Shannon road trip screeming reels 30/6/06

People:2/ merlin and screeming reels

Duration:8 hours

Tide:4 ebb, 5 flood

Weather:bright, sw 3-4

Bait:mackeral fresh and frozen

Rigs:pennel rigs, spinners

Results:2 tope :- 36lbs 34 lbs 3 doz bass up to 3lbs 3 b rockling , whiting, grey gurnard, dabs

Report:Decided to head to my old stamping ground in the shannon estuary for a bit of tope fishing.
Didnt need to go to loop for mackeral, as we picked them up near littor strand.
Anchoured the last of the ebb and picked up 1 tope, 36lbs, also plenty of dogs and the odd huss, 2 grey gurnard, dabs and whiting to a 1lb
decided to drift during the slack water period, and promptly picked up another tope 34lbs but nothing else.
Headed back up river towards moneypoint to try and target a specimen 3 bearded rockling, managed to catch 4 , biggest touched 1.3lbs
Good day out in lovely weather.

Every week I trek off the loop looking for mackerel as bait, and you picked them up close to Littor strand!
I'll have to try that next time, might save 30 litres of petrol

I take it there was no sign of the orange boat discouraging people fishing moneypoint ?

Glad you got some nice tope

Kev

Hi big kev,
Yes its amazing how far they will come up the estuary, i have kept catch reports of all the trips i have done over the last 12 years in the shannon, and on one occassion i caught 15 garfish off glin beach ( during a competion, they were banned at the next comp !!) at the end of may!
you will get mackeral and later scad as far as tarbet, and latter in the year as far as foynes!
Just use small ( size 12 hook sabbikis) and dont work them hard, just gently bounce them off the bottom whilst drifting, occasionally check out different depths.
No orange boat appeared, Is it one from the ESB or the fisheries board, If its stopping people netting the outfalls thats great news, though from what we here, many people are still taking the undersized bass. such a pity.
pity the tope were not around in numbers that day, but hey thats fishing!