Most fish I have ever seen in my life! (Edit: mullet netted)

Lads, I wouldnt normally write up reports from freediving/snorkelling.

But I went for a swim today and I must have seen near on 1000 bass and mullet, mostly mullet...
Myself and my wife go for the odd swim/freedive and we went out today and being so late in winter we didnt expect to see much life but today was crazy....
I was swimming in a massive shoal for well over an hour over a strip of land about 1km long within feet of the shore...

Weather condition must be bringing something out in the fish, but I'd get out while you can... I'll try to get out again and take some footage, but its more fish than I have ever seen before! Even at the height of the summer!

I'd love to tell you where so you could go and see it for yourself (they would be visible from the shore) but for obvious reasons I won't say here, and don't pm me unless I know you well.

hopefully the trawler men dont see this post.. they'll hoover the whole lot up given half the chance
maybe these fish are all on the move for some reason - migrating to warmer climes or to breed.. we may never know for sure!
must have been a spectacular sight. class
thanks for posting

Excellent stuff hold your ground on the pm's let everyone else get out and find them for themselves. Great to hear, well done

It's an annual event. It's like all the mullet in the area meet up outside the harbour before heading to wherever they go in winter. Like the swallows gathering on the power lines!

you should tell no one just in case

It's an annual event. It's like all the mullet in the area meet up outside the harbour before heading to wherever they go in winter. Like the swallows gathering on the power lines!

Spot on .

Many years ago came across a similar huge shoal about twice the size of a football field travelling on the surface about 2 miles outside Roches Point heading for the harbour on the flood tide.Cast across them but couldn't pick a bass out unfortunately!
Some sight though,nice to know that these shoals are still there!

Plaice and Crawfish are other species who do this on occasion at certain times of year. It may only happen over several hours and rarely over a couple of days.
With Crawfish it is called the 'march' and usually occurs in May.

Plaice and Crawfish are other species who do this on occasion at certain times of year. It may only happen over several hours and rarely over a couple of days.
With Crawfish it is called the 'march' and usually occurs in May.

Yes, plaice certainly do something like this....in Cork harbour we used call it the "plaice window". It could be unreal if you managed to catch it. I did a couple of years and it was unreal. A decent plaice each drop...superb fishing. It went on for about two weeks! Poor weather has hampered the fishing window in recent years.

I do not know where you went for your swim Donnyboy, because it is too late to keep the message quiet now. A pelagic pair had 140 tons of Mullet last night for 1 shot.

I do not know where you went for your swim Donnyboy, because it is too late to keep the message quiet now. A pelagic pair had 140 tons of Mullet last night for 1 shot.

KINSALE?.A disgrace well on the road abroad at this stage

I do not know where you went for your swim Donnyboy, because it is too late to keep the message quiet now. A pelagic pair had 140 tons of Mullet last night for 1 shot.

Disgusting,there's something very wrong about that,fine line between putting bread on the table and
Pure greed

I do not know where you went for your swim Donnyboy, because it is too late to keep the message quiet now. A pelagic pair had 140 tons of Mullet last night for 1 shot.

I'm 100% sure they could not have fished where I was swimming...

Perhaps they all joined a larger group like Jim suggested?
I'd say they got a nice few doubles of "bass bycatch" in that!!

I do not know where you went for your swim Donnyboy, because it is too late to keep the message quiet now. A pelagic pair had 140 tons of Mullet last night for 1 shot.

You would hope that this is BS. (Not questioning your integrity here Holeopen, your info is usually accurate...just hoping)

Doing some sums -
The average size of mullet caught during the CSBF 2013 was - 2.62lb Lets call that 1.2kg
1 ton = 835 Mullet
140t = 116,900 Mullet

A staggering figure!

[Bass Dad]

1 shot, 140 tons or 3500 40 kilo boxes of mullet and probably a few bass have left the South coast and are now in France. The pair trawling team out of Kinsale will have a few extra euros to go towards their diesel bills .
With their forward-looking sounders they were able to spot the shoal, while looking for herring, and scoop these slow growing fish out of the water . Shocking really.

On a seperate note I also heard of over 3000 euros worth of bass were netted out of kinsale a few months ago. I was wondering does anybody know of the legalities involved if say "a sponsor" were to put up a substantial reward for information leading to the prosecution of bass poachers in the area, with a poster campaign and information website. Somebody knows something out there and to get the public involved in keeping an eye out or even up and coming "detectives" looking to make a few bob, even the poachers own friends ratting them out ? If the reward is good enough something might come of it ? I would treat any threats towards ourselves as an admission of guilt.

Is it an outlandish idea ??

If the "scheme" was advertised well enough poachers , buyers and un-scrupulous restaurant owners would atleast be more paranoid about getting caught and exposed .

Last edited by Bass Dad on Tue Nov 26, 2013 12:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Thats unbelievable about the mullet!!! How did you hear this? I think mullet are a fish that we won't realise what we have here until they are gone as they are so easy to net/catch and we accept the numbers of them here thats a disgrace. Re the bass not sure about he legalities etc but good to be thinking of ways to stop that netting.

I managed to confirm Holeopen's info. (Not that I doubted it in all reality.)
Indeed there was this amount of mullet landed in recent days.
It would appear that they originated off the Cork Harbour area.
These fish would more than likely be sold for fish meal.
Sad or scandalous....in equal measure.

Sick.... I'd say about 10% of that number are bass

F@#k... Lots of bass in with them...

Looks like Cork Harbour will be fairly devoid of mullet next year and if Robs 10% estimate for bass in amongst that is anyway near correct there wont be too many bass left either. If you apply the same calculation for bass that would be about 11,600 bass!!!!
I will not be expecting to catch any bass in East Cork next year.