beal bar specimen tope

People: jw luke aston

Duration: 1500-1700

Tide: high water 1600

Weather: light northely

Bait: fresh mac

Rigs: wire tope traces

Results: 4 tope, including specimen female 40lb, 1 cut off by double hook up, and 3
dropped runs on circle hooks

Report: the hardest part of the day was getting fresh mackerel at dunlickey,
headed out with nine between two rods, still got 4 tope into the boat

i got three dropped runs on the circle hooks, so with considerable loss of face
had to switch to the J patterns

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Decent fish there John!
When are we going to see Luke holding a tope at the stern of a Warrior

smashing tope well done

there beauts john and a pretty good return on 9 mackral super fishing well done

Was just thinking the same Jim

A fantastic day's fishing, well done

Great fishing! That's the first female tope I've seen caught in the Shannon!
Bit worrying for this weekend that the mackerel are still so bloody elusive . Its a long way to Dunlicky and back for bait!!

excellent return on only 2 hours fishing lads . congrads all round

thanks, kev any amount of mackerel can be caught by boat at loop head,
probably some near kilbaha as well,
they were scarce on the day from the shore at dunlickey

lovely tope if i can get some fresh bait around here i will be out after them me self

Hi John,

congratulations to ye guys. I'm green with envy.

Were they dropped runs or fail to hookup? What size were these circle hooks? Were you putting these hooks through bite's jaw and head or any other way?

hi tommy,

the tope seemed to be picking up the flappers and swimming off and were slow to
gulp them down, so a J hook from the middle of the flapper would hook up in the lip
but the circle hook through the mackerel nose did not do as well. Or maybe it was
just luck or my imagination

the tope are certainly there in quantity now

jw

A common fault when hooking a flapper bait through the nose is putting the hook too far back from the baits nose, if the point of the fish baits nose is level with the point of the hook you will get dropped runs as the nose blocks the already small gape of the circle hook, you are better to have the hook put only far enough down from the nose to hold the bait thus keeping the gape clear.
Alternativley run the hook fully through the nose pulling the eye through, then nick it through the neck (skin)at the back of the mackerels head about a cm in from the apex of the flapper cut, and out through the flesh just above the spine, if you do it right the tag end of the knot/crimp will engage with the hole in the nose holding the hook at 90 degrees from the top of the mackerels head.
Hope I have explained it properly, here is a link showing you how the gape is kept free with a mackerel, and also how to bridle hook a live mackrel but which would hoek perfectly for a flapper.

http://www.ukshark.co.uk/chr.htm