Herring of a morning

[anthony byrne]

After hearing the reports around the country that the Herring are in in big numbers I decided to give them a go. I have never caught one before so it was a new target. A few calls to my buddy Graham and John seen me on the right grounds with the right rigs. Needless to say Shamrock Tackle had just the rigs I needed.

I also rigged up the fish finder as a temporary measure while i'm waiting for the rail blaza gear to arrive, one chopping board and some Velcro = job done!

Shot off out to my usual stomping grounds and tied off to a pot, lines down one for Cod and one for Herring. The fish finder was hopping at 9ft, sure I thought the flipping thing was broke as it was beeping like crazy so I dropped down the clown rig and straight away I was into full strings, fish after fish after fish.
So I took enough to stock up the freezer for bait and a few for my friend who lives just off the launch slip. From there I changed tactics and moved off into rougher grounds for the hope of Cod. After a wee while of freezing my toes off this wee beauty came to the surface

The rods were kept busy for another while with Wrasse and Pollock, delighted to see a Wrasse, a beautiful fighter on the lighter rods

A lovely morning to be out, cold but dry and a few fish, what more could I ask for.
Heres a wee bit of action from the morning

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_55Yn79 ... tube_gdata
Tight Lines
Anto

[yappo]

Nice going Anto enjoyed the vid and good to see a wrasse my mate Paul was saying they were a bit scarce around there this year.


Yappo

[JOHN1]

good to see you got your herring out of the way anto loads of them about at the moment we had 8 species on the boat that day good few herring we also kept a few nice codling up to about 3lb pollack whiting dabs dogs poorcod and ballan wrasse i also lost a very good tope hooked on a lighter rig intended for something else.

good to see a wrasse my mate Paul was saying they were a bit scarce around there this year.


Yappo

i dont know where paul goes for them pat but this year has been a good year for all kinds of wrasse up here including some nice cuckoos only problem is more foreigners have found out how to catch them

[anthony byrne]

Cheers lads thanks for the replies. Ive seen the wrasse taken in buckets, even the tiddlers breaks my heart

[cod chaser]

Good fishing , haven't had a herring so will add it to my list .

Not all foreigners are ripping anything they catch out of the sea to eat guys , speaking as one of them I have seen some awful behaviour towards fish here and back home by locals and visitors alike . I watched a local on monkstown wall pull a fish up so vigourously it landed on the other side of the road and was then wound back across the road to great amusement to the guy in question and his friend , it was ' only a dogfish ' but surely we have all been greatful of a dogfish when it's really hard fishing . I've stopped foreign guys taking small undersized fish .I personally fish for the love of it 99% of my fish go back as quickly and humainly as possible to fight another day . We should be educating people in fish welfare and how things should be done , I know you can't polish a t**d but some of us ' foreigners really care about what is going on over here and the future of the sport . If we kill everything we catch ( didn't there used to be hundreds of bass around ) cod , wrasse ,pollock whatever there will be bugger all left in these seas to fish for