Lady Louise, Courtmacsherry, 28/01 SAI Meet.

[petekd]

People:Myself, Ferg, Pete, JD, JW and Mac

Duration:All day

Tide:

Weather: Fine, Calm

Bait:Mack,squid, herring, innumerable soft plastics.

Rigs:Flowing traces, shadding traces, muppets, hokkais....everything!

Results:Pollack, Ling and a solitary Coalfish.

Report:
After all the hype we had what turned out to be a fairly disappointing day. It all started so well too with the first couple of drifts being fairly productive. However, long spells of inactivity were to follow. What fish were caught were of a good size however, indeed we had several double figure Pollack, a double figure ling and the best of the lot a lovely 11 1/2 pound Coalfish.

When I say it was disappointing, at past the halfway stage in the day we had less than a box of pollack, maybe a dozen fish at the most.... :oops: The Coalies we had set out to target just werent playing ball. There were fish marking on the sounder alright but for whatever reason they just werent feeding. A lot of the pollack taken were barely liphooked, a sure sign they aren't really interested. Frustrating plucking at lures for considerable distances were the order of the day with very few hook ups. Traces were lengthened, jelly worms on fluoro were tried.... even the "Tory Style" mackerel strip attached to the jellys failed to really produce.

After several hours of this, the anchor was dropped and the big baits went down in hope of conger. It was nice to have a rest from the sheer hard work of winching 12 oz + shad through 350 feet, however, once again there was a distinct lack of fish. No conger, or cod for that matter. I think JD had a couple of ling on his smaller baits but that was around the height of it.

The anchor was hauled and we set for another wreck about 7 miles away. Drifting over that was once again very slow with an occasional pollack making an appearance. The two Johns then proceeded to change their tactics, instead of gilling with shads to using baited lures and pirks. After enviously watching them winch several ling apiece on board, the coalie and pollack hunt was pretty much abandoned by everyone and a steady stream of smallish ling began coming to the boat with the odd better one amongst them. It was amongst these that I managed to lift out a PB ling of just under 11lbs :D Wasnt a bad scrap either on the 12-20lb gear as I took it very easy with it after having lost a really good fish earlier in the day on the retrieve.

Much slagging ensued with the biggest fish pool up for grabs and it being too close to call on board between the Ling and Macs lovely Coalie that had given him tons of grief earlier in the day. At the quayside however, Macs fish tipped the scales around a half pound ahead of mine and the pool went deservedly to him.

And so it ended, after all the hype and excitement and tension surrounding the trip it was something of an anti climax to be honest. We just didnt get stuck into the fish properly for whatever reason. On saying that there were some cracking fish caught with at least 4 or 5 into double figures which was nice and a PB for myself and I think Mac too with his Coalie. Serious hard work all the same for little enough reward, battered and bruised from the pitching and rolling. On innumerable occasions I wished to god I was sat on a comfortable beach scratching out coalies...*SLAPS* catch yerself on!

Nice to tick off another members face to a name to after meeting Ferg who had travelled from Waterford that morning.

Honourable mentions.....

Kev..... For after sleeping in making it from Meath to Courtmacsherry in just on 3 hours. (The cops couldnt catch him but theres about 12 speeding fines from fixed cameras in the post :D )

Ferg..... For consistent attempts to lift the Wreck off the bottom (We heard him muttering about salvage rights or something...) Those magnetic leads were a bad idea....

JW........ For managing to catch a nice Ling or too on the most ignorant Pirk you are likely to see.

JW again.... For attaching a cute little green Jelly worm to his ignorant Pirk.

Pete McGroary.... For not turning up and catching ALL the fish again. (He wasnt concentrating, he was still on a Bass high... :D )

JD..... For getting peed off with all the winding first and showed us all up and the way to go with a quantity of nice ling.

Kev again.... For the sambo... :D For anyone whos interested, Kev, when hes not doing the ironing or knitting makes lovely egg mayo and promised to make everyone sambos at Kilmuckridge :wink: .

