size . I don't do that any more and feel a lot better about it . Never caught much anyway so hardly decimated the stocks but it's the principle that counts .
In terms of what's a good productive day , maybe 4 plate sized fish or 3 lb if it's a single one .
But the scenery and rattling tips are good enough on their own most of the time anyway .
Tight lines , nick

[beachcaster]

a good session to me is any time i get to the sea on a half decent day and catch fish. a few dogfish ,a couple of flounder ,a thornback my most favourite is a good doggie session l:LOVE EM ,all returned ALIVE an UNHARMED.i think the days of the really good session on any other species is a thing of the past sorry to say. even in the boats now the slaughter of pollock is unneeded measure and release and then and only maybe then, will our species make a welcome return.

Last edited by beachcaster on Thu Feb 16, 2006 1:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

For me Flounder, if I am targeting them and getting them :) after that any PB or first timers will make a session easy to remember.

Last year I landed a big Butterfly Ray and a Bullhuss both first timers, ended up with 3 Bullhuss in the same session....bit like waiting for a bus...nothing for ages and 3 come at once :lol: :lol: :lol:

any session is like a lucky dip....you never know what your gonna get until its over, that's one of the best things I like about Sea angling :)

Tom.

A good session is better than working :!: :!: fish or no fish....as for pollack fishing on the boat its often hard to return fish due to the swim bladder erupting :? :? .........isnt it :?:........Can this be avoided :?:

Tom

Butterfly Ray - has it got another name or are you describing it size-wise?

For myself I really enjoy lure fishing over bait fishing, and in particular pioneering new marks because you just don't know whether its blank city or a hotspot. Adding new species is fantastic, would love a triggerfish out of Mayo this year, reckon Keem is definitely going to get tried a lot! 8)

Not all that keen on PBs, rarely measure or weight fish, bar if someone has a scales with them. Always nice to target a species and land it...

Roll on March 18th! I;ll have my razorfish and black lug ready :D

I've had Ling come up from deep wrecks with the bladder out, if you did want to put them back I think to puncture the bladder is all that's needed, I will stand corrected on that one though.

Never seen pollack come in with the bladder out, They are pelagic are they not (no swim bladder?) again I will stand on someone else chippin in on that one too :)

Tom.

as for pollack fishing on the boat its often hard to return fish due to the swim bladder erupting........isnt it ........Can this be avoided

HC - it's a bit hit and miss but previously i've seen high success rates of pollock being returned after treatment with a hypodermic needle to puncture the swim bladder (going through the side of the fish behind gill cover)

A common mistake is puncturing the stomach protruding from the mouth - this will do the fish more damage.

Kieran,

It was in Florida, I was targeting Flounder with some friends who live there, they took me to this hot shot Flounder mark. They were pulling Flounder in to over 10lb easy, I got a take and thought it was a big Sting Ray, it was pulling drag, when I landed it, I'd never seen a Ray that was wider than it was long. One of the guys I was with is a commercial rod and line fisherman, nobody else knew what it was, until he came over and said it was a Butterfly Ray...this thing was about 4ft across and 3ft long, its body was a Goldy light tan colour. caught it on a live Mullet, hooked through the eyes with a 5/0 circle hook.

When we packed up ready to leave, we chucked all of the live Mullet back in the water (this was on an Inter Coastal Canal, clear as a bell for about 40 yards out) the biggest black sting Ray came right up to us, swam right along the edge eating the Mullet....this thing was bigger than the blanket on a king size bed.

I wanted to have a go for it, but they just laughed at me saying things like "Why, it'll only spool you and waste your line" each to his own eh!! :lol:


JGF....that was good information to know....thanks :)

Tom.

For me it would be having a constant stream of decent fish. I'd rather catch 7 or 8 ray 4lb ray that put a good bend in your rod from shallow mixed ground than one double figure ray that floats to the top straight away and reels in like a doggy.

Donagh

Nice to no that next time im boat fishing and someone puts a pollack back to scorch in the sun...ill be telling them all about the neddle :D :D

just a word on putting fish back from beep water. bursting their swim bladder will have no effect on their survival. by the time their swim bladder has been expelled from their mouth their is catastrocphic cardiac and cerebral damage occured. all bursting their swim bladder you only enable the fish to sink again,i.e removing their primary method of bouyancy. the most humane thing to do is hit them over the head to take them out of their misery. as for the perfect session, i enjoy succeding in adverse conditions. nothing like catching when the weather, sea conditions etc are against ya.

It has to be sitting at home all week working out a plan of what you intend to go after and then executing that plan and it comes off for you.

Last year we targeted Mullet from the Boat and the effort we put into getting them paid off. That for me is a good session, catching what you set out to catch.

I don't know if this works or not, it's a description with pictures of how to puncture a fish bladder.

http://www.leadertec.com/tipsandtechniq ... lease.html

A good session is better than working :!: :!: fish or no fish....as for pollack fishing on the boat its often hard to return fish due to the swim bladder erupting :? :? .........isnt it :?:........Can this be avoided :?:

Saw Henry Gilbey catch them from deep water recently and every one went back due to using very light gear. The idea is by giving the fish more of a fighting chance it takes longer to bring them up and they have time to acclimatise to the changing pressure. IE: the swim bladder does not go.