autumn dream, kilmore quay, 3/5/10

People: jw jd plus 6 other lads and lasses

Duration: 930-1700

Tide: spring

Weather: very cold north east breeze

Bait: shop bought mac, rag, peeler

Rigs: small fish rigs, gilling rigs

Results: cod, pollack, ballan, cuckoo, corkwing, ling, pouting, poor cod

Report: slow enough day, shoals of small cod present most under 1lb, a couple up to 2 lb,
hopefully a good sign for the future.
small pollack also present. live rag on gilling trace seemed to work best.

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good stuff there lads

nice to see a few fish in kilmore one of my favourite spots .still looks a bit cold but should heat up in aweek or two

Forgot my camera . Forgot how to fish too for the first two hours, losing a lot of rigs to the reefs until I got into my stride.

Cool enough Northeasterly when the sun disappeared. Anyway I eventually found some cod and small ling , then added pouting, poor cod, ballan wrasse, cuckoo wrasse,whiting. As John said, pollack came fairly easily in the end to gilled ragworm. Full marks to Eamonn who had no problem moving on until he could put us on some fish.

kilmore seems to have gone off the boil in the last few years ,i remember filling a box with good cod one may between 6 anglers ,and moving spots to get away from them and onto the pollock and coalies ,most the cod we kept would have been in the 5 to 8 lb mark with a few up to 10 lb ,maybe its the cold winter we had slowing things up ?

hi,
i would say the intensive fishing for the cod has had a good deal to do with there decline, and prehaps the good old seal debate, you were lucky to see a seal around the conningmore rocks or brandies, but now there is a resident population of a dozen or more, and i myself have seen the sheltered beach on the western side of the great saltee, increase from a dozen seals to well over 150 seals now in just a few years, the same has happened in the wexford estuary, sandbanks there at low water are now covered in seals.
Now as to if they are having an effect is another matter, but i have also had a marked increase in seals attacking fish i am bringing up to the boat, makes for a spirited fight for a min or two before being left with a head or lost trace!!
regards
screeming

Adult harbor seals eat 5% to 6% of their body weight per day, about 4.5 to 8.2 kg (10-18 lb.).

if you take 150 seals averaging 14lb of fish a day thats a total of 2100lb of fish
look at another way in old measures 150 stone that's just a little bit under a TON
the sooner they open up a season on them vermin the better, they could put a bounty on them to incourage a few more lads out

Adult harbor seals eat 5% to 6% of their body weight per day, about 4.5 to 8.2 kg (10-18 lb.).

if you take 150 seals averaging 14lb of fish a day thats a total of 2100lb of fish
look at another way in old measures 150 stone that's just a little bit under a TON
the sooner they open up a season on them vermin the better, they could put a bounty on them to incourage a few more lads out

im afraid to go out to look on irelands eye. id say they have doubled in numbers since last season. there wont be any room for them on the rocks there was that many last year. the same around lambay nothing will be done until they attack some people swimming or capsize some td s boat