mackie madness on the bangor boat sunday 18th july

People: me and jordan and 10 other mack hunters

Duration: 7pm to 10pm

Tide: HW 5.20pm

Weather: dry, overcast but pretty calm

Bait: feathers

Rigs: feathers

Results: 206 mack between me and jordan and a codling for me

Report: after covering over 700 miles from wednesday until sunday afternoon in search of a fish it was the last chance saloon for jordan to finish off the week without seeing a single fish since wednesday morning to now we had been to waterford, wexford, wicklow, louth, meath, antrim and down and jordan was still staring a blank in the face . we had intended to finish the week off with a bit of spinning at bangor harbour as our mack freezer is bare, but had no joy. but by chance we'd spotted the bangor boat coming in to pick up a mackie trip and i went over to have a chat with the skipper brian to see if there were any spaces left. luckily there was and me and jordan made up the numbers for a full load and we were off . i told brian of our nightmare of a week and he instantly brightened up our day by informing us his trip earlier in the day that had produced the best mackie session so far this season . our first drift had jammy jordan get a mack on the first drop and a few more were landed on the boat around us. jordan was made up to finally get a fish after a week of blanking at more marks than i'd care to remember . so the pressure was off and we both got a few more on the following drifts. then brian decided we'd make a move to somewhere else that he thought we'd stand a chance for better numbers of fish. so we steamed off to the next spot and from the first drop it was full houses of macks before leads had even hit the sea bed . the next hour was sheer pandamonium with fish flying into the boat from all directions with fish guts, blood, scales and poo flying in every direction we lost count of who was getting what as it was a race to get the macks off the hooks and into the buckets and getting the feathers back into them again . but we ended up with 206 between us with some of them over 1lb in weight. so we decided to split the difference and called it 103 each . the time flew by and before too long we were back in shore and sorting our fish . a big thank you to the skipper brian and the crewman aboard the blue aquarius who was kept busy sorting multiple tangles as the madness ensued . i gotta say we use a few boats for 3 hour mackie trips to fill the freezer and no one works harder than brian to put you onto the fish. far too many of those charters travel a few hundred yards out of the port and just sit there and wait to get paid with no effort put into finding fish . but that one trip has almost filled our freezer well enough to cover our conger, tope and shore fishing for the best part of the rest of the year . the only down side was being stuck in the kitchen until 2am filleting and sorting fish . we must have frozen down over 300 mackeral last year and then ran out in march this year . but another trip like that and it wo'nt be a problem for 2011

thats good catch lads, over 200 hundreds macs in 3 hours that should cover jordans blanks al well i didn't see a fish for almost 3 weeks so hopefully will hit some mark on this middweek so prapobly will go to visit gunwell see what happens , anyway good job there al and jordan well done

Nice one Al good to see a few being caught out on the boat. There's still not alot being caught from the rocks in Bangor, we where down the other night talking to a few mates who where down and they where using both the float and the feathers and in two hours of standing there with them only two fish where caught, it was dismill to say the least. I'm not going to go down for a couple of weeks myself now until it picks up abit - either that or I'll get myself out on the boat because you's did well

what?......no pictures?? did you forget the camara al?? nice one on the mackerel,but jordan blanking for a week, is he sick, are you sabotaging his rigs?

thats good catch lads, over 200 hundreds macs in 3 hours that should cover jordans blanks al well i didn't see a fish for almost 3 weeks so hopefully will hit some mark on this middweek so prapobly will go to visit gunwell see what happens , anyway good job there al and jordan well done

thanks grady. good luck with your mid week trip. it seemed like everything was against us last week when we found a spot that fishable the weed or weather picked up and it was game over despite trying endless marks over the 5 days. so i reckon we were due that mental mackie session

Nice one Al good to see a few being caught out on the boat. There's still not alot being caught from the rocks in Bangor, we where down the other night talking to a few mates who where down and they where using both the float and the feathers and in two hours of standing there with them only two fish where caught, it was dismill to say the least. I'm not going to go down for a couple of weeks myself now until it picks up abit - either that or I'll get myself out on the boat because you's did well

tell me about it paula . we spent a few hours on the rocks at greys point, brompton park and round the harbour and only seen 4 mack landed between about 30 lads spinning hard . the mackeral still seem to be sitting off shore at the moment for whatever reason. we're just in a bit of a panic to get the bait freezer filled before those pair trawlers move back into the lough again this year and scoop the heap.

what?......no pictures?? did you forget the camara al?? nice one on the mackerel,but jordan blanking for a week, is he sick, are you sabotaging his rigs?

it was sheer bedlham on the boat man with feathers loaded with mackeral flying about everywhere . when the shoal moved up in the water colum to just under the boat we were just letting out about 10 feet of line and were into them again , so it was a race to get them off and back into them again before the shoal moved off. talk about madness,,, it was great . but taking pics would have eaten into the limited time we had,, so heres one of what i was faced with until 2am sorting out

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

Jesus Al, those knifes in the background look like lethal weapons, remind me never to get on the wrong side of you! I'm sure you where kept busy filleting that lot.

those are just my fish knives. best to keep them seperate from the day to day stuff . plenty of fillets and whole joeys for the freezer and 2 buckets of blood, guts and skeletons frozen down for conger rubby dubby. one of our wee tricks for conger fishing is to get a good big bag of rubby dubby down between the 2 conger rods to draw the eels outta their hidey holes . i've found that if you put it on the sea bed when frozen the doggies have a harder time ripping it to bits and the scent trail from the blood lasts a while longer as it thaws

Great stuff, freezer near full now go find some tope or somthing

Where is this boat and how much?

just at start of bangor pier beside free carpark ,youll see his sign at beginning of pier and its £16

9am or 7pm roughly 3 hours fishing

Thank you Rod hire available?

cheers for the replies lads . finally got all the mackeral sorted and the freezer is at about 70% full now dawsey . so roll on the conger and tope sessions

Where is this boat and how much?

he picks up the passengers on the eisenhower pier just in front of the slip at lifeboat station man. it's £16 or £17 for an adult and all the rods leads and traces are supplied. all you have to do is call brian in advance to book your spot on the boat. the number is 07510006000.

Brian is one of the nicest blokes you could hope to meet.

When I was growing up in Bangor I used to go out on his boat 2-3 times peer week. Occasionally I helped him unhook fish etc for the less experienced customers and also to clean-up so he didn't charge me.

One summer the lough was full of Thornies. I remember one great all-night trip where 8 of us went out and caught dozens.

He still recognises me on the pier 20 years later!

It's a little known fact that Brian had a short lived political career back in the 80s. I remember one day I was at home revising. One of the big political parties was canvassing on our street and had a big black limo with a full PA system blasting out slogans. Brian appeared after a few minutes. He was driving his battered mini and had his head sticking out the window shouting through a megaphone not to vote for those "bo@@oxes". I think he got elected!

Sounds like a cracking session Al, though it sounds like Jordan has been having a nightmare week. I was talking to brian yesterday and he was commenting on how fishing nuts you were

good going lads,,you,ll be getting another freezer soon !! well done,