Lobster and fishing tips

[PatBallytrent]

Howdy, I am new to the forum, a N00B.

Firstly, a nephew left me his fishing pole when he visited my partner Jennie and I in 2014. I do not fish, outside of working fishing boats in Alaska in the Summer of 1977. (Though head chef at Sea of Cortez on Pier 39, San Francisco, 1980, so I know how to cook fish and seafood, catching is a different story)

But having lived on a Carer's Allowance (the love of my life, a Dub, has dementia, Korsakoff's), to save money, perhaps it would be worth my while to learn how to fish from a pole as well as lobster pot (I take it that some commercial lobster people may not like us amateurs, but I love lobster, just cannot afford it).

I live 60 meters from Ballytrent Beach/Strand. So I have this pole. I am going to build a crude fishing pole/rod tripod out of wood (I cannot afford a fancy rig). Any ideas? I have wood, nails, even a hammer. I see the lugworm "piles" on the beach, and a friend (as we walk our dogs on the beach) said to use a gardening fork, not a gardening shovel, to dig them up.

I have a friend in Dublin, Shane, he wins all sorts of awards and stuff. I will also ask his advice. I believe that down here the catch I mainly want is sea bass. but any edible fish would do, I need to save money, and we love seafood.

Now, secondly, I have recovered two lobster pots washed up (carried/dragged one for 3km from Rosslare Harbour to home, heck, they are heavy). The other a round one I found not far from the house (of course on the beach, not in the farmer's fields). Both are in good shape, and I found a buoy washed up.

Now, my kayak will not take them out so I will put them on the rocky "shoals" up the beach at low tide. I do not want to impede on anybody's territory (there are others in Ballytrent Bay that put pots way off shore). I want to play the game correctly using the right rules. I have been onto Ian at BIM.

Any tips? Bait? Dead fish heads? I even heard an open tin of cat food to put in the pot?

Nice to be on this forum. I have always chatted with the guys fishing on the beach (one gave me a sea bass once, I ran home and gave him wild blackberries that I washed and froze).

Cheers

Patrick

[Teegerstk]

Fish heads/guts would do for a pot bait, mackerel would be a good choice.

As for bass, please keep in mind that there are regulations. In the January-June period any bass you have caught must be returned.
As for the rest of the year, you can keep 1 bass a day, as long as it's over 42cm. You will find that a lot of anglers support catch and release throughout the year. Bass stocks are considerably lower than other species, so it is worth putting them back and keeping a different species for tea.

Also, the lugworm "piles" are known as casts. Like you said, a fork works well as you have less of a chance of cutting up the worm you're digging. Lugworm is a decent bait for species such as flatfish, bass, and codling/whiting in the winter.

Good luck.

[venbugtrap]

When digging for lugworms, don't dig directly under the casts as I first did starting out. You have to find the breathing hole in the sand that corresponds to the cast, then dig between the two. Don't be afraid to dig ~50cm; often the worms are down deep. You'll usually only find one worm per burrow, so move on to the next one when you're done. The worms also leave a yellowish excretion in the sand, so if you see that as you're digging you know you're on the right track. While many people seem to favour forks, I prefer using a spade, because the worms are often down deep.I find that the amount of lost worms is minimal. Hope this helps!

[kieran]

A spade will chop lugworms in two and dead lugworms are not effective. They go off... Never store chopped lugworms with whole ones, as they can poison them.

We used to have a PDF file for download on collecting and using bait. Anyone got a copy still?

On digging lugworms, the worms are usually found at the water level, so if the tide is coming in, the water level rises and the worms will come up on one or other side of the U shaped burrow between the pile and the hole. A better way to dig lug is to dig a trench across a large collection of the squiggles, digging them separately can be very hard work, and you might miss them by only a few inches. A final tip - when dropping the "clod" from your fork, do it from hip height so that the clod fractures usually along the lines of the burrow. Give yourself a few seconds to spot the lugworm, they can be remarkably hard to see even with their colouration. Hope this helps...

[MC]

http://www.sea-angling-ireland.org/bait ... %20lug.htm