ragworm beds east cork.

Also no "local"tackle shops are been blamed directly here so can people get off the high horse This is a general observation of the possible demise of a small rag bed area "near" saleen .All im saying is to the person[s]recently digging in the vicinity to east ferry please give the area a break so the worms can repopulate and just think about the future preservation of this worm bed for years to come.

Mike i known your not pointing the finger at anyone its very clear in what your saying and its great to see that someone has brought it up at last....But it just goes to show how fast a spot can go down hill fast now thats two marks that are not digging well

Right all need to clarify a few things.Im not in any shape good bad or differant blaming any particular tackle shop or shops for the current saleen state of affairs that horse has bolted many years ago.I am referring to ANOTHER small localised area close by to east ferry that is currently looking like a load of land mines were set off in the last few days.
So please dissacociate this post with saleen and whatever has gone on in the past down there i don't give a monkeys!.What i am saying is to the person[s]doing any digging of ragworm in the vicinity of east ferry over the last few days please use some common sense and leave the beds alone whilst the ragworm are breeding or trying to recover from really heavy recent digging pressure,be it for personal or other gains just try using some common sense.
On the tackle shop front best of luck to any shop willing to make a venture into the world of angling for a living,just hope that if anyone is supplying ragworm to any shops recently that they don't disturb any breeding worms[future stocks] for the sake of a few euro.
Lugworm am i going mad or did you think the place we were at the other day was very heavily dug for a small area

no beachbuddy ur dead write and this thread has escalated for the wrong reasons.......lads its a simple observation of an area no-one is pointing the finger........for such a small area it was turned upside down LITTERALY.....i think for the people who know the particular area u are reffering to should know how small it is.....

i've found lugworm is not as plentiful in our area, and this isnt down to digging. i wonder if the ecoli problem, coastal erosion and the amount of fresh water for the past year may be a factor as well as people digging these areas

No tackle shop is responsible for the demise of any area.

We the anglers who dig there must take care of these rag bed ourselves
Put your hand up if you are one of the people who do not back fill the hole after you.
Look at me I can type with one hand in the air

my advice if any bait areas of good stocks are found then say nothing to anyone but the "closest" of friends.

Sadly your "closest of friends" have close friends also the word wildfire comes to mind.
If you are lucky enough to find a new spot tell no one. If you have a modern phone with GPS in it turn it off before you go there. Dig mid-week when there are less prying eyes about and most of all lie like fkuc about where you got them.

I was told about this “new” spot in Saleen by a poster here, with the assurance that I would tell no one. I went there once last year and there were 11 people digging in a small area of about 30mt X 5mt. Nothing will survive that kind of onslaught.

I

Thats the way to put it Donal,thanks for clearing things up ,can i take my hand down now.

It looks like the rag are not the only thing that are disappering

i remember i had a place where i used to collect razor before & as donal has said,i told some friends & they told there friends & needless to say there are very few razor left in that location before,people got greedy & were coming out of there with buckets of them & probaly ending up throwing away most of them,needless to say il not be making the same mistake again

Up in Dublin we probably have the most prolific rag beds in the the country, these have been dug from time and memorial. Every year from April until the end of October they are dug by pro diggers. These rag beds are sustainable and the reason they are sustainable is because the Dublin clubs put a ban on using ragworm from the end of October to the start of April. This gives the bait beds time to recover during the critical period when the ragworm are spawning. I think it would be wise to introduce this rag ban into the munster clubs to help alleviate the problem.

Guys, Back in the days when I used to dig King rag all around eastferry, myself and a buddy would drive over, dig 30-35 rag each, which was always more than enough for any days boat fishing, and then head off.
then one day we were seen, and next time we went down there were 3 guys digging for a competition we were all fishing the following day, we took our 20 mins or so to dig our quota of 30, and then went over to the other guys, who all had, at a guess, 60-80 rag in each of their buckets, and were still digging... and when we asked them why they were taking so many, we were told "ah sure you can never have enough, and we're digging enough for friends"....
so from 70 rag been taken about 10 times a year there was now 300 a week been taking..... after a couple of months it took 2 hrs to dig our 30..... we gave up soon after that....
It's exacty the same as the Razors..... I'd go down once a year take 50 razors, and freeze them down properly to use in specific situations like drifting for haddies, or a couple going out for bass,or tipping baits in a species competition..
and yet you see anglers down on the beds any time they can be reached, taking hundreds of razors at a time, bringing out 10 or 20 badly frozen each time they go out fishing, and throwing the majority in unused after a days fishing...
The only people responsible for the destruction of bait beds in Cork Harbour are the selfish, couldn't care less about the future Anglers themselves!!!

Competitions are always a disaster for bait beds, I've seen it all my life at the beach where I grew up. The beds get hammered during the day before the comp and take ages to recover. Competitive spirit seems to blow sense and reason out of the water. I'm saying this after 30+ years of observation.

Buddy spent over an hour a bit further east last week looking for rag and got 4.
Same time I was in cork suburbs and a tackle shop had rag for 8euro a kg.

A simple fix to this is for clubs to impose a Rag ban during the Winter... Give them time to spawn and the will bounce back. It might take some time, but without that, you haven't a hope.