Ardglass - no macks

Hi Folkes

Have not been on here for a while, sorry to sayno great fishing tales to tell. I have been fishing Ardglass most weekends and have caught lots of coalies and pollack, I have even caught a monkfish in the harbour but only one mighty mack. Does anyone know where the mack have gone?

Hope to be down this weekend and will again be after macks, I will let you know how I do.

no macks from the shore well not in any numbers this season worst in memory big trawlers are to blame

too true we've been spinning hard for them from various tried and tested deep water rock marks all over co antrim and down this summer with very little success. even on our multiple boat trips they have been hard come by. but when we have been lucky enough to hit a shoal on the boat they were all pretty decent sizes. another thing worth mentioning is, that when we were filleting them down for freezing, not a single one of them had a single sand eel in their bellies just small whiting and small herring fry. so where have all the sand eel gone?? . over the last 2 summers we've watched shoals of them swimming round the rocks and harbours at high tide. but we have'nt seen a single shoal this summer usually the macks will chase them almost up the rocks in a feeding frenzy. just my 2 cents

Hi mate the only place i have had any luck for them from the shore in co antrim is Torr head and even at that they were not in great numbers

Al sandeel populations in the north sea have had a major collapse..seen it on a wildlife documentary, apperntly loads of Puffins were starving and failing to raise their young as they were having to rely on pipefish to feed their young as the sandeels had collapsed

nitemare !

davy

We are the same where we are

3 years ago 1000 sea birds, found dead on the co/down coast. all had starved to death.

read this on the guardian website

"Populations of the slender, silvery fish, whose availability may be crucial to the puffins' long-term survival, have been in decline since the 1990s because of heavy trawling for fishfarm feed"