A single pollack to report, the Irish record still stands.

[cathalger]

Sunday 27th March 2011, 3 of us, a few hours spinning, flyfishing and herring wobbling along the shoreline, one of the boys caught 1 pollack of 1lb 6oz and between us about 20 coley to a pound. The pollack took a battered almost paintless spinner. The calm evening shots were from Saturday night about 7pm. Hard to believe it was March, very mild. The pollack was kept for eating, it had some tiny sandeel in it and a small prawn.

A couple more pics to come.

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Last edited by cathalger on Tue Mar 29, 2011 12:32 am, edited 1 time in total.

Great pics and report mate!

Great pics and report mate!

Indeed!
Herring wobbling.... thinking outside the box...good stuff just thing a bass would love later in the year.

great photos cathal. nice1
'herring wobbling'... what were you hoping to catch with that? and what sort of ground were you 'wobbling' over...?

The flyrod was only for show in that pic above, it took the spinner below. Near the end one of the other fellas hooked a fish on spinner, very bouncey, erratic fight, we were just saying it must be a mackerel and it got off. A lost mackerel was never so hard to take.

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Yeah, pretty much just using a pike tactic for pollack, it should work if given a decent chance, Charlie we were fishing over the kelp near Garron point, same run you , Stephen and me did last May but minus the 5lber this time.

Fine picture of the lights along the shore.... and a nice fish for the plate.

I used to take pollock on flies similar to the one shown, but all white and a bit more crude. On a calm summer evening with moths wandering out over the water, we'd flap the flies over the surface until a fish would explode upward and take the "fly" on the way down. Electrifying stuff. Getting the calm summer evening is the problem these times.....

nice pics cathal

Nice pictures

Fine picture of the lights along the shore.... and a nice fish for the plate.

I used to take pollock on flies similar to the one shown, but all white and a bit more crude. On a calm summer evening with moths wandering out over the water, we'd flap the flies over the surface until a fish would explode upward and take the "fly" on the way down. Electrifying stuff. Getting the calm summer evening is the problem these times.....

Hugo thats sounds like tremendous fishing you had ,the way the pollack were taking your fly. Ive seen them doing something similar during feeding frenzies when the wee sandeel were thick round the rocks, not something I witness every year, but its special when it happens. Seen pollack thrashing and going airborne in their excitment. Its a fish a cast on spinner during such times, great but all too rare. Were you using a surface pattern, a wake fly of some sort? A dry fly!?

Thanks for responses, JimC do you think that herring thing might take a bass?

Were you using a surface pattern, a wake fly of some sort? A dry fly!?

Nothing that sophisticated! A bit of white feather lashed onto a big hook with some white wool was all they were, they used to call them "cuddy flies". Work best close to shore in flat calm when plugs and spinners wont tempt them.

Last year Herself was hauling in some small macks when a nice pollock - 7/8/9lb or so - shot out of the water beside the boat and grabbed a joey off the hook on the way down. They must be getting training from the seals....

Yous must have got a bit of a shock when that happened, pity it didnt hook up. Must bear that white fly thing in mind if I find myself out in flat calm conditions. No major successes on the fly rod from the boat so far, fish to 4lb from the rocks so far on fly, better ones from boat on lead head and mackerel bellies.

The older generation talk about the almost magical powers of 'flies' tied using white goat hair for pollack. Flies for use on old fashioned spinning/jigging tackle, handlining too. Supposedly float fished sea slaters was absolutely deadly also, never tried it yet.

