3 nights, south wexford

People: 2 of us, myself twice

Duration: 3 hours approx

Tide: high mostly

Weather: cold with light breezes

Bait: maddies, lug, rag, mack, crab

Rigs: 3 hook flappers

Results: 5 beards, flounder, whiting, coalies and a herring i think?

Report: on the 15th had maddies left over and wanted to make the most of them - but work meant i could only get out at night - there was plenty of a stir from the SW so east facing it was on a very calm stretch - thought it would bring the flounder out in settled water but no - the rockling and coalies were out

turned out to be a mild night, gd got a big 5 beardy but that was the height of the excitment - it was a lovely night to be out, very comfortable fishing

18th was different, again at night, good swell on a south facing beach nice breeze from the west, plenty of small rockling and flounders caught by others at comp below me. got 2 flounder myself a rockling and a 37cm coalie on crab, which was most welcome for the species hunt

heard of another chap getting 7 species - one being a 47cm codling - not to be sniffed at

22nd went onto the estuary intending to fish the piers but they were full of rods and plenty of small stuff coming in. went to the beach and got a coalie 33, whiting 33 a 5 beard 21 and a few more smaller ones - had a tiny flounder too

i also had what im thinking is a herring but then seems a bit too long and narrow - would like opinions

the old species hunt makes the messing around sessions a bit more interesting - few pics below

You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.

defo not a herring, dont know what it is, has it sharp teeth like whiting i hope you still have it.

im prob way off but it looks like a baby hake , real long body and longer bottom lip sharp teeth

It has a trout's head and what looks like an adipose fin but it doesn't look like its seatrout either.

Could it be a type of pollan?

Hake???


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

it's not a hake.

it might be him-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_smelt

common smelt, and a big one at that.

Smelt

taken from "Irish Sport Fishes - A guide to their identification. Central Fisheries Board"


SMELT Osmerus eperlanus B.
Fr. Eperlan; Ge. Stint; Du. Spierling; It. Sperlano, Eperlano; Sp. Eperldno.
Another small, slender forked-tailed fish, with a brilliant silvery stripe
along the side. A short but rather high-dorsal fin on the middle of the
back; a small adipose fin some distance behind it. Long, sharp teeth.
Grows to about a foot, usually 5-8 inches. Often confused with the
previous species, but is related to the salmon and trout rather than
the grey mullets. Smells strongly of cucumber. Estuarine; ascends to
tidal limits in spring to spawn. Landlocked (freshwater) populations
occur on the continent. Abundant in the Shannon; not recorded
elsewhere in Ireland.

Is a smelt the same as a scad?

two different species

Download this booklet
http://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=& ... 0103,d.ZGU

It's a smelt,and a very big one at that, great pike bait.

They are wrong about one thing there, they are not confined to the Shannon, they have been removed from the cooling water screen at Coolkeeragh power station, on the shores of Lough Foyle. I also caught one, with my hands in a small pool, during the summer, in a river, a tributary of the Foyle and well inland, some 17 miles from the city of Derry/Londonderry. They do stink of cucumber, my hands were smelling of it for ages that day and it's teeth were very sharp. From what I learned about them, it would seem that the, like Sea Trout and Salmon come upstream to spawn, but no as far as it's two relations, so what that one was doing so far upstream I can't say.

reards Wez

Is a smelt the same as a scad?

They are no where near related, the Scad is also called the horse mackerel, whilst the Smelt is related to the salmonid family. The Scad is a fish of the open ocean, whilst the Smelt is an estuarial species. In short they are not the same and not even related.

Regards Wez

Interesting fish all the same lots of gnashers

yea big gob full of teeth like a whiting - funny shape on the lower jaw
im trying to think was there a smell of cucumber - thats mad

he went for frozen rag!

he went back john1 with all the rest of them - seems he was a bigger than average common smelt so

thanks for all the comments

A few decent sessions there Brian. Nice one for the species hunt too;-)

Plenty of fish and a rare species, very well done lads.

Defo smelt..looks like a specimen.