Duration:2 days fishing
Tide:
Weather:rain to start clearing to brilliant sunshine
Bait:various lures
Rigs:
Results:Shad ,seatrout ,brown trout .
Report:
After always hearing about the shad fishing on the river barrow we had eventually got ourselves organised ,everyone booked holidays from work and tamanian devils stocked up on .
So after leaving bangor at 4am on sunday morning with the car packed to the roof with tents/bivvys ,food and all the usual camping stuff we set of ,on arrival to st mullins at about 7.30 it was raining hard as forecasted but we knew this was to clear ,sitting in the car watching the other anglers hooking fish and losing just as many ( shad are masters at throwing the hook ) the rain started to ease so a quick decision was made to fish for a couple of hours before setting up camp on the village green .
The first shad fell to davy who had changed from the regulation blue and silver tas to a blue and pink tas Marty was next, and I was getting regular hits but no solid hook ups
, eventually getting my first fish half an hour after everyone else had landed a couple of fish each ,this morning session ended up producing 11 shad for the 3 of us 5 to davy 4 for me and 2 for marty not bad for our first crack at shad fishing , so it was back up to the village green and set up camp ,by now the rain had stopped and it was brilliant sunshine . The afternoon was spent sleeping or going to the village pub .When the evening tide arrived we made our way down to the river to find alot more anglers around and we could only fish further up river ,not a bad thing it turned out
, we started fishing together but as time went on and not alot of hits we split up and went hunting further upriver , I stopped at a spot for a few casts a and the rest of the guys kept going I was there about 10 mins before I hit my first fish on a purple and pink tas and I was soon joined by davy then marty ,cliff and lauren , I managed to land 28 shad from this spot all on the pink and purple tas and my first specimen shad . I'm not sure of the other guys totals as they left me to it as they were knackered and headed back to the camp for some grub and relax .Just after they left a couple of Foreign nationals moved into there spots ,I watched as one guy managed about a dozen fish which went straight into the rucksack
I did think about approching him but as far as I know there isn't a bag limit on shad which is a shame as they are only good as a sports fish and no good for the table ,and also with these fish being so rare maybe they should be given a sports fish only listing as over fishing could do serious damage to a relativley small breeding population .I moved on as the light was starting to go and I'd no head lamp with me but on the way back down the river I stopped in a few spots and had a few casts in each picking up a few more fish in the end I had 39 shad that day just couldn't break the 40 mark though if I'd landed all the fish hooked it would have been a different matter .
The monday morning came to quick and after a few hours sleep it was time to get back on the water for the early tide ,there weren't so many fish around and the water was a bit dirtyier , but we still managed a fair amount of fish again ,by now we were trying to shake the fish of at the edge rather than land them unless they were adecent size marty and cliff both had several 2lb plus fish and I foul hooked a cracker at 2lb 13oz which doesn't count for a specimen as it was hooked just behind the pectoral fin
but still put up a fantastic fight clearing the water several times before coming to the net .Again the evening session was poor compared to previous nights sessions but this could have been because of a combination of things, dirty water/alot of boat traffick/and a seal making an appearance .
That night a decision was made to up camp in the morning and head down to the coast after mullet and bass around dungarvan for the day before heading for home on the wednesday morning .
This was our first time shad fishing and we all agreed we'd definetly be back next year for another go at these fantastic fighting fish ,god knows what the fight would be like if they went to double figures ,mini tarpoon
.......btw still having trouble up in this neck of the woods with foreign nationals, have done very little piking this year because of them.....
