clare dragoon carrigaholt 26/8/10

People: romofa, conor jw plus 5 lads

Duration: 9-5

Tide: spring

Weather: mediteranean

Bait: mackerel and rag

Rigs: devil rigs etc

Results: pollack, ling, lots of haddock, coalie, red gurnads, ballans cuckoos, whiting, cod, poor cod

Report:

due to global warming vast shoals of Henslow's swimming crabs
have swam up from portugal and can be seen on the sounder,

the pollack are stuffed with them, by lunch time we were getting worried we would
compromise the stability of the boat we had so many boxes of fish on the deck

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someone got a nice tub on pirk baited with squid, another lad brough up a nice
hake

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Not being smart but with boxes of pollack like that you lads havent got a leg to stand on when you give out about commercial boats. Like my fish for dinner but that seems like some serious overkill,

the pollack are stuffed with them, by lunch time we were getting worried we would
compromise the stability of the boat we had so many boxes of fish on the deck

why would anyone want that many pollack?? u would want to have some size of a freezer to fit all them in or where they sold to pay for your day out??? thats picture is like something from the 70s or something it should be taken down

it's not the first i have heard of fish been kept to be sold

i have heard of another very well known cork skipper putting fish boxes on the deck and telling the party ,the first two boxes are mine lads anything after that you can share between ya

this is the type of carry on that the EU crowd were going on about last year.
trying to combine anglers catches with the trawlers quotas

lads none of you have a clue about boat fishing, fish caught from deep
water cant be returned as the swim bladder is blown, get a life or
go and set up the vegetarians against fishing site

what about all the charters this man has been on this year and caught very little. if you check back through the reports it has been very hit and miss on a lot of his trips out .i certainly dont begrudge him a good days fishing and remember there was ten of them on board. thats about a box each . if iwas spending the amount of money jw spends on charters i certainly wouldent mind taking a box of pollock home. everybody is waiting to pounce on this site without checking the facts first. the most important thing in this report is not the fish, its the fact that a new source of food has arrived in our waters for our fish to gorge on these crab are mana from heaven to the fish stocks of ireland and long may they keep swimming here.well done jw on another imformative report and i hope that a couple of knockers doesent stop you from reporting in the future

John I know plenty about boat angling and I no exactly what Im on about.
1. As I assume you wernt fishing a competition then there would have been no need to reel the fish up so fast that there swim bladder inflates in the first place.
2. If the swimbladder does inflate than it can be pierced using a knife which gives the fish a fighting chance.
3. If you were catching so many pollack and killing them did you not decide to target other species or move to another mark before you almost sank the boat with the amount of fish you had caught?
I have caught many pollack in depts over 250ft and released them without issue. Using the swimbladder excuse is just small minded. Keep that going down there and it wont be long before the area gets whipped out

lads i have no interest in this, if you think you have a contribution to
make on conservation of fish in the atlantic ocean please do it
on another site or in another thread, this is the boat angling reports section

twinkle, the amount of these crabs around is amazing, when you open
the fishes mouth to unhook they are there inside it

Hi Lads,
I was one of those aboard Clare Dragoon yesterday, on what was a cracking days fishing. I'd like to make a few points before things get out of hand.

There were six boxes of fish caught - mostly pollock. There were eight of us fishing, so by my reckoning that is three quarters of a box per fisherman - hardly a commercial catch.

There was NO question of we being told to catch fish to be sold. Anyone that knows the skipper, Luke Aston, would know he is far too much a professional for that.

I'm the one doing the filleting in the photos. I filleted quite a number of pollock, haddock, etc. Some are destined for the freezer and some for a cracking fish and chip dinner tonight. Some are detined fo friends and neighbours. The ones that are going to the freezer will be eaten over the next few months. The family and I like fish and eat quite a bit of it. By eating line caught pollock from a few miles from home I am avoiding buying commercially caught species (e.g. cod) that are under severe stock pressure. I am also avoiding sending fishing boats to distant fishing grounds, thereby burning large amounts of fuel en route.

