Shannon Estuary Sat 7th July

Shannon Estuary Sat 7th July
High water 11.20 , 4.1 meters, Low water 5.15
Light Westerly winds, Sunny with one small shower

Trying to make up for my last disastrous outing with Pete, I had invited Kev (MAC) out for a spot of tope fishing
Kev was good enough to offer me the use of a replacement auxiliary engine , so it only seemed polite!!

Once again however, the mackerel were very elusive in the estuary. Not wanting to steam as far as loop head, and needing to be on the tope mark for high water, we scratched around a variety of locations. We managed a grand total of 9 and just made the tope mark with 40 minutes of fishable tide, before the current pushed us off
Kev managed a couple of dogfish, not a good sign here. At last gasp, with the current starting to build, Kev had a solid run. On lifting into the fish, disaster, as the braid simply parted.
Shades of Petes visit now, and my tope catching confidence is seriously dented

Worse, on trying to retrieve the anchor, it became impossible to shift it off the bottom
After repeated efforts to sink my own boat by pulling the nose under I gave up.
Kev suggested tying a fender to the end of the rope, and retrieving later when the tide dropped. With the fender duly tied, we tossed it over the side and watched in horror as it sailed straight under and vanished.

So , having thrown away a perfectly good anchor, we set off to try a variety of cliff marks. Strangely, the large numbers of Pollack showing here a few weeks ago simply did not appear. 4 hours and a lot of different marks accounted for a whiting to Kev, about the size of his thumb. Really poor stuff
With my confidence at rock bottom, we finally hit gold and managed to land 6 mackerel!!!

Back to the Beal bar, and few drifts around , we eventually spotted the fender, yippee. With the boat roped back up to the anchor, and with fresh bait, we baited up for tope.

Kevs rod again nodded, with that tell tale doggy knock, and winding in showed very little weight on the rod. Until almost under the boat when a fast moving tope took off in the other direction
What a relief. My credibility restored, Kev played out a lovely fish in the 25-30 lbs bracket. On landing the fish, it turned out to have a number of sea lice on it. The first time I’d seen that.
Pictures taken, the fish was returned, and both rods set up again.

Within minutes, the classic sound of a screaming reel and I hooked into another fish , which when landed proceeded to remove the skin from my forearm. Another photo,another 30 , fish returned and a short steam back to port.

A tough day out, but at least we landed tope this time, and I’m putting my last disastrous trip down to Pete. Who will now affectionately be known as “the Jonah” on my boat.

Kev

At least you broke your tope jinx :lol: as for the anchor,bouy lose ,you'll maybe get it on slack water when theres less drag from the tide on anchor rope, the bouy should pop back up again ,I,ve seen 24inch bouys pulled under by the tide rips of the north coast only to appear again a few hours later .

another thing you could try to free a stuck anchor is to attach a big buoy or float around the rode with a loop of rope or shackle so that the rode can run freely through it with a lot of rode out. Then drive towards the anchor at a slight angle so as not to prop the rope and continue until you are uptide of the anchor, pulling it out in the easy direction. You should end up with the anchor on the surface held by the float and it will be easy to pull in. This works really well. don't go too fast as you don't want to pull out a cleat or the transom off obviously

A Big Thank you to Big Kev for the invite. I was keen to show him that at least one of the anglers from the club were able to catch fish. :lol: It was tough, but I can now confirm that PeteKd it the official Jonah. :lol:

As kev mentioned we managed a few macks after plent of this

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/mcclean2k/Shannon/about.jpg[/img]

Here is a few pictures of my Tope
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/mcclean2k/Shannon/mac2.jpg[/img]

another angle

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/mcclean2k/Shannon/mac1.jpg[/img]

My tope had quite a few lice on it.
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/mcclean2k/Shannon/lice.jpg[/img]


Kev Leaning into the run

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/mcclean2k/Shannon/kev1.jpg[/img]

Big Kev's Tope

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/mcclean2k/Shannon/kev3.jpg[/img]

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/mcclean2k/Shannon/kev2.jpg[/img]

We even managed a few glimpses of the Dolphins

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/mcclean2k/Shannon/dolphins.jpg[/img]

Then it was time to motor home

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/mcclean2k/Shannon/motor.jpg[/img]

After forgetting to put sun lotion on my face, my radiation magnet of a shrone would put Rudolff out of a job. :oops:

I can't believe Big Kev chucked away a perfectly good Anchor & rope, just coz I thought it was a good idea :roll: :lol: :lol:

A Great day out Kev, thanks again for the invite.

well done kev (kevs)

nice pictures and lovely tope

Jonah my harris! No pressure now Kev but if you don't produce a tope for me at the weekend after producing one for Mac then I wont be happy.... :evil:

In all seriousness, cracking fish lads, I gather conditions were better than what we had to deal with last time out. I might try and lift a few macks early Sunday morning from Dunlickey and save all that running around if its possible. High speed runs out to Loop head result in squashed nads and lost engines... :lol:

You talk about sunburn Mac, I dont usually burn at all and it was a grey enough day when we went out 2 weeks ago but my god, I got scorched. Lost a full layer of skin off my mush and my nose is still peeling! Im still getting the "were you away?" on a daily basis.

nice fish lads... i'll have me a shore beauty this year with a bit of luck and a couple of hundred hours spent out on the beach... :cry:

Nice to see your giving it a go again this week Pete.

Must be the shannon sunshine. I was away at a conference the last couple of day and had to keep going to the bathroom at coffee break to clean my peeling head...... :oops: Plenty of factor 50 next time.

There was plenty of squashed nads for ourselfs as well, especially on the run out. Peach of a boat the predator, Will be keeping it in mind when I decide to get one...


Tight lines this weekend.

Kev