Interesting stuff here. Let me get this right Hugo, are you saying that these pollack were coming up and attacking these white fluffy flies on the surface?? - thinking that they were moths?? wow, i have always wondered if sea fish would go for terrestrial insects on or in the surface.
i have seen many insects floating in the sea and have never seen any reason why they shouldnt, esp. sea trout, but just havent seen any definite evidence of it. can anyone else enlighten me on this subject here plse..? has anyone else seen evidence of sea fishes attacking insects, or has anyone ever specifically gone out to use freshwater dry or wet trout flies in the sea - esp dry flies for sea trout, or pollack (like hugo), or coley, or mack?? just out of interest

and slaters cathal, interesting too, thats something that i can definitely imagine a lot of fish being more than eager to attack... then again tho, there were many more fish in the sea in them days and so many more chances of catching fish by whatever method decided to be used im sure....

cheers

Charlie I think the sea slaters could well be worth a fish, would be a bit like coarse fishing in the sea. I found another thing which could well be worth throw lately, they look like theyve got potential, 'scale worms', a bit like slater from above but very like a ragworm from below, wouldnt be surprised if these got takes fished below a float....... Theyre about 1 -1.5 inches long.

No shortage of scale worms where this boy was found but it would take a bit of hoking under rocks at low tide.

Cant say for sure Ive seen sea fish taking flies off the surface but seen movements at the surface very like what you see trout doing in freshwater. But fishig ordinary wetflies in the sea is very productive, pollack and coley come readily to the likes of a teal blue and silver or a butcher, a lot of their natuaral food items are small so its not that surprising I suppose. Used to fish a TB n Silver on a dropper above the spinner and it sometimes outfished the spinner that was coming along 3 foot behind the fly. I think I started doing that cos I was seeing fish hit the swivel as opposed to the spinner they were supposed to take!

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that sounded like a great day out man. no monsters but great craic all the same as for the fish pulling food of the surface, we were fishing waterfoot pier a few months ago at night when the lad beside us lost his glow light off the tip of his rod mid cast. this green chemical light was floating about just off the edge of the pier in front of us for about 10mins when jordan spotted something take it and swim down. it was funny to watch as you could see the green glow zip from left to right for a few seconds before it dissappeared .

Let me get this right Hugo, are you saying that these pollack were coming up and attacking these white fluffy flies on the surface?? - thinking that they were moths??

Yes. With the white feathers and wool, I suppose the "fly" looks more like a cabbage white butterfly. But the conditions are way more important - -end of a warm, sultry, thundery day, flat calm, light fading. Dont get too many of them in a season....

I got another insect trick off a local who collects big rocklice - an inch long some of them - from under stones near a cliff edge and fishes them live for the big wrasse that live under the cliff. He gets a bucket load of fish when I might only get one or two on limpets or crab legs.

[
I got another insect trick off a local who collects big rocklice - an inch long some of them - from under stones near a cliff edge and fishes them live for the big wrasse that live under the cliff. He gets a bucket load of fish when I might only get one or two on limpets or crab legs.[/quote]

Hugo I think theres a good chance we are talking about the same beast here-- Rocklice/sea slater? Never heard the term 'Rocklice' before, is that their proper name? Like giant woodlice (aka slaters).

Hugo I think theres a good chance we are talking about the same beast here-- Rocklice/sea slater? Never heard the term 'Rocklice' before, is that their proper name? Like giant woodlice (aka slaters).

You're right. Dont know if its a proper name, I picked it up somewhere on my travels...

they are called sea-slaters lads (Ligia oceanica) plenty of info online..
thanks for the response Hugo, interesting stuff. yes, i can imagine the scenario there - where there is a good hatch of a certain insect, a flat-calm sea, and an slight offshore breeze... that would be great fun on the fly rod! would like to come across it some time.
i can remember fishing around the salmon cages in red bay when there was a 'hatch' of tiny little fry all swimming just below the surface. it was flat-calm and the coleys were just swimming around at their leisure and sipping them in one after another - just in the way a trout would suck on an emerging insect. it would have been a fish a cast if i had had the fly rod and a floating line!
a lot of thinking outside the box here indeed. good stuff. scale worms and sea-slaters must defo be deadly for the likes of wrasse and wee pollack and coley around the rocks, then again, i find wee bits of rag and/or limpet very effective too..

they are called sea-slaters lads (Ligia oceanica) plenty of info online.

This is all getting fairly far from the original post.... but anyway: looked up Wikipaedia and in fact what the oul' local lad is using are some type of overfed woodlice that live on the clifftop far from the water. They probably look like slaters to the wrasse.