Specimen 3 Bearded Rockling (IMELDA) 23/8/2012

[JOHN1]

People:me and Harry

Duration:3.30pm to 10.45pm

Tide:ebbing

Weather:ok

Bait:rag squid macks crab squid

Rigs:various

Results:(7) species including Specimen 3 bearded rockling, whiting, dogs, huss,pollack,shore rockling and flounder.

Report:At very short notice i gave harry a call after i checked my bait supplies in the fridge, with about 60 prime rag it was fairly easy to tempt him to go looking for a few plaice but i also had another couple of species i was looking for for the boat species count i told har to bring his headlamp as we were going to be out for a couple of hours in darkness. first off were were going to go in search af a few macks for bait later on but there was not one to be had luckily we had a few frozen as a backup.
there was a fair lump in the sea at this stage so we went after the flats gave the plaice a good shot again not a bite, only a plague of whiting for our efforts,a few moves later and a nice fat flounder with both of my hooks down his gob comes in,happy with this we make for deeper water again this time the sea had flattened out a bit better at this stage we had about an hour of light left so big baits out looking for a tope not long before the rods start to get the bends from dogs pulling at the baits with a couple of small huss making up the bulk of things for the next hour or so.
as darkness fell i decided to move onto a bit of reef ground in search of some rockling i also had a conger rod on the go.not long before we were getting bites, i could not beleive the pollack i was getting in the total darkness had 6 upto about 2.5lb and lost one much better fish next up harry caught a shore rockling, mission accomplished rockling boated
next thing i notice my rod in its clamp nodding away i pick the rod up and strike weight fouled in the bottom i can still feel the fish fighting so i keep very steady pressure on it and after a few minutes it breaks out, and i feel a fairly decent fish kicking up a stink, next thing it breaks the surface and a beautiful rockling shows it,s true colours i could not beleive it as it,s been quite a while since i had one of these lads in the boat so i got the out of date certafied scales out to weigh him and on the boat he came in at just over the specimen weight at 1.77lbs so a couple of pictures and off he went back down to where he belongs, no need to kill him for a piece of paper a photo is just as good That was my second specimen rockling so i went home a very happy lad to say the least
I forgot to mention i got got caught up in a very long lenght of floating rope that had to be sorted out with a very sharp knife, have these feckers no idea of the dangers they are causing

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Last edited by JOHN1 on Fri Aug 24, 2012 7:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

great result john mission complete . i had a near miss with a lenght of rope about 25ft long trailing off some pots in my first season in howth. nearly pulled the engine off the transome. was about 20 mins cutting and hacking ,but i got it off had to change my jocks when i finished its scarey when you hit one .luckey i was only doing 10 knts if it had of been the bigger engine id have been hitting it at 20knts i dont think id have still had the stern of the boat.

dats some big slug......great stuff......

She's a lump of a rocker john
Nice fishing

Thats a fine rockling there John,well done

well done John, congrats for your specimen rockling and for being a good example in practicing C&R. Had a few hairy moments with a floating rope too last year but nothing what a sharp knife wouldn't sort. And no, they don't learn otherwise.

Good man John great stuff

cheers lads

yes derek not a great feeling when it happens at all, beleive it or not thats the second time it's happened to a boat iv been on this year last time i was out with a mate, very offshore 15 miles shaft drive and we picked up a lenght of floating rope,it was a case of anchor down and diver friends of his had to come out in a rib to cut us free fair play to them we would have been badley stuck without them

Thanks martin, kind of got very turned off the ISFC last year, with claim refusal and 50 euro for scales cert