Garfish - Donegal Bay
Sun Sep 17, 2023 10:42 pm
So I’ve been keen to catch a gar for quite some time now, it’s been a species on the bucket list as long as I can remember. A few fruitless efforts here and there closer to home over recent months saw me hit the road for Donegal Bay on Saturday morning, to somewhere where the chances of getting one was substantially higher..
Up and away at 7.30am I popped into Tesco and bought a few cheap bags of porridge oats. Next call was to the morning market for some mackerel. Frozen then thawed whole ungutted mack. Awful stuff. Can't believe it was on sale for human consumption! But it was spot on for the intended rubby dubby.
2.5 hours got me to the mark. I clambered down and went about chopping 4-5 mack into chunks in a bucket then mashing them with my welly. I added a 1kg bag of the oats, mixed it all together and put it all into a strong plastic bag. I then tied a light rope around the neck of this bag, stabbed a lot of holes in it and hung it from the edge of the rocks so that the bag dipped in and out of the rolling waves. A nice slick was soon working out to sea.
Then I put a little slither of mack onto a size 6 hook and chucked it out. As soon as the float hit the water several gar spooked and jumped. I couldn't believe it. I was bang on in the right place!
On this very first cast I got my biggest fish at 61cm long. A fine fish. Happy man
Gar sprint and wriggle, spin and jump. Quite a strange fight but It was fun on some light tackle.
I got four good sized gar in total (and a few small pollack hit me in between). I reckon I could and should have had a few more but I often spent too long taking pics and unraveling the tangle they were good at getting the trace in. lol
All-in-all it was a great day out. It was great craic. Well, I didn't have to listen to JW's jokes all day..
Kept one for the pan. Delicious fish. Blue bones and all!
Up and away at 7.30am I popped into Tesco and bought a few cheap bags of porridge oats. Next call was to the morning market for some mackerel. Frozen then thawed whole ungutted mack. Awful stuff. Can't believe it was on sale for human consumption! But it was spot on for the intended rubby dubby.
2.5 hours got me to the mark. I clambered down and went about chopping 4-5 mack into chunks in a bucket then mashing them with my welly. I added a 1kg bag of the oats, mixed it all together and put it all into a strong plastic bag. I then tied a light rope around the neck of this bag, stabbed a lot of holes in it and hung it from the edge of the rocks so that the bag dipped in and out of the rolling waves. A nice slick was soon working out to sea.
Then I put a little slither of mack onto a size 6 hook and chucked it out. As soon as the float hit the water several gar spooked and jumped. I couldn't believe it. I was bang on in the right place!
On this very first cast I got my biggest fish at 61cm long. A fine fish. Happy man
Gar sprint and wriggle, spin and jump. Quite a strange fight but It was fun on some light tackle.I got four good sized gar in total (and a few small pollack hit me in between). I reckon I could and should have had a few more but I often spent too long taking pics and unraveling the tangle they were good at getting the trace in. lol
All-in-all it was a great day out. It was great craic. Well, I didn't have to listen to JW's jokes all day..
Kept one for the pan. Delicious fish. Blue bones and all!
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Re: Garfish - Donegal Bay
Mon Sep 18, 2023 3:57 pm
great photos, garfish love to jump when hooked too
Re: Garfish - Donegal Bay
Tue Sep 19, 2023 3:25 pm
Good work Charlie, the bucket list just got shorter. But do remember that when the bucket is empty the next thing is to kick it!
No getting away from my jokes!
No getting away from my jokes!
Re: Garfish - Donegal Bay
Tue Sep 26, 2023 11:16 am
Never heard of a slick being generated to catch gars - learn something new everyday
well done on the effort
well done on the effort
Re: Garfish - Donegal Bay
Thu Sep 28, 2023 5:42 pm
corbyeire wrote:Never heard of a slick being generated to catch gars - learn something new everyday
well done on the effort
That's why shark anglers sometimes target gars in the rubby dubby trail while waiting for the sharks (didn't work for us recently!) In the Channel Islands, local anglers throw out handfuls of fishy groundbait which they call chervy.