clare dragoon, carrigaholt, 17/18 july/10

People: jw, tommy, brian duggan

Duration: 0900-1730

Tide: high at 11

Weather: nice days on the water

Bait: mackerel

Rigs: wire traces, small fish rigs

Results: tope, whiting, poor cod, dab, grey gurnard, thornback, spotted ray, mackerel, haddock,
red gurnard and blue shark

Report: session one was fished on the beal bar, two tope landed, two dropped runs.
when the ebb tide and the freshening westerly drove us off it we caught a surprising
variety of small fish anchored at college strand


http://youtube.com/watch?v=u9Rd65Ft5-s


http://youtube.com/watch?v=8fITcIsT7M4

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day two was fished north of loop head. the slick was set at 11am,

haddock from 1 to 2 lb are plentiful here,

just when we were loosing faith, around 1600pm a blue shark picked up my mackerel,
then dropped it and went for tommy's

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the blue looks about 60 or 70lbs, put up a strong fight and was carefully and skillfully
landed by tommy on 30lb line

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Nice report and great fishing well done....

nice session jw, well done

hats off to an enjoyable outing to all and to an excellent report John, enjoyed watching the videos, pity having work commitments taking over my schedule atm. but I consider myself lucky to have some , anyway, we meet next time hopefully, all going well
Smashing Blue there Tommy, well done looks like you should have used 2 hooks John

Nice fishing lads.Nice to see a few haddocks.

A tip for baiting for sharks : take out the backbone of the mackerel by filleting it from the tail on both sides leaving a "flapper". This makes it easier for the shark to take it in.
Always give the shark time to take the bait after the first run .....often they drop the bait and turn to take it aggresively again.
Strike hard on this second run.

great results jw looks like it was enjoyed by everyone

Nice fishing lads.Nice to see a few haddocks.

A tip for baiting for sharks : take out the backbone of the mackerel by filleting it from the tail on both sides leaving a "flapper". This makes it easier for the shark to take it in.
Always give the shark time to take the bait after the first run .....often they drop the bait and turn to take it aggresively again.
Strike hard on this second run.

interesting thoughts, i think i will try the flapper on the next trip, i suppose
it would also have some movement which might be helpful as well. its a fine
balance as if you leave it too long you end up with a gut hooked fish
which i imagine is mostly fatal

Great result lads,

It always brings a smile to my face when I see someone’s plans working out, you said it was going to be tope and blues this weekend and sure enough ye got them

Very well done indeed,

Can any of you lads please tell me when the tope will start to move out of the Estuary

hi mann, they seem to peak sometime in late july then drop off suddenly,
this year 24 were caught in a three hour session on 8th july, this weekend
last year we had 8, 2 this time round

A tip for baiting for sharks : take out the backbone of the mackerel by filleting it from the tail on both sides leaving a "flapper". This makes it easier for the shark to take it in.
Always give the shark time to take the bait after the first run .....often they drop the bait and turn to take it aggresively again.
Strike hard on this second run.

Fishing a flapper works well if you know you are going to get a hook up in a short peroid of time ie less than an hour. However if longer than that it is compleatly washed out and falls off the hook quicker. A whole Mackerel hooked through the middle of the body will work most times and with a few nicks on its side last for a full 5 hour drift no problem.
I very much disagree with the "wait for second run" theory. This almost always results in a swollowed bait and a deep hooking. In my experance just tighting the drag on first run without a hard strike will result in a good hook up in the mouth area with a far better chance off a good release.

hi mann, they seem to peak sometime in late july then drop off suddenly,

Thanks for the info JW

They really an amazing looking fish, I feel blessed that I got my first Tope last month in flat calm water, the sea was so clear I could see the fish as it came up the last 20ft or more, and what a welcome sight it was

I was blown away watching the power of it as it steamed away on each little run, I soon lost the sense of relaxation / calmness I was getting while watching it swim before I got it in the boat,

It went crazy on the floor of the boat making me jump onto the seat till it chilled out a little before I could get the hook out ,

When I said to my mate that I was going for a Tope he said “that will be a step up the ladder for you” but it wasn’t till I had the fish in the boat that I knew what he meant, wicked,

I think I got the tope bug

A tip for baiting for sharks : take out the backbone of the mackerel by filleting it from the tail on both sides leaving a "flapper". This makes it easier for the shark to take it in.
Always give the shark time to take the bait after the first run .....often they drop the bait and turn to take it aggresively again.
Strike hard on this second run.

Fishing a flapper works well if you know you are going to get a hook up in a short peroid of time ie less than an hour. However if longer than that it is compleatly washed out and falls off the hook quicker. A whole Mackerel hooked through the middle of the body will work most times and with a few nicks on its side last for a full 5 hour drift no problem.
I very much disagree with the "wait for second run" theory. This almost always results in a swollowed bait and a deep hooking. In my experance just tighting the drag on first run without a hard strike will result in a good hook up in the mouth area with a far better chance off a good release.

I tend to agree, we usually wind into the shark just as he ends his first run also I normally use a nicked whole mack hooked through the lips just like you would a flapper bait for conger fishing

Hi All,
First of all big thanks for everyone involved for great two day fishing trip. Nice change after week spent on conference calls. Special thanks for Mr. Aston who is offering the benchmark service for anglers. Seriously....

First day was a bit of disappointment if taking in to the account recent tope fishing reports. However compared to previous years result was pretty much standard, at least in my book.

Second day was a typical waiting game which we almost lost due to elapsed time... Luckily we managed one shark to the boat after all. As jw mentioned I was using 30lb line which I’m considering light when it comes to fishing for blue. I think that due to circumstances of bite, shark was barely hooked. I’d say that light line was working for my advantage as I got feeling that I would lose a fish if exercise more forceful fight on stronger line.

As for hooking a bite all I can say is that it’s a pity John that you seemed to give up on circle hooks. I think that I’m going to try them this year. It looks like you do need to wait, not so much for second run, but for end of first run at least when using them. I got no experience yet, but I do remember that circle hooks worked just fine for you last year.

And more of same but slightly different photos.
Cheers!

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