This is really probably a shore report, but as it has nothing to do with fish I thought I'd stick it here--especially when it's an example of a problem that pretty much every angler has encountered at one stage or another.
Anyway, last weekend I went up to Skerries to visit some family, and seeing as the young nephew got well and truly hooked on fishing the last time he was down with us (been plaguing his da ever since to take him out), I packed the rods as well. To be honest, I didn't expect much as I've never heard anything good about shore fishing in Skerries; but all I was looking for was a dog or a small flat to keep the nephew's interest going. Between the long and the short of it, myself and the brother-in-law thought that the small beach next to the lifeboat shed might be OK to try, as a lot of the boat anglers dump their bait near it and there's a relatively deep channel near.
This was all going fine until about half way through the first cast, when a speedboat full of signed-up-members-of-the-union idiots turned up in a speedboat. The first sign that these clowns were too funny to waste on the circus was when they approached the beach on a far to shallow angle and nearly ripped the hull of the boat on a rock; sadly, it didn't sink and the world remained five cretins to the good. At that point another moron reversed down the slip with a jet ski on a trailer and launched it--despite the fact that there was a large sign stating in
BIG RED LETTERS that this was illegal. Then Lo! It turns out they were all together, and we might as well have packed up then, as they spent the rest of the evening making themselves dizzy going up and down the beach not less than thirty metres from the shore. It didn't take long to figure out either than the speedboat and jet ski weren't paid for by working a job that pays taxes, if you follow my logic.
In the middle of all this, I was, like a good healthy psychopath, going quietly insane with rage, as they were quite obviously deliberately doing this with a view to antagonizing everyone else using the beach. I'd have happily launched a six ounce lead at someone's head, were it not for the fact that I'd likely end up in a prison cell with their mate Anto. The day's fishing wrecked, myself the brother-in-law and the nephew packed up to head home.
Then something truly wonderful happened. At the same time as we were putting away the gear, the clown troop decided to put the speedboat on the trailer and bring it back up the slip. It turns out, however, that there were tougher nuts in town, as someone had told the lifeboat crew that their slip was being used illegally. The speedboat was brought up, only for its owners to be told that there was no way it was being landed there.
"Whaddaya mean? THERE'S NOWHERE BLEEDIN' ELSE TO LAND IT!!"
Made no difference: the slip way was blocked and wasn't going to be unblocked, so they had to reverse the car. On the way down, the car slipped on the algae and reversed with a crash into the water. The boat, in turn, fell off the back, cracking the propeller shaft on the bottom. The outrage that followed was funnier than the love child of Bill Hicks and Chris Rock: the same crowd who deliberately set out to wreck the beach for everyone were now howling at the injustice of being forced to obey the law.
"Dis is bulls**t: well see youse in court!!"
So, didn't catch any fish, but to see muppets of this sort finally get the comeuppance they deserve, I'd happily blank for a month