There was no by-catch yesterday (dolphins, etc.). There were very few discards yesterday - some small fish were returned, but having come up from 60 odd metres, few survived being returned. There was no damage to the seabed yesterday (unlike commercial trawling).

There have been many days when we have been out fishing and caught very little. Yesterday we were lucky. I intend to eat the benefits.

By the way, even the frames (the remains of the fish after filleting) will be used by pot men as bait for pots.

Regards,

Liam.

twinkle, the amount of these crabs around is amazing, when you open
the fishes mouth to unhook they are there inside it [/quote]
this is what interests me. we were out on wedsday in howth we had 30 very large macks i cleaned them out and none of them had anything in there stomaches no fry or sprat. the pollock however had crab in theres .strange i thought that these fish would all have empty stomaches when last month the fry were popping out of there mouths as we took them in

Dont get me wrong I like eating fish so when I catch a few cod or haddock I will keep 1 or 2 for the dinner. Sometimes someone will ask could I bring them home some and I might keep another 1 or 2. But in 13 years boat angling I never witnessed that quantity of fish being kept. I have been on boats where we had very good catches and could have filled 15 boxes but we didnt. Just because you have bad days at a venue doesnt mean that you should keep every edible fish you catch on the day that it does fish well. There is numerous threads complaining about trawlers, illegal netting or this week the one about the nine bass being taken from Inch. What signal do you think it sends out when you post a picture of multiple boxes full of fish stacked on top of each other??? its hypocritical!!!

Just because there a good numbers of pollack being caught from this area at present doesnt mean it will remain this way in the future.

thats interesting, pollack eating crab on the east coast as well, i wonder was it the same
species, also wonder do they swim up in the water or are the pollack taking them off
the bottom

myself. i think your over reacting 6 boxes between 8 anglers and a skipper .thats not overkill not if like the other lad said you and your family eat fish, sorry i missed this trip looks like a great day.the crabs now thats interesting what il do jw is target the pollock again on tueday as this is when i can get out again, and we will see what type of crab is in them also any one out the weekend off the east coast could maybe check just to see are they all around our waters .and is this the source the fish are feeding on

A good day out there John, you seem to have great skills in picking out a good forecast well in advance! nice size Hake as well, interesting about the crabs we were fishing on Inch the other night and Col had a crab clamped on his bait, looked like one of those as well, certainly not the usual ones.

great trip JW, well done lads plenty goog sized pollack there im also agree with Jw about a fish cought from deep water its has almost no chanse to survive i'v done loads of trips me self so i know the stuff so you keep and eat it or let it go and crabs will eat it no mush diferent between that what i think and ye as someone mentioned that fish can be reeled slowly i would do that at home in my minds not in the boat in boat im fishing not playing the fishing, and to moove away from the mark where is plenty to cath then what's the point to hire the boat atall then cheaper to do it in your bathroom, lads don't take it wrong its only little diskussion

Another great session JW... I envy these days when you get this lucky... Well done...

@Dangler - I think comparing the 9 Bass from what they got is definitely not apples to apples... There are specific regulations on Bass and laws are in place for it. This is not the case for Pollock... Most of us get loads of Mack and keep them on the freezer to be used as bait during winter time... what's the difference when taking the fish for the table... Again... comparing fish caught on line against fish caught using nets is not the same... you cannot fishout the sea using tackles...

Just my thoughts...

Another greay day out by the look of it

And a nice result at the end, Well done again, I wouldnt have liked the job of filleting that lot on a moving boat I find it hard enough to do when moored up,

I find it hard to decide what looks better - A, A fresh pollock just out of the water with the sun catching the gold colours,
or
B, Deep fried lump of pollock in crispy batter with mushey peas and chips,

I dont half feel hungry now so i will go with B

I will be waiting at the pier for ye to come back next time