Messrs Cod, Coalfish and Conger.... Who had obviously heard we were coming and scarpered.

Finally to Jim Clohessy and Dave Jolly for all their advice beforehand, Cheers lads.

Whatever about the fishing, the craic was good and it was something different to be on a boat in January. Looking forward to the 2 comps in Kilmuckridge, will see you all there. Feel free lads to post all your pictures below. If possible, actual pics and not links would be great.

[jw]

pollack 10lb 7oz

[jw]

small ling

[jw]

ling

[jw]

two almost specimen pollack :(

[MAC]

It was nice to get out there alright Pete. To be honest I was thinking it was a good day as I had a PB Pollock and Coalie. After some overnight reflection, I also felt that the trip was a wee bit of a letdown. I understand that the fish sometimes do not play ball. I suppose I was hoping that we could get a wee bit further out to fish some of the less fished wrecks and then work our way back if the fishing wasn't up to scratch..... I can't help feeling that we missed out a bit.

Kev

[jw]

Pete thanks for writing up that report.

I'd never fished in 100 meters of water before, so here are a few things i found out.

You need a 12 inch boom for a shad as it will tangle the main line with a six inch boom.
(Thanks MAC)

also, its a bad idea to have another muppet above the boom, as it will likely tangle. Also might lose fish on a double hookup

I used 20lb braid. A 10oz lead was more than adequate. I only stuck once the whole day and had tied a loop of 10lb mono to all my leads, so that broke easily. I cut 4 inches off my wooden brush handle and wrap the braid around this to break out. It is important to spiral the braid around the wood as if it crosses it will cut into itself there.
dont wrap it round your sleeve or you will end up with a tourniquet that cant be removed

The pirk might look ovedone, but it picked up five or six ling on consequtive drops.
Maybe it looks like a baby ling invading their patch?

[jd]

You need a 12 inch boom for a shad as it will tangle the main line with a six inch boom.

I think my booms were slightly shorter plastic, and I had no problem with a 9ft+ flowing trace. Let the current drift the shad away from the weight before you drop. Then again, I only had 2 pollack! :(

Red/orange baited muppets are good for the ling, either off a boom, or flowing after the weight. The shamrock flowing trace with muppets caught some of the smaller ling for me.

Disappointed not to have caught some Coalie, or even some nice cod.

[jw]

that's interesting john. my shad trace was only about 4 feet. maybe a longer one is less prone to tangling?

[petekd]

As JD says, the key when fishing lures off booms regardless of trace length is to allow the tide to drift your lure away from the boom. Only when the boom is pointing straight into the tide and your lure running fully off it should you release it to the bottom. It helps to monitor its progress on the way down and slow your reel down slightly. In theory, short traces are MUCH less prone to tangles than long ones. However, traces up to 20 to 30 feet can be fished off a 12 inch boom if you are careful at point of release and throughout the drop. A lot depends on what type of lures and line you use too. The heavier the line the stiffer it will be and less prone to tangles. I use 40lb Fluoro for my traces and it sits quite well with minimal tangling.

[pete]

Good fun to be out in the middle of January though and good to meet everyone again. John I thought the sneaky jelly worm at the top of your pirk was a good technique :wink:

[donal domeney]

Which skipper had ye out on the day.

[Ronald]

Good job you'd no specimen coalies on that pirk jw ,i dont think 4 hooks count :lol:
Sound like you guys had a fair enough trip ,thats the problem with wrecks ,its very hit or miss ,if the fish are feeding it's happy days ,if their not its hard work .

[petekd]

Twas Mark himself who took us out Donal.

[Drew]

Well done lads... at least ya's got a few...

[bigkev]

I'm very jealous! At least you guys made it out to the wrecks!!!
Double figure pollack are such a let down!

Green Kev

[jw]

>Good job you'd no specimen coalies on that pirk jw ,i dont think 4 hooks count Laughing


I know there is a three hook limit for competitions, but I can't see anything in the specimen rules about hook numbers. Would plugs etc with two trebbles not